SECONDARY students from Portland and district got a full tour inside the C-27J Spartan, thanks to former Portland resident and now Air Force Corporal and the aircraft’s Loadmaster Jordan Oakley.

Portland Secondary College, Bayview College and Heywood and District Secondary College were thrilled to travel to the Portland Airport on Monday to meet the Australian Defence Force (ADF) recruitment team and Air Force personnel.

Each school group was given a special tour. To begin, they sat down for an information session conducted by the recruitment team about the career opportunities and pathways available in the ADF, including the Air Force, Army and Navy.

After the session, Flight Lieutenant and aircraft Captain Toby Richter and the crew, including Cpl Oakley, took students up the aircraft ramp to take a seat inside and get a sneak peek at the cockpit.

Flt Lt Richter spoke extensively about the aircraft and its use.

“We can drop it within pretty much five metres of anything, even just the eyeball drop is pretty accurate as well,” he said.

“The lower we fly, the more accurate it is, so we can drop light equipment down to 200 feet above the ground.

“When we do search and rescue, we can go all the way down to 100 feet over the water, which is only 30 meters above the ground.

“All the equipment that we need on board is on the walls, so if we need a fly over water, we got the ladders, and if we need to turn the back of the aircraft into a hospital, we can do all that.

“We've got aircraft self-protection on board as well, which is flares, so both visual flares, infrared flares, and also aerodynamic flares, and the purpose of them is to confuse a missile that's been shot at us … while we hopefully fly away safely.

“We can fit about 20,000 pounds of fuel on board, which gives us about eight and a half hours of flight time.

“Furthest we can fly is about 1500 nautical miles in one hop, which is about from one side of Australia to the other, so quite far for such a small aircraft.”

The students were granted this experience thanks to Cpl Oakley who was determined to bring the aircraft to Portland.

He said it took six months to get the idea off the ground and approved.

“I went to PSC and we had someone from defence come in and stand in front of the classroom. I knew that no one was interested then, so I was like, we can do something better than that,” he said.

“I noticed there was a deficiency between Adelaide and Melbourne … I said to the boss, if we can bring an asset down (to Portland) and show the kids, I think that's better than standing in a classroom.”

Students were certainly taken with the Spartan, as there were plenty of phones out and pictures taken.

Cpl Oakley grew up living not far from the Portland Airport, as his father was the airport manager for “30-odd years.”

“I grew up behind those pine trees just there, so I used to ride my bike down here every time I’d hear a plane come in,” he said.

“There would be a Channel 9 helicopter and they’d be like ‘come for a ride’, and they’d take me and drop me in at the footy oval next to the swimming pool, and dad would have to drive and pick me up.

“I definitely was bitten by the aviation bug at an early age and then one night, I sat down and was like ‘I’m not getting any younger, I’ll give it a go’ and put in my application online and here I am nearly 10 years later.

“I had a bunch of jobs around town for a while, but decided I wanted a career, some growth, travel, and to see the world a bit, which I certainly did in the first seven years.

“The job role that I wanted, there were no positions available, a two-year wait list, got in, did about seven years as a mover, which is ground crew essentially, and then I wanted to do what I'm doing now and then, again, that was like another two-year wait.”