C James Posted March 6, 2012 Posted March 6, 2012 Hunting the Hunter is up. MikeL came up with the chapter title. (thanks Mike!) I also need to mention that the next chapter will post in TWO weeks (sorry) However, it's in a good cause; the GA Spring Anthology will be released next week, and all being well I'll have a story in it: Infinite Density. I've been working on that (it's about the size of two Circumnavigation chapters), which is why I'm late with the next chapter. CJ
KevinD Posted March 6, 2012 Posted March 6, 2012 Oh foul, most EVIL cliffhanging, mountain goat! Letting both arch villains get away over two chapters and then combining it with a two-week window before the next chapter. Such meanness can only come from one that knows he's exempt from another consecutive crown to extend a most deserved winning streak... Well done though CJ, I must say, begrudgingly... ;-( Thanks - Kevin
C James Posted March 6, 2012 Author Posted March 6, 2012 Oh foul, most EVIL cliffhanging, mountain goat! Letting both arch villains get away over two chapters and then combining it with a two-week window before the next chapter. Such meanness can only come from one that knows he's exempt from another consecutive crown to extend a most deserved winning streak... Well done though CJ, I must say, begrudgingly... ;-( Thanks - Kevin Ahh, but has Basingstoke gotten away? And what? Me? Mean? That's just not so! What a thing to say about poor, innocent me, who never, ever goes anywhere near a cliff (or a cliffhanger). It is a shame Australia has no fighter jets. Actually Australia does; they fly F-18s and I think a few older types, such as Mirages. . However, they don't base any in Western Australia. Even at Base Pierce, their big air base near Perth, they only have jet trainers (no weapons, no radars), no fighters. CJ
ret2ak Posted March 6, 2012 Posted March 6, 2012 Jet trainers can observe. They can see when radar can not. The Beech is pretty low slung and propellers will pick up gravel through suction. A guy at Truth or Consequences NM played the Anvil Chorus with his fancy big Cessna next to my little 150. More money than sense. Mr B had two opportunities to damage his plane today. A nicked prop is like glass tubing and will break at the nick creating a very seroious vibration. Gear often collapses during emergency landings. Just admit it. You wanted Mr. B to escape and made it happen..
ret2ak Posted March 6, 2012 Posted March 6, 2012 From Toledo Flying Club Rules: Section 3.03 - Flight operations are prohibited on gravel or sand fields. (Emergency landings are an exception.) Section 3.04 - Taxiing Club aircraft in or out under power on the gravel to the west of the Club hanger is prohibited. Section 3.05 - Beechcraft B33 Debonair Do not extend flaps until the gear is down Do not make touch-and-go landings Do not retract flaps after landing until clear of the runway and stopped Beechcraft Bonanza and Debonairs are not popular in Alaska, especially at gravel fields. Piper Cubs and Cessnas with tail wheels are quite popular. We even have gravel runways which are curved! People with tundra tires can land in amazing places. Our bush pilot set us down in the hills within sight of the ice pack on a narrow loose rock outcropping that most definitely was not a landing strip or airport. He had a Cessna 185 tail dragger.
Benji Posted March 6, 2012 Posted March 6, 2012 ............How nice, Gonzales and Mr. B take vacations while the goat takes a week off!
Site Moderator TalonRider Posted March 6, 2012 Site Moderator Posted March 6, 2012 Having seen the anthology story, you won't be disappointed. Also, this isn't the first time CJ's pre-empted his usual posting for the anthology.
