Richmond takes over the ‘red eye’ special

MANY ADF personnel travelled on the “red eye” special, the huge Russian Illyushin 76 transport that lifted them off the RAAF Base Pearce runway around midnight each week and took them to The Gulf.

Earlier last month, the special flight began from RAAF Base Richmond and departed in the middle of the day.
This follows the decision by the ADF Joint Logistics Command (JLC) to move its mounting base from Pearce to Richmond.

Depending on requirements, the weekly service will do intermediate stops at Darwin and/or Pearce before flying on to Diego Garcia and finally to the MEAO.

The Russian-built transport, which incorporates cargo and passenger areas, is one of the world’s largest heavy lift aircraft.

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