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Post by dpdouglas on Dec 19, 2005 12:20:21 GMT 12
The first of Air New Zealand's eight new B777 made a brief stopover at RNZAF Base Ohakea on 2 November.The aircrafts crew familiarised themselves with Ohakea's facilities which can be used as an emergency and alternative airfield.
The 313 Seat B777-200ER is well suited to long haul flights and will be progressively introduced on Air New Zealand's Auckland - Singapore, Auckland - San Francisco and proposed new Auckland -Shanghai routes.They Will gradually replace many of the airlines B767-300s. The B777s are all powered by rolls royse Trent 800 series Engines.
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Post by Bruce on Dec 19, 2005 21:38:53 GMT 12
Maybe theyre looking at getting some of the under - utilised RNZAF engineers to maintain them....  |
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Post by steve on Dec 20, 2005 0:18:59 GMT 12
Ohakea's new 8000 foot 20 million dollar runway upgrade at least gets some use..The idea of moving Whenuapai to Ohakea has been shelved for 8 - 10 years because of cost...what a stuff up of facilities..Ohakea is so under utilised its sinful! Lets invite the Aussies there!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 20, 2005 1:19:35 GMT 12
Actually, Ohakea is still being filled up with lots of ex-Whenuapai stuff and new buildings being built, etc.
The base is still moving, only slowly it seems. Some of it seems really dumb, I found out just the other day the cargo parachutes are now all maintained and stored at OH. The cargo planes live at WH.
What the!!!??
Government planning at its best. There were many other examples I won't go into.
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Post by dpdouglas on Dec 20, 2005 1:49:43 GMT 12
are you kidding they cant move Whenuapai to Ohakea. thats definitely our governments finest work. i mean seriously why move it all the way down there. its easier to be closer to islands as they are most vulnerable to disasters and what if the oil resources become finite. what if there is only enough from whenuapai to Fiji and there is a stranded boat and they only have enough for one p3K Orion to fly there. they'd be pretty stuffed if that happened and they had moved all the aircraft and whenuapais stuff down there then wouldnt they.
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Post by atcassidy_30hobby on Dec 20, 2005 9:04:52 GMT 12
well technically speaking if they moved our beloved whenuapai to ohakea it wouldn't be whenuapai now would it? waaaah!! whenuapai can't go, the races were just about to start there. meh, well we've still got it for 10 more yrs (according to fltlnt de vo)
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Post by atcassidy_30hobby on Dec 20, 2005 9:07:07 GMT 12
haha aussies..
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Post by corsair67 on Dec 20, 2005 10:00:24 GMT 12
The Aussies do invade Ohakea every now and again. The F-111s cross the Tasman a few times a year for some mountain flying and navigation exercises. I guess that the WILLOH exercises are no longer held as it'd be a bit one-sided pitting CT-4E Airtrainers against F/A-18A Hornets! ;D I wonder if it puts the local cows off their milk when there are jets roaring around again?  |
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Post by dpdouglas on Dec 20, 2005 11:50:20 GMT 12
Lol yea i knw whayt you mean
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 20, 2005 12:00:22 GMT 12
I seriously find it hard to believe when your unit is based at Whenuapai you had no idea it is to close. This is old news, announced some years ago.
Hobsonville and Woodbourne are also to go, leaving all the RNZAF's remains on one base, Ohakea. Woodbourne is already basically a civil airport now (where Safe Air does much of the engineering work that the RNZAF once did there). Whenuapai was to close within the next two or three years, but an extension was put on it. They now say it has a maximum nine years. That does not mean it will all be there as a fully functioning base for all that time. It will gradually bit by bit drift south (already occurring).
There's a massive row on because the councils want to turn the land into an airport, which makes absolute sense considering the people around north Auckland have to travel an hour to get to Mangere. But the evil government wants to sell the land to rich foreign property dealers instead (they've already sold part of the historic Hobsonville base to a Canadian who pretended he wanted it to make yachts, but instaed now plans a housing development I hear!!!