Site Administrator wildone Posted March 8, 2012 Site Administrator Posted March 8, 2012 I have to agree with a lot of the comments above...especially the one of CJ going cliffhanger crazy now that he isn't eligible for this year. One observation, I know that the echinda does a lot of work with CJ in order to get a lot of the geographical, social and language right for Australia. I then notice that Mr.B lives 'just outside' of Melbourne. Anyone want to guess where Graeme lives? Just saying......... I'm glad they finally found the tracking device, but even more relieved Uncle Greg told them to leave it alone and let it keep transmitting. Nothing like setting the bait for Graeme, oops, I mean Mr.B to come racing towards the opening hands of the Customs Service among law enforcement agencies and possibly the Military too. Good for Trevor to shut up the communications guy, he was beginning to annoy me. I think this has been the first chapter in a long time where we weren't updated on Bridget happenings. Like has she died of infection and blood loss? We could only hope. Nice to see Jim and Dirk back to a somewhat normal life. If I was a betting man, they are much much more safer than Trevor, Shane, Joel and Lisa. Those two have no more purpose to Bridget and Sanchez. More so our foursome and possibly Rachael. Thanks for the chapter CJ I do forgive you for taking next week off. If anyone wants to know, CJ has some of the most interesting Anthologies out there, so instead of your weekly dose of Circumnavigation, I'd suggest to read his entry. I will
C James Posted March 8, 2012 Author Posted March 8, 2012 Jet trainers can observe. They can see when radar can not. The Beech is pretty low slung and propellers will pick up gravel through suction. A guy at Truth or Consequences NM played the Anvil Chorus with his fancy big Cessna next to my little 150. More money than sense. Mr B had two opportunities to damage his plane today. A nicked prop is like glass tubing and will break at the nick creating a very seroious vibration. Gear often collapses during emergency landings. Just admit it. You wanted Mr. B to escape and made it happen.. A jet trainer would be great to follow him, if it could find him. The other thing is that its highly unusual to scramble Air Force aircraft on a criminal matter. A further problem is; were any trainers ready to fly on such short notice? You don't keep trainers on runway alert (and very few places keep fighters on runway alert ) Remember, what is Basingstoke wanted for? He hasn't actually committed a crime, not that they know of with any degree of certainty. He's wanted for questioning, which makes it very hard to convince the Aussie Air Force to put planes in the air. :-) A fiberglass prop on a Debonair? The prop on the one I used to fly was aluminum... well, either that or steel, based in what it looked like where the paint was abraded. Those props have to be pretty durable. Ever seen one after somebody forgets to put the gear down and lands? They usually end up bent backwards, not broken. (I saw someone do that in a Bonanza once.. their first flight after getting an awesome new paint job, too. Oops) A Debonair isn't idea for rough fields (I'd prefer a lightly built high-wing tail-dragger, one not noted for ground looping), for sure, but I know for a fact you can land and take off in one on graded dirt; I've done it. Only once in a Debonair, but it wasn't a problem. Would I put one down on a dirt road that I hadn't inspected from the ground? Heck no, not if I had a choice, but Basingstoke had strong motive to take the risk. Me? Want Basinstoke to escape? I've got no influence over these things... if I did, I'd have gone with Jindalee's reported coverage areas, and they'd have lost Bassingstoke shortly after takeoff (the reported coverage, per Wikipedia and other online sources,starts at Geraldton and goes north, quite a difference from what we see in the chapter, but the story shows the actual capabilities, not the reported ones). We also don't know if Basingstoke escapes. ............How nice, Gonzales and Mr. B take vacations while the goat takes a week off! At least it's at a nice, non-tense place in the story for a pause. Having seen the anthology story, you won't be disappointed. Also, this isn't the first time CJ's pre-empted his usual posting for the anthology. Thanks!!! In this case, I had no choice on the delay; I was falling behind again. I have to agree with a lot of the comments above...especially the one of CJ going cliffhanger crazy now that he isn't eligible for this year. One observation, I know that the echinda does a lot of work with CJ in order to get a lot of