Skyhawks grounded but not forgotten

Engineers at Woodbourne Air Base near Blenheim prepare the fighter jets for delivery to the United States. Photo / Simon Baker

Like a child's forgotten toys, the Skyhawks sit in storage gathering dust.

The multimillion-dollar fighter jets that tore through New Zealand's skies just a few years ago are grounded out of sight in a dingy hangar, their cockpits masked by dirty grey covers, their fuel dripping into plastic containers.

Only maintenance engineers in blue overalls get near these aircraft, packed nose to tail and wing to wing in a formation resembling a forest of metal.

The Skyhawks have been ingloriously stored away since 2002 after the Government controversially decided to disband the combat wing of the Air Force a year earlier.

But the jets will soon take to the skies again - just not our own.

The Government is selling the 17 Skyhawks and 17 Aermacchi jet trainers to Tactical Air Services, an American company which will train fighter pilots for the United States Air Force and US allies.

It is expected the Government will make about $120 million from the sale.

The Weekend Herald was allowed in this week - after being turned down several times - to view the Skyhawks at Woodbourne Air Base near Blenheim.

Such is the sensitivity surrounding the aircraft that the Herald was given strict instructions not to ask questions of anyone while on the base, and was asked not to name anyone working in the hangar.

Group Captain Steve Moore, who flew the Skyhawks between 1986 and 1998, says it will be sad to see them leave New Zealand.

"There's a lot of pilots who have got a lot of time and a lot of affection for the aircraft. So yeah, there will be a few bleary eyes. But life goes on," he says.

"To a certain extent the Air Force has already gotten over not having them.

"There would have been a lot more teary-eyed people if they had been scrapped. So it is good to see they will live on and they have got some life left in them yet."

Originally designed in the 1950s as a light ground-attack aircraft, the Skyhawks benefited from significant upgrades in New Zealand in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Group Captain Moore likens flying the aircraft to driving a sports car because of its size and manoeuvrability. "It did a really good job over those 30 years.

"We did a lot of things with the Skyhawk that other countries probably didn't do. And I guess that's the Kiwi ingenuity side of operating it. Even doing things like deploying it to Southeast Asia. That wasn't an easy task."

The reliability of the Skyhawk is one of its greatest features, Group Captain Moore says.

"It did have some deficiencies [but] on the whole it was a lovely aircraft to fly."

A4 SKYHAWK

Ground-attack aircraft developed by the Douglas Aircraft Corporation.
Prototype first flew on June 22, 1954.
Crew: one pilot (OA-4 two-seater version).
Maximum speed: 1100 km/h
Range: 3220km.
Production run: 2960.
Source: Wikipedia