F/A18 for QAM petition

[triadic]

The Queensland Air Museum, Australia is seeking to obtain a F/A18 Hornet for the Museum at Caloundra. A small number have been allocated to other museums but not to QAM which is disappointing as they have a good collection of previous RAAF fighters. They have raised a petition in an attempt to secure a Hornet for their collection. These aircraft will otherwise be dismantled and destroyed. Those wishing to sign this worthy petition should go to the web site listed below that closes on 12 June.

https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN6153

[tail wheel]

A very worthy cause.

Please consider signing this Australian Parliament House e-petition.

[India Four Two]

I was at Caloundra in December, A very nice museum.

I would sign the petition but it's for Aussie residents only.

[ancientaviator62]

The excellent aviation museum in Perth have an FA 18 and an ex RAF Tornado in their own separate hangar. The museum is well worth a visit.

[Fris B. Fairing]

For the benefit of Australian readers.

After the F/A-18 Hornets were retired, Defence called for expressions of interest in preserving a Hornet. One museum, with established credibility from the F-111 disposal, is known to have submitted an expression of interest which was totally ignored. Probably other museums were similarly snubbed. It is suspected that the objective was to preserve the exclusivity of RAAF museums by eliminating any applicant institution close to an official museum. This had been the intention with the F-111 disposal until a public outcry forced a rethink which resulted in the preservation of an additional 7 F‑111s. Eventually it was announced that 8 Hornets had been allocated to museums in every mainland state except Queensland. When one museum asked the Minister why they had been overlooked, his department’s best suggestion was that they should ask one of the eight recipient museums to share their aircraft. Brilliant!

Now it has emerged that the remaining Hornets are being trucked to a disposal facility - ironically in Queensland! So Defence are effectively saying: Queensland you cannot have a Hornet but we are going to truck as many as 40 Hornets to Queensland and bury them in your backyard! This should have been the easiest decision on the Minister’s desk but his department didn’t even provide for their own museum in Queensland.

While it is agreed that we can’t save all of the Hornets, there is no justification for destroying taxpayers’ property when there are established museums that are willing to preserve it for future generations. Burying aircraft produces no return from scrap value and indeed the taxpayer has to pay the cost of burying them. By spending a little more on preparing aircraft for display, there is at least a lasting benefit to the taxpayer who paid for the aircraft in the first place.

Enlightened thinking in recent times has seen some remarkable results in preserving ex RAAF aircraft but the Hornet disposal has been a retrograde step as demonstrated by these figures which show the percentage of the fleet that has been preserved.

F-111A/C/G 29%

AP-3C 45%

F/A-18A/B 11%

It is interesting to note that Hornets that were delivered to museums did not need to be covered to protect their display finish and yet, aircraft that are to be destroyed need to be shrouded, presumably to conceal their destination and fate. People who make these decisions need to remember that they should not be dismissive of historical organisations because they have long memories and they write history. This mishandled disposal process is a callous abandonment of progress made in recent years. It is nothing short of a scandal.

[megan]

Signed