RNZAF Skyhawk Final at Waiouru 2001

Описание: When you turn up to Ohakea AAES one day and they say "Grab a lunch bag and jump on the bus, if you want to watch the Skyhawks drop some bombs in Waiouru", you probably wont say "no thanks, I'll stay in the bay and carry out another servicing on these IFF's".

Thanks to my Sony DTRV 120E Digital-8 Handycam I got some 'high resolution' footage from the day and I am finally sharing it to YouTube after many years of keeping it to myself.

Apparently our Skyhawks and their pilots, as disadvantaged as they seemed, (even with their avionics humps), were actually quite a challenge against their preppy frenemies, the F16's - who we would 'throw down' with in regular war game exercises. The tactic was to 'Fly through the notch' and then go so slow the F16 pilot wouldn't expect it, then you could pop out behind and release hell ("bullets bullets bullets").

Sat on the cliffs, over watching the skies from the foot of Ruapehu Maunga, we were privileged to have this moment before the RNZAF Air Strike force was completely disbanded. No longer would we receive the F16's we had made a $100M down payment on, which would see me and many AVTECH's after me, an interesting career in military aircraft avionics.

With fond memories I watch the moments caught on my digital-8 camera, purchased on Hire Purchase from the Air Forces Canteen Council, paying off about $2,500 NZD I believe it was, circa 1999.

This is raw footage, no editing, no upscaling (!), just raw 2001 Hi-8 / digital-8 720x576 old skool NTSC at 25f/s.

There are a few moments of awesomeness in the video.

00:00:00 - AVTECH Jamie Lim
00:xx:xx - Skyhawks drop bombs
00:04:35 - Skyhawk close flyby #1
00:08:04 - Skyhawk closer flyby #2
00:13:45 - Follow the big bomb all the way down to the ground
00:14:08 - Better follow big bomb all the way down to the ground
00:14:37 - Cover your Ears.
00:16:10 - Block your Ears.
00:16:27 - A young Courtney Stewart

I look forward to the comments.

Per Adua Ad Astra.

Reuben. 2025.