The RNZAF fleet age

[Dave Homewood]

With the impending arrival of the first RNZAF Lockheed C-130J Super Hercules tomorrow, this means the final phase of the faithful old C-130H's is upon us and they will soon be gone from service.

That will be the end of the oldest serving aircraft in the RNZAF's fleet.

The next oldest are the Boeing 757's which are considerably younger, almost half the age of the Hercs, having both first flown in 1993.

It is interesting to think of the age of the rest of the RNZAF fleet - the A109s and NH90s all first flew in 2011, the Beechcraft Texan IIs all first flew in 2014 and 2015, the Beech Super King Airs all flew for the first time in 2013-2016. The P-8 Poseidens all first flew in 2022/23.

Apart from the Boeing 757s, the RNZAF will have an exceedingly modern fleet of aircraft. And as the 757s will likely be replaced in the near future, I guess the average age of the fleet will soon look even younger.

It makes the Navy's ancient Vietnam War era Seasprites look a bit of a joke.

[phil]

First of all the Seasprite is very much the air force's. Being responsible for the continuing air worthiness management of that fleet.

The SH-2G as a type first flew in 1985, the I model first flew as the A model sometime around 2000.

While the earliest SH-2 first flew in 1959, that is no different than saying the first C-130 first flew in 1954 - it doesn't have any real relevance to the latest C-130J-30 (or the SH-2G(I)).

The I model's ITAS system is pretty sophisticated, and while it is now suffering obsolescence issues, even though the basic airframes are much older, the systems on board only date from around 25 years ago.

[Dave Homewood]

From what I have read, at least some of the Seaprites in RNZN/RNZAF service were built in the 1960s/early 1970s for the USN, they have been rebuilt and upgraded several times but they are still Vietnam war era helicopters...

[nighthawknz]

The Seasprites are RNZN, including pilots... and come from RNZN budget. However the RNZAF maintain them.

We got rid of the new built Seasprites when we bought the Aussie re-fitt/rebuild ones. (sold them to Peru a few years back and they got them upgraded with the same avionics as what we have now)

But yes some of the air frames are probably that old though they got zeroed out during the rebuild.