the geographical, social and language right for Australia. I then notice that Mr.B lives 'just outside' of Melbourne. Anyone want to guess where Graeme lives? Just saying......... I'm glad they finally found the tracking device, but even more relieved Uncle Greg told them to leave it alone and let it keep transmitting. Nothing like setting the bait for Graeme, oops, I mean Mr.B to come racing towards the opening hands of the Customs Service among law enforcement agencies and possibly the Military too. Good for Trevor to shut up the communications guy, he was beginning to annoy me. I think this has been the first chapter in a long time where we weren't updated on Bridget happenings. Like has she died of infection and blood loss? We could only hope. Nice to see Jim and Dirk back to a somewhat normal life. If I was a betting man, they are much much more safer than Trevor, Shane, Joel and Lisa. Those two have no more purpose to Bridget and Sanchez. More so our foursome and possibly Rachael. Thanks for the chapter CJ I do forgive you for taking next week off. If anyone wants to know, CJ has some of the most interesting Anthologies out there, so instead of your weekly dose of Circumnavigation, I'd suggest to read his entry. I will We get an update on Bridget in the next chapter. Hrmmm, Basingstoke and Graeme... yes, Graeme and Basingstoke both call the Melbourne area home... Could there be a connection? Come to think of it, we don't know Basingstoke's name... Like Sanchez, it';s a psudonem, and when the were each introduced, it said, "the man known as..." I hope you realize how lucky you are that I never do cliffhangers... because *IF* I did, I would be free to write some nasty ones this year, and then blame you because of getting a second King of Cliffhanger award in a row and thus being ineleigible this year... a sort of license to cliffhang, if you will.
ret2ak Posted March 8, 2012 Posted March 8, 2012 cj, like a lot of bright people you underestimate others and patronize them. Did I say anything about a fiberglass prop? No! Have you never seen an aluminum prop that a mechanic has filed the nicks out? Now why would he do that? Duh! You need to retune your sarcasm detector. Of course Australia has fighter jets. That went right over your head! A Debonair on smooth dirt would be quite different from a rough dirt road. Nose gears are not as strong as the main gear and when they collapse you may find yourself sliding forward upside down and looking backwards! My Beechcraft manual suggests landing on sod in an emergency. The Beechcraft Bonanzas and Debonairs were designed to appeal to those with money. The V tail kind of gives that away. The military version is conventional like the Debonair. Did you read about one of the Apple founders who bought a Bonanza, filled it with his friends, landed hard, then lost lateral control on takeoff and ran into a berm. As the Bonanza got larger and heavier it needed more tail surface so they added more sheet metal forward of the spar. The result was that under bad conditions the extra sheet metal would bend, changing its airfoil and making the plane uncontrollable. My brother worked for a guy who rebuilt crashed Bonanzas, three being required to make one saleable plane. Sure groundlooping is a characteristic of tail geared airplanes. It is due to the main gear being ahead of the center of gravity. My father who was not a very good pilot did one, but a bush pilot I don't think so.
C James Posted March 8, 2012 Author Posted March 8, 2012 cj, like a lot of bright people you underestimate others and patronize them. Did I say anything about a fiberglass prop? No! Have you never seen an aluminum prop that a mechanic has filed the nicks out? Now why would he do that? Duh! You need to retune your sarcasm detector. Of course Australia has fighter jets. That went right over your head! A Debonair on smooth dirt would be quite different from a rough dirt road. Nose gears are not as strong as the main gear and when they collapse you may find yourself sliding forward upside down and looking backwards! My Beechcraft manual suggests landing on sod in an emergency. The Beechcraft Bonanzas and Debonairs were designed to appeal to those with money. The V tail kind of gives that away. The military version is conventional like the Debonair. Did you read about one of the Apple founders who bought a Bonanza, filled it with his friends, landed hard, then lost lateral control on takeoff and ran into a berm. As the Bonanza got larger and heavier it needed more tail surface so they added more sheet metal forward of the spar. The result was that under bad conditions the extra sheet metal would