This is not exactly about historic aircraft as such, though half of those involved are certainly classic jets with quote some history, but this may be a historic moment in the history of the RNZAF air combat wing.
According to the news last night, some confidential Government papers have fallen into the hands of the media which say the NZ Govt. is now considering selling its combat aircraft for scrap, because they say no-one wants to buy them, and that they are costing $350,000 a month to store (a total of $8million dollars been spent so far since their grounding).
A couple of points:
One – they have had a number of offers and potential deals I’m told by insiders but they won’t sell to certain parties in case they sell them onto undesirables (well der, that could happen with selling any plane to anyone!! :rolleyes: :confused: )
Two – though the Skyhawks may be old they are fully functional, all upgraded and still have a few years left in them.
However, the Maachis only began entering service as new in 1991, some not arriving till 1992 from the Aermacchi factory. So they’ve all had limited flying time and for goodness sake, they have at least 20 years left in them! But no, they want to melt them down! 🙁 😡
Three – when I told a mate who’s a pilot and engineer, he said that modern aircraft are worthless as scrap because everything is made from highly specific alloys that cannot be used to make any old thing after smeltering. So he reckons that they’d get next to nothing for the fleet.
Personally I think every New Zealander should be outraged that these aircraft are costing almost the same amount to store as they did to operate per month. Was it really a good fiscal idea to cancel the cheapest F16 deal ever in the world, and then waste all this money on storage, only to scrap them for a few bucks. I certainly do not think so.
At the same time as canceling the F16’s Labour has stuffed up defence buying from the US who’ll probably never offer a cheap deal again. And they have seriously put this country at risk, if not militarily then certainly economically. People think the A4’s were simply here in case of a war. Well actually they also patrolled shipping and when needed would round up illegal fishing boats (on one occasion they even fired on a boat that ignored their demands). NZ waters are being stripped by Asian criminal fishermen, and now all we have are the tired and lumbering Orions that are already overworked. The F16’s would have put some pep in protecting our interests.
OK, so the F16 deal is long dead and buried… BUT we should not allow these idiots to now scrap perfectly good aircraft.
I think Labour must have heard a rumour that when National gets in (God-forbid, frying pan to fire scenario) they will pull the jets out of storage and re-instate them or something, because scrapping is extreme to the extreme, but Helen Clark hates to have her decisions turned round so she wants to hurriedly ditch them. Maybe in a years time the A4’s and MB339K’s will have been saved and Don’s Govt. will be operating them off a nuclear carrier in the Hauraki gulf. 😉
Why on earth can’t they use their brains. If the RNZAF does not require as many pilots as they used to, they could subcontract out, and train RAF, US, Aussies, any of or Allies, and the fees could pay to keep the fleet of Maachis flying. We used to be reknowned for training some of the top pilots in the world. We still could and get other countries to pay for it. I think the same goes for the engineering side – instead of laying off all the country’s best trained aircraft engineers they should have diversified and subcontracted out, taking in work from other air forces just like Air New Zealand Engineering did – which made it a highly successful business indeed.
Anyway, my rant over – sorry.
By: Dave Homewood - 29th July 2004 at 12:33
I just found this link that has a transcript of today’s debate in Parliament about the sale of the A4K’s and MB339Ks. Jolly interesting – Pratt and Whitney are apparently refusing to service Skyhawk engines after 2007. Also, Ron Marks, who is a nutty kind of opposition politician but very military minded as he’s ex-Army, wants to make them into playground slides!! Cool idea, I’d play on one. 🙂
See the full deabate here, which is quite interesting. Use Edit > Find and put in Skyhawk, it begins on the second keyword ‘Skyhawk’ from the top.
By: Dave Homewood - 29th July 2004 at 11:56
On the news just now they reported the last flying RNZAF Skyhawk which has been used as their demonstrator model goes for its last flight in RNZAF hands tomorrow, and will be grounded.
The report showed the Maachis all still sitting in 14 Sqn’s hangar at Ohakea so Malaysia hasn’t got hold of them as of today at least. However in this report when they mentioned the scrappings they only talked about the 17 A4K’s and never even mentioned the Maachis.
