[Bob C]

The terrible bushfires which have destroyed parts of Margaret River in W A this week made me wonder why former RAN Sea King helicopters could not be converted to "fire bombers" rather than being offered for sale on the world market ?

The Minister for Defence Materiel, Jason Clare, announced earlier this year that the Reguest for Tender would include :

• Five complete helicopters;
• Three airframes; (former RN airframes for spares)
• A simulator; and
• Associated unique equipment and parts.

The Sea Kings will be withdrawn from service in December 2011 and the fleet has flown in excess of 60,000 hours in service with the RAN. The five complete airframes being offered for sale have each flown less than 9,000 hours.

"Civilianised" Sea Kings would also be ideal for disaster relief work throughout the country and elsewhere in South East Asia and the Pacific Islands. They did great work during the Queensland floods earlier this year as well as in Aceh a few years ago.

By his own words, Mr Clare has acknowledged that....." the Sea King is a really versatile helicopter and a proven capability. The Sea Kings could be used for a range of things like fire fighting, disaster relief, search and rescue, by another Navy or commercially,” Mr Clare said.

So why not retain them in Australia for fire fighting and disaster relief ? They are big helicopters and would supplement other military and commercial types used for such purposes. They're similar to and probably younger than the S61 airframes now in use in W A and other countries have "civilianised" many former military aircraft.

The Sea Kings could be retained at Nowra and there would be a pool of recent air and ground crew available to fly and sevice them. Perhaps they could be added to the inventory of another Government agency at a reasonable cost - AMSA ?

Former RAAFies will be operating some Caribous in that recently announced commercial operation throughout the Pacific Islands so the Sea Kings could be operated in a simiar vein, albeit under a Government agency.

It's not such a wild idea and I think would be worth considering.