bend, changing its airfoil and making the plane uncontrollable. My brother worked for a guy who rebuilt crashed Bonanzas, three being required to make one saleable plane. Sure groundlooping is a characteristic of tail geared airplanes. It is due to the main gear being ahead of the center of gravity. My father who was not a very good pilot did one, but a bush pilot I don't think so. Consider my sarc detector returned. In all seriousness, I have to be very careful; if I assume sarcasm and get it wrong, I can easily hurt someone's feelings due to being the author. So, when I don't know for certain, I don't assume. I misread your words on the prop; meaculpa. We used to call the Bonanza the forked-tailed doctor-killer, due to their customer demographics. I only flew a debonair five or six times, but I loved it. A further cause of groundlooping is airfoil feedback; some aircraft, particularly bi-planes as I recall, are notorious for ground looping, and part of the cause is that a small change in airstream angle has a large impact on drag on one wing vis the other. I've only been up in a Great Lakes bi-pane a couple of times (and never solo) and I only landed it once, but very, very touchy; you had to really stay on top of it, or it'd loop. At least, that's how it felt, and that's what I was told about it. Another factor with biplanes was the short wings, like on a Pitts. That could lead to a wingtip digging in, turning a groundloop into a cartwheel, which can be very bad for the paint job. One thing I've been told, and sounds accurate to me, is that one cause of ground loops, especially on heavier aircraft with higher centers of gravity (Like the Great Lakes) is crosswind landings. Basically, the pilot doesn't take it out of crab perfectly, and the wheels touch at a slight angle to the delta/v, imparting a sudden moment, and then you get a rate going. They put the added sheet metal FORWARD of the tail spars on the V-tail? Erk. I would not want to take one of those past redline, or land hard, or hit severe turbulence, or sneeze in its vicinity. I've never been up in a V-tailed Bonanza, let alone flown one, but I'd always wondered how they handled. On dirt roads; I drive on them every day, and they vary a lot, not just from each other, but in time. A road that's fine for 40mph one month can be washboarded and rutted in weeks. A freshly graded road would be fine usually, and if I was looking to land a plane on one, I'd look for freshly graded dirt. I can think of some I'd try an emergency landing on, and others where I'd prefer most anywhere else, because landing on them would be a non-survivable event.
ret2ak Posted March 9, 2012 Posted March 9, 2012 Nice and informative cj. I only have an hour in a Bonanza, but lots in the Arrow. My other brother Frank was a really good pilot, but he could not land my 150 worth a damn. Crab style appraoch, hard landing and weaving from one side of the runway to the other. He was a partner in a Bonanza, but when he took me flying I was not allowed to touch the controls. He flew F86s and Globemasters for the Guard. They got about 30 hours on their low bid Globemaster engine overhauls. He said when you took off you were prepared for anything, your heart rate was 150 and you were sweating. One memorable TO from OKC they lost 2 engines to fire in 15 minutes. another time they lost two after TO from Hawaii and had to land without dumping fuel. The Guard guys were ecstatic because they landed over max wt, the gear did not collapse and they did not become a fireball. He told me lots of power from the remaining two engines allowed him to sqeak it on. They often had to fly to Vietnam in the ground effect because of lost engines. Bragging may be skipped: My private test was with a genuine FAA examiner who used to fly the mailplanes in the 1920s. He flew though canyons in heavy rain with standing water in the cockpit. He told me to return to Concord and said I passed and did not need to make the landing because of the strong crosswind. I asked to do they landing and did the wing down approach and it turned out well. I loved those old Pipers with the control stick on the axis of the plane and between your legs. Must be a gay thing! Cross wind landings felt so natural. The old guy told me he really liked my flying, I guess because he was still alive. Frank could not do that to save his life. I instructed for 4 years and decided their were two types who would kill you. The timid types who would scream at little bumps and always do the wrong thing. The second are the macho types. They are scared to death, can not show it and with great strength will try to put a wingtip into the ground on TO.
