An aircraft which was involved in the search of the missing MH370 plane could soon call the Illawarra home if HARS president Bob De La Hunty gets his way.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
But for the time being Mr De La Hunty made do with checking out the AP-3C Orion sub hunter when its crew flew the Lockheed plane into HARS’ premises at the Illawarra Regional Airport, for a quick visit on Saturday.
‘’Today has been a very special event for HARS,’’ he said.
‘’It is the first time the air force has been able to bring in a Lockheed APC Orion sub hunter.
‘’We are hoping to acquire one in the not too distant future from the Defence Department as they faze them out of service to replace them with the new P-8 Poseidon.’’
The Lockheed AP-3C Orion is a variant of the P-3 Orion used by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) for tasks such as naval fleet support, maritime surveillance, search and survivor supply and anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare.
All 18 AP-3C Orions are operated by No.92 Wing which is based at RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia.
Joe Plemenuk, the P-3 Orion flight engineer affectionately referred to as Pluck-a by his 19-strong crew, said the aircraft [A9 751] was the oldest one in the fleet.
‘’It was built on the 16th of February, 1978 and it is the most historically significant aircraft in the fleet as well,’’ Mr Plemenuk said.
‘’It will be retired and going to Point Cook in the next couple of years, unfortunately.’’
A HARS member himself, Mr Plemenuk said he was grateful his hard-working crew got the opportunity to show-off the Orion here in the Illawarra.
‘’Our young captains want to show it off and get some useful training, which is difficult to get because the asset is used actively by the government. However the moons have aligned and I’m amazed to say we actually got an airplane and got away from Edinburgh yesterday morning,’’ he said.
‘’And, we’ve done what our plan was - which was to go to Longreach and spend a few hours at the museum to show them the Orion. Then overnight we went to Williamtown [near Newcastle] and then came here to show the plane and have a look at this beautiful museum as well.
‘’This trip is a bit of a reward for our flight because it has been a huge first half of the year. It has been very busy for our flight indeed.’’
The flight’s busy schedule included spending more than a month helping to search for parts of the missing MH370 plane.
‘’I spent ANZAC Day and some of the school holidays in Perth as part of the search operation,’’ Mr Plemenuk said. ‘’We found everything else in the ocean but what we were looking for.’’