Auckland is clearly the most strategic base in the RNZAF. Woodbourne the second most, and Wigram was the third most strategic. Hence the reason the backwards Govt has closed them all and will move everything to a base in the middle of nowhere with little strategic purpose. Ohakea was built as a training base, not an operational base.
The closure of any base is terrible, but the loss of both Auckland bases is sheer stupidity, absolute mindless decision made by idiots.
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Post by corsair67 on Dec 20, 2005 18:24:50 GMT 12
But Dave, the world is a very friendly place and New Zealand has nothing to fear from anyone anymore; that's why Helen wants to get rid of the military establishments to build more houses instead! ;D Peace, free love, and bury your head in the sand: the Labour Party of NZ motto!  |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 20, 2005 18:42:56 GMT 12
Yes, I know no-one will invade us anymore, simply because it's cheaper to buy your way in through immigration now. But that's not really the point.
A strategic position like base Auckland is more inportant in terms of deployment into the Pacific for the Orions on searches, or Hercules on relief missions, as Darryn points out. I doubt the oil issue is a big one though Darryn.
The extra flying time put onto an Orion covering the extra distance between most Pacific points and Ohakea means less searching time, which can be life and death.
There is a climate now in the RNZAF that it is trying to rebuild itself after the devastating years of decline. They should simply point blank refuse to close bases. The government can afford to run more than one base easily and for many importnat reasons other than warlike purposes. If I were in charge I'd take back Wigram and reinstate it too.
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Post by atcassidy_30hobby on Dec 20, 2005 20:02:11 GMT 12
We all know it's going to close, but our officers are trying to organise something so that the new owners will agree to let us keep the land. (I was the only cdt that was told this and sorry Douglas it slipped my mind, as Ptloff Hannan told me after wind down.)
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Post by atcassidy_30hobby on Dec 20, 2005 20:04:00 GMT 12
stuff houses!! We've only got about 4.3 million people, it's where are sheep will stay that we should be concerned about. =)
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Post by dpdouglas on Dec 21, 2005 13:51:12 GMT 12
SHEEP?  ?? what the heck is that about. anyway. yes well we should have our C130 Hercules down in Ohakea and keep the P3k orion and 757 s up here because as we all know the air force does flights down to Antactica and they use C130s for the trip. VIPs will not go to Ohakea just to go to Auckland. and P3K orions are controlled by none other than 5 Squadron and their main focus is maritime surveillance there is no way that they should fly further to get to a certain destination right? All im sayiong is if all the cargo is down in Ohakea they should at least keep the area for either Air Force Aircraft. heck they could also turn it into a gas station for Aircraft. even if Whenuapai is used as a civilian runway as well as an Air Force one. plus with the new threat of Avian influenza if they move down there and there is a breakout all the people of Auckland (apart from the rich people with their own planes and pilots license) are pretty much screwed. |
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Post by dpdouglas on Dec 21, 2005 13:53:38 GMT 12
also this is the first i heard about it closng.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 21, 2005 14:40:16 GMT 12
I agree that Whenuapai should revert to being a joint military and civilian aerodrome, which is how it operated for many years as Auckland International Airport. If this really cannot be achieved, it should still be kept as an airport, and the facilities there used by civil aviation. That way the RNZAF could still use it, as they do with other civil aerodromes, without being based there. And it could preserve the superstructure of the base for future useage if need be, rather than destroying all the bulidngs like at Wigram.
Avain flu? What? If there is an outbreak in Auckland they're hardly going to let people fly out of there, that'd only spread the disease further. The Bombay Hills will be sealed off, and you lot will be quarantined and left to die!
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Post by corsair67 on Dec 21, 2005 15:21:42 GMT 12
The Cantabrian Dream: Auckland wiped out by a virus! ;D
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 21, 2005 16:05:59 GMT 12
;D ;D ;D
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Post by steve on Dec 21, 2005 17:08:07 GMT 12
Some good points...I believe the joint civilian military base is the way to go....imagine a state house project...doesn't bear thinking about...
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