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I got this story in 1988 from a civvy volunteer at the Townsville RAAF Museum who had the nick-name, John The Spy. (He always seemed to know what visiting foreign military aircraft were up to).
British Aerospace brought out one of their military BAe146 aircraft for the Bicentennial Airshow at RAAF Richmond to demonstrate its capabilities to the RAAF. (Caribou replacements have been talked about for a long time). On the way, the aircraft went through RAAF Townsville - the home of No. 35 Squadron, Wallaby Airlines - operators of the DHC-4 Caribou.
Story goes that the Brits took off from Garbutt and headed to The Stockyard Strip up in the High Range training area North-West of Townsville. The RAAF Officer said to the British pilot, "Just put it down there." The pilot replied that he couldn't land on a strip like that - it was too short and rough.
To this the RAAF Officer said, "Well if you can't land down there, you won't be able to sell us your aeroplane".
Maybe its just an Urban Myth.
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