Low Flyer Posted March 9, 2012 Posted March 9, 2012 Remember, what is Basingstoke wanted for? He hasn't actually committed a crime, not that they know of with any degree of certainty. He's wanted for questioning, which makes it very hard to convince the Aussie Air Force to put planes in the air. :-) This is a good point. There's no solid evidence of any crime at all - didn't you say that Basingstoke actually is a registered alarm installer, so that's OK. Other than passing himself off as a reporter, he hasn't even done anything suspicious. I'm guessing that it took a fair amount of persuasion to get the Air Force and Federal Police on board at all.
ret2ak Posted March 9, 2012 Posted March 9, 2012 How far was it to East Wallibi from where the sweaty Basingstoke saw Trevor get underway? On arrival he hid the raft and made his way through brush. That can be slow and how far is it to the airstrip? Meanwhile Trevor is making 16 knots or 18 mph. Lisa spots Basingstoke as they pass the airstrip. Is the sweaty Basingstoke in shape to go that fast?
Low Flyer Posted March 9, 2012 Posted March 9, 2012 How far was it to East Wallibi from where the sweaty Basingstoke saw Trevor get underway? On arrival he hid the raft and made his way through brush. That can be slow and how far is it to the airstrip? Meanwhile Trevor is making 16 knots or 18 mph. Lisa spots Basingstoke as they pass the airstrip. Is the sweaty Basingstoke in shape to go that fast? The first part's easy - it's about a mile from the coast of East Wallabi Island to the airtstrip. The second part's harder to be sure about as we don't know the exact course that Kookaburra took, but around 5 miles is a reasonable estimate. They saw Basingstoke while he was still a couple of hundred yards from the aircraft, by which time they'd also dithered about trying to decide whether to try to sabotage it or not, so I reckon the timeline's plausible. I'm sure CJ can give us details of Trevor's course, though. He tends to plan these things to the last inch.
ret2ak Posted March 9, 2012 Posted March 9, 2012 You forget the time to paddle back tto East Wallabi at 2 kts in the first part. You put a great deal of trust in your leaders? Ours is only to do and die, not to question why. CJ is a great person, a wonderful story teller and teacher. I think it is more profitable to keep him on his toes than to predict where the story is going. Have you read James Savik's Twilight? It is a masterpiece and moves at a brisk pace without losing anything.
Site Administrator wildone Posted March 10, 2012 Site Administrator Posted March 10, 2012 I'm not really sure of the relationship of the Customs Service in Australia, but I am curious now I do believe that Canada is set up much the same, but not really sure. Wait, I'm just reading my post, and maybe they are not alike at all Our Coast Guard is a division of Fisheries and Oceans. More or less the enforcement arm of that branch of government. They do most the patrolling and enforcement of Canadian Maritime Law. They do some search and rescue, but a lot of that falls under the Department of Defense and the Navy. We also have our Customs department, which is known as the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA). They are under the Canadian Revenue Agency (The US equivalent of the IRS). They are tasked with enforcement of border security and enforcement of importing and exporting rules. AKA, they collect the money when you cross the border. They are tasked to land border crossings, airports, train stations, and ports and mail. One thing I don't know is if our Coast Guard are armed? I know the CBSC only got approval for side arm in the past couple of years. It always blew my mind that when you go through US Customs in a Canadian Airport when travelling to the US, the guards all are armed to the nine's, and my on one of my recent post 911 trips, they had military carrying automatic weapons...in the Toronto Airport You then come back to Canada, and you won't see a gun in sight. You won't see a taser, your won't see any weapons, not even a night stick. One thing I do believe, that when anything of risk is involved with either the Coast Guard or the Customs Service, they call the RCMP. They are the official 'police' when dealing with both agencies. I may be wrong on any of this and am ready to be corrected I'm just curious of the relationship between the Australian Navy, Air Force, Customs Service and Coast Guard (If they have one). Anyone to clarify?
Benji Posted March 11, 2012 Posted March 11, 2012 ............... I am sure Steve is armed and dangerous!!!! But his weapon of choice is undecided!
