Caribou transport aircraft on landing approach,
Vietnam War In response to a
United States Army requirement for a tactical airlifter to supply the battlefront with troops and supplies and evacuate casualties on the return journey, de Havilland Canada designed the DHC-4. With assistance from Canada's Department of Defence Production, DHC built a prototype demonstrator that flew for the first time on 30 July 1958. Impressed with the DHC4's STOL capabilities and potential, the U.S. Army ordered five for evaluation as YAC-1s and went on to become the largest Caribou operator. The AC-1 designation was changed in 1962 to CV-2, and then C-7 when the U.S. Army's CV-2s were transferred to the U.S. Air Force in 1967. U.S. and Australian Caribou saw extensive service during the Vietnam War. The U.S. Army purchased 159 of the aircraft and they served their purpose well as a tactical transport during the Vietnam War, where larger cargo aircraft such as the
Fairchild C-123 Provider and the
Lockheed C-130 Hercules could not land on the shorter landing strips. The aircraft could carry 32 troops or two
Jeeps or similar light vehicles. The rear loading ramp could also be used for parachute dropping (also, see
Air America). Under the
Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966, the Army relinquished the fixed wing Caribou to the
United States Air Force in exchange for an end to restrictions on Army
rotary wing operations. On 1 January 1967, the 17th, 57th, 61st Aviation Companies (
12th Combat Aviation Group) and the 92nd, 134th, and 135th Aviation Companies of the U.S. Army were inactivated and their aircraft transferred respectively to the newly activated 537th, 535th, 536th, 459th, 457th, and 458th Troop Carrier Squadrons of the USAF (This was Operation "Red Leaf"). On 1 August 1967 the "troop carrier" designations were changed to "tactical airlift". Some
Republic of Vietnam Air Force Caribou were captured by North Vietnamese forces in 1975 and remained in service with that country through to the late 1970s. Following the war in Vietnam, all USAF Caribou were transferred to
Air Force Reserve and
Air National Guard airlift units pending their replacement by the C-130 Hercules in the 1980s. near Miami in 1989 All C-7s have now been phased out of U.S. military service, with the last example serving again under U.S. Army control through 1985 in support of the U.S. Army's
Golden Knights parachute demonstration team. Other notable military operators included Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia and Spain. In September 1975, a group of 44 civilians, including armed supporters of the
Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), commandeered a
Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Caribou,
A4-140, on the ground at
Baucau Airport in the then
Portuguese Timor, which was in the middle of a civil war. The Caribou had landed at Baucau on a humanitarian mission for the
International Committee of the Red Cross. The civilians demanded that the RAAF crew members fly them to
Darwin Airport (also
RAAF Base Darwin) in Australia, which they did. After the Caribou arrived there, the Australian government detained the civilians for a short period, and then granted refugee visas to all of them.
The Guardian later described
A4-140 as "the only RAAF plane ever hijacked", and the incident as "one of the more remarkable stories in Australia’s military and immigration history". The RAAF retired
A4-140, by then its last Caribou, on 27 November 2009. The aircraft, which was manufactured in 1964, was donated to the
Australian War Memorial,
Canberra.
Civilian operations One
US Navy Caribou remained in service with the
Golden Knights Parachute Team until the 1980s, at which point the aircraft transitioned into civilian use and cargo services. The
Australian Air Force operated a fleet of Caribou, with the final aircraft,
A4-140, retiring from service in 2009. After retirement from military use, several examples of the Caribou have been purchased by civilian operators for deployment in areas with small airfields located in rugged country with few or poor surface transport links. ==Variants==