Skyhawk update
The Marlborough Express had an item last weekend on the Skyhawks being moved from their storage hanger (but the online article disappeared before I could post it. It did actually mention putting the Skyhawks outside but possibly out of public viewing which if so is a shame for the Air Force to have to have the hide them for "political" reasons). However the Dominion Post has a follow up article today and better explains the reasons for the possible shift.
Skyhawks may have to move from hangar
HANK SCHOUTEN - The Dominion Post | Wednesday, 19 September 2007
The air force's 17 mothballed Skyhawk fighter bombers may have to be parked outside to free up the hangar where they have been gathering dust for the past six years.
The aircraft have been housed in a Safe Air hangar at Woodbourne, near Blenheim, since the air combat wing was disbanded in 2002.
But the hangar needs to be cleared as it is needed for work on modernising the RNZAFs C130 Hercules aircraft.
Air force chief Air Vice-Marshall Graham Lintott said alterations on the hangar would need to begin in November in preparation for the Hercules upgrade project.
Options for storing the Skyhawks included parking them outside at the air base, storing them in crates or trucking them to another location for storage.
An air force spokesman said that, if they were to be stored outside, they would be sprayed with a protective coating of latex. The same technique was used in the United States, where old planes were parked in the Arizona desert.
A former Skyhawk avionics technician, Don Simms, said the aircraft had deteriorated during the past six years and "putting them outside is the final nail in the coffin".
He said they should be used to train ground staff. Engineers were still training on the old Devon aircraft in which he did his training 20 years ago.
Skyhawks were perfect for training, as they had sophisticated avionics and took up little hangar space.
Those that were not needed for training should be displayed in museums in New Zealand and Australia, Mr Simms said.
The Skyhawks have not been flown since the squadron was grounded - they were reaching the end of their operational life and were too expensive to maintain in flying condition.
In 2005, the Government announced the Skyhawks and 17 newer Aermacchi training jets had been sold for $155 million to Arizona-based Tactical Air Services, but the sale has been stalled by US Government red tape.
Last month Prime Minister Helen Clark said the Skyhawks were no longer of interest to serious buyers, just the "odd collector".
[Story ends]
Hmm, interesting idea to use some for ground crew training. Interesting idea to put them in museums (wonder if the Aussies would want some of the ex-RAN A4-G's back for display in a RAN FAA museum)?
Today's Marborough Express also has a follow piece on the Skyhawks. Check out the last sentance.
Skyhawk scream ends in whimper
The Marlborough Express | Wednesday, 19 September 2007
For many years the skies above New Zealand used to be ruptured by the scream of Skyhawk jets as they went through practice exercises, writes The Marlborough Express in an editorial.
If you lived in the central North Island they could be watched way up in the sky screeching up to the central plateau, turning round at Mount Ruapehu and racing back home again to their Ohakea airbase. It would be all over in seconds - the big noise, the whizzing past and then silence and a jet trail.
That all stopped six years ago when the Labour Government decided to scrap the Royal New Zealand Air Force's strike wing.
But it has been a long, slow end for the jets.
The latest episode has the jets ignominiously put aside from their hangar and stored outside as their hangar is used for a refit for the Hercules, the workhorse of the New Zealand Air Force.
The 17 Skyhawks have been sold.
An American buyer has been lined up to buy the jets for a reported $155 million but the sale has been held up for months by the United States State Department. You just can't up and import jets into a country. And because of the prolonged nature of the sale, there are doubts it will go through.
The Skyhawks have been housed at Woodbourne by Safe Air since they were decommissioned at a cost of thousands of dollars a month. The Air Force has been asked precisely how much it costs to store the planes, but have yet to answer.
And now it seems the planes are likely to be stored outdoors.
Why should we care? Hasn't everyone accepted New Zealand has buried its air force strike arm for good. Are they just not some clapped out planes well past by their use by date?
Apparently not. The avionics on the planes could be put to good use according to a former avionics technician, who believes they can be saved if rescued now.
The argument is that the flight controls and systems can be applied to training personnel for other planes that the Air Force still uses.
And the planes should be kept in reasonably good nick so if they aren't sold they can be donated or bought by museums and interested parties around the country, says another Skyhawk fan.
The planes in their current state and position are a problem for the Government. Something of a khaki elephant. As the sale saga drags on, there is talk the planes will eventually have nowhere to go and be sold for scrap.
The Air Force is putting the options of 'what next for the jets' before the Minister of Defence this week. Perhaps it will be a decision that brings this drawn out farewell to the Skyhawks to an end.
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