C James Posted March 14, 2012 Author Posted March 14, 2012 This is a good point. There's no solid evidence of any crime at all - didn't you say that Basingstoke actually is a registered alarm installer, so that's OK. Other than passing himself off as a reporter, he hasn't even done anything suspicious. I'm guessing that it took a fair amount of persuasion to get the Air Force and Federal Police on board at all. Yep... the only crime they know he likely committed was trespassing on Kookaburra when he plated the tracker. Poor Basingstoke... he's just... misunderstood. How far was it to East Wallibi from where the sweaty Basingstoke saw Trevor get underway? On arrival he hid the raft and made his way through brush. That can be slow and how far is it to the airstrip? Meanwhile Trevor is making 16 knots or 18 mph. Lisa spots Basingstoke as they pass the airstrip. Is the sweaty Basingstoke in shape to go that fast? Roughly eight tenths of a mile from the beach to where Kookaburra was. So, a good mile and a half paddle, round trip. He'd of course be slower on the way back. By the time Trevor gave up on the idea of turning back and swamping him, he was about 300 yards off the beach. From where he came ashore, it is one point one miles to where his plane is parked. Trevor's route was far longer, though I didn't give details due to length. Long story short, there are a lot of reefs and shoals on the northern and eastern side of east Wallabai, so Trevor had several choices. the safest, especially for a high speed run, gives him a route from anchorage to the airstrip jetty of just over 10 miles. He's on engines for part of it (max 11 knots) then faster under sail for parts of it. So, say an average of 13 knots, or just under 15 mph, which is generous because he's loose some speed while coming about, having to slow down in shallow water, etc. so it'd take him approx 40 minutes, assuming zero delays, to get to the point where Lisa spotted Bassinstoke, which was close in to the jetty at the end of the runway. You can see the shoals somewhat in google earth, or on that google maps link in the chapter. Basingstoke wasn't at his plane yet; Lisa guessed two hundred yards, as I recall, and that's just over a tenth of a mile, so Basingstoke had paddled almost eight tenths of a mile (let's say two mph and and assume no help from the following wind) so that'd take him 25 minutes or so. He then needs to walk roughly a mile to where Lisa saw him, and walking speed on that kind of ground (it's essentially flat, with scattered bushes) would be about 4mph if he wasn't in a hurry. (when I'm hiking I do 5 miles in under an hour, easy, so I'd say 4mph for an easy gait.) That's 15 minutes per mile, so net time, 40 minutes total. However, you did catch me in a fudge; I don't have detailed nautical charts for the treacherous waters around East Wallabai, so I guessed a route distance for Kookaburra. There is a shorter route, but I figured that at high speed, Trevor wouldn't want to risk crippling Kookaburra by taking her into coral strewn shallows more than needed. So, the main fudge factor I built in is guessing the route (10.86 miles per google earth) and Lisa's estimate of Basingstoke's distance from the plane of 200 yards. It's damn hard to gauge distance in those conditions through binoculars, and the island, though flat, has a slight rise, just a few feet above grade, about a quarter mile west of the runway. So, Basingstoke may well have been further west then she thought. (a character can lie or be mistaken, the narrator can't). The first part's easy - it's about a mile from the coast of East Wallabi Island to the airtstrip. The second part's harder to be sure about as we don't know the exact course that Kookaburra took, but around 5 miles is a reasonable estimate. They saw Basingstoke while he was still a couple of hundred yards from the aircraft, by which time they'd also dithered about trying to decide whether to try to sabotage it or not, so I reckon the timeline's plausible. I'm sure CJ can give us details of Trevor's course, though. He tends to plan these things to the last inch. If anyone is really interested, I could generate some google earth .kmz files? I can't be totally positive on the course, because I don't have nautical charts for that area, and google earth even shades out the area east of the islands, so I cant make visual estimates, so I took my best guess. :-) You forget the time to paddle back tto East Wallabi at 2 kts in the first part. You put a great deal of trust in your leaders? Ours is only to do and die, not to question why. CJ is a