Also they defined the word ‘scrap’ as being like an old used car, ‘buy as is, where is’. I guess they’ll be in the Trade and Exchange or Loot magazine next week then.
They said as all prsopective buyers have seen the planes flying, they’re now grounding the demonstrator A4, with its last flight tomorrow if the weather is ok. As it is winter and its based at Ohakea, the weather will not be ok, that’s almost guaranteed. 😉
A sad day for the RNZAF.
By: Dave T - 28th July 2004 at 15:24
John Howard as UK leader ?
😮
By: Dave Homewood - 28th July 2004 at 14:52
Oh no no, Trumper, you send your retiring jets to us 😉 We need ’em more, much more coastline to defend than you have 🙂
John, yes Kiwi Red was a stunning team. They were not just a team put together solely for displays like the Red Arrows, Blue Angels, etc, but they also worked operationally at the same time as front line pilots and planes, despite the increasing limitations on flying hours, etc. I think that is a real cedit to our little bunch of ‘knucks’ (ie fighter pilots, RNZAF sland, short for knuckle heads due to the bonedome helmets)
I first saw them in early 1989 when they returned from Australia and flew into RNZAF Woodbourne. They did a short display before landing and stunned the whole base with the display. Magic. I then saw the whole routine on their 1989 tour display in Hamilton, and that was incredible, even my sisters who hate planes loved it. I loved the sound of six Squawks in close formation.
When Kiwi Red was disbanded (1990?) they did a final tour and I recall seeing them fly over Hamilton city in a stunning routine. Sad to think we’ll never see the likes of that again.
I have the Kiwi Red video but you don’t get the the real power of the sound, that bonechilling feeling as the ground shakes, nor the smell of the avtur. Arrrr, I miss the A4’s (and the Macchis and the Blunties…)
Didn’t the Nowra detachment of 2 Sqn also work up a small display team? I seem to recall reading about four or so of them displaying in a few shows to up their image, and I think the locals were suitably impressed.
By: setter - 28th July 2004 at 14:24
Oh Dear Dave
This is all very sad I loved seeing these things flying about Nowra and I will never forget seeing Kiwi Red perform at Richmond NSW at the 1988 Bi Centenial airshow – I trust a few will go to Museums – We would like a couple of ours back Please sir?
I served with a few Kiwi Flyers in Vietnam and the standard and attitude of them was a cut above.
Kindest regards
John Parker
By: trumper - 28th July 2004 at 14:22
😉 Send them over here,we won’t have an airforce soon 😮
By: Dave Homewood - 28th July 2004 at 14:18
The New Zealanders should be ashamed of themselves for letting the ‘lickers’ take control of a great place. Helen thinks that there is too much testostorene in military jets….boys having fun etc. Like all Govt disposal deals, the so-called pubic servants and the pollies can’t sell ice to an arab…in Oz we had the C-130A/Tracker/Mirage sale debacles so we can’t laugh althogh we still have an air force with force….
‘lickers’?? Doesn’t your nation have John Howard as their leader 😉 🙂
The problem is there’s too much testosterone in Helen I think.
Albert, the NZ Govt. is on too friendly a terms with Indonesia, and I don’t think Phillipines is too high on their list of mates either, so I doubt a donation of aircraft that way will happen.
At one point there was a fairly solid deal for the whole fleet to go to the USA supposedly to a flight school, but I understand that NZ discovered that they were in fact going to be sold on to Israel, which is another country on their ‘bunch of w*nkers’ list so that was canned.
By: oscar duck - 28th July 2004 at 14:07
The New Zealanders should be ashamed of themselves for letting the ‘lickers’ take control of a great place. Helen thinks that there is too much testostorene in military jets….boys having fun etc. Like all Govt disposal deals, the so-called pubic servants and the pollies can’t sell ice to an arab…in Oz we had the C-130A/Tracker/Mirage sale debacles so we can’t laugh althogh we still have an air force with force….
By: ALBERT ROSS - 28th July 2004 at 14:07
At one time the Philippine Air Force was going to have them. If they can’t afford them, why can’t NZ give them away rather than scrap them? VERY surprised at this, as I thought Indonesia might want them , at least for spares?
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July 28, 2004 at 1:57 pm