great person, a wonderful story teller and teacher. I think it is more profitable to keep him on his toes than to predict where the story is going. Have you read James Savik's Twilight? It is a masterpiece and moves at a brisk pace without losing anything. I like being kept on my toes. I love accuracy, so I expect to have seeming incongruities challenged. I was kind of hoping to be challenged on why, exactly, I show Jindalee having capabilities beyond those mentioned in Wikipedia and other online sources. Even Basingstoke is shown th8inking he's safe due to assuming online reports of its coverage areas are accurate, yet ever since Trevor approached Australia and was seen well west of Cape Leeuwin, I've shown it otherwise. I'll go ahead and explain... Briefly, Jindalee was largely based on a US Navy shore-based over-the-horizon backscatter system that became operational in the late 70's. the coverage areas from these linier arrays were well known. The US military was heavily involved in Jindalee's development, so it's a safe assumption that Jindalee has coverage arcs similar. The Jindalee array for the Western Australia sector, though, is V shaped, not linier, so the coverage arcs from each face should be similar to a liniear array. The leaves the limiting factor being the isosondes; transmitters along the coast that sample the ionosphere. On that coast, the southernmost known one is near Gerladton, which is why that's the reported southely limit of the coverage arc. However, the isosondes are high powered transmitters at an odd freqency; roughly 10.5 mhz (they do alter the freq a bit, based on conditions). It wasn't hard to figure out that all that was needed was an isosonde near Perth, so I checked transmitter records, and sure enough, there's a high powered transmitter in the right freq range at Base Pierce, near Perth, and quite a few of the known isosondes are at military bases. So, between that, and the coverage arc from the main array near Leviton, it's a near certainty that Jindalee has the coverage areas described. I'm not really sure of the relationship of the Customs Service in Australia, but I am curious now I do believe that Canada is set up much the same, but not really sure. Wait, I'm just reading my post, and maybe they are not alike at all Our Coast Guard is a division of Fisheries and Oceans. More or less the enforcement arm of that branch of government. They do most the patrolling and enforcement of Canadian Maritime Law. They do some search and rescue, but a lot of that falls under the Department of Defense and the Navy. We also have our Customs department, which is known as the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA). They are under the Canadian Revenue Agency (The US equivalent of the IRS). They are tasked with enforcement of border security and enforcement of importing and exporting rules. AKA, they collect the money when you cross the border. They are tasked to land border crossings, airports, train stations, and ports and mail. One thing I don't know is if our Coast Guard are armed? I know the CBSC only got approval for side arm in the past couple of years. It always blew my mind that when you go through US Customs in a Canadian Airport when travelling to the US, the guards all are armed to the nine's, and my on one of my recent post 911 trips, they had military carrying automatic weapons...in the Toronto Airport You then come back to Canada, and you won't see a gun in sight. You won't see a taser, your won't see any weapons, not even a night stick. One thing I do believe, that when anything of risk is involved with either the Coast Guard or the Customs Service, they call the RCMP. They are the official 'police' when dealing with both agencies. I may be wrong on any of this and am ready to be corrected I'm just curious of the relationship between the Australian Navy, Air Force, Customs Service and Coast Guard (If they have one). Anyone to clarify? The cost guard in Australia is complicated. They have three, and at least one is a volunteer outfit. None perform all the duties we associate with the US or Canadian CG though... the maritime interdiction and patrol are done by the Customs and Border Patrol. agency. The Australian air force and navy very rarely get involved directly, though they do provide extensive support, such as maritime partol aircraft (P3C orions, etc) and of course radar data from Jindalee. ............... I am sure Steve is armed and dangerous!!!! But his weapon of choice is undecided! He's more prone to conspiricy, I think.
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