30/01/2023
Keep your 👀's to the sky this afternoon 🛩️
*Flypast delayed: technical issues*
Our team will be approximately 45 minutes behind schedule. We apologise, and hope to see you soon! 👋
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ORION FLYPAST ALERT ✈️ The last two of our P-3K2 Orion fleet are heading for Base Woodbourne tomorrow following a close formation flight of the South Island. As of tomorrow, the entire fleet will be retired after nearly 60 years of service.
The flying route includes many towns and cities around the South Island with a close-formation-flypast of the Air Force Museum of New Zealand at Wigram in Christchurch. The formation will travel south towards Invercargill before returning north towards Queenstown, the West Coast, Nelson and then landing at Base Woodbourne.
The route is highly dependent on the weather around the Southern Alps, especially for those towns and cities between Invercargill and Hokitika. If the weather is poor, expect a delay of 15-20 minutes for those towns on the West Coast, and 30 minutes to an hour at Woodbourne (depending on turbulence). The flight plan and approximate times are as follows:
Base Auckland - 1000
Christchurch - 1150-1200
Rakaia - 1308
Ashburton - 1312
Timaru - 1322
Wamate - 1328
Oamaru - 1334
Dunedin - 1349
Gore - 1407
Invercargill - 1415
Riverton - 1419
Nightcaps - 1426
Mossburn - 1431
Athol - 1436
Kingston - 1439
Queenstown - 1445
Cromwell - 1451
Wanaka - 1458
Hokitika - 1539
Greymouth - 1544
Westport - 1556
Murchison - 1606
Nelson - 1620
Havelock - 1626
Woodbourne - 1630
We’ve employed the six P-3K2 Orions for airborne surveillance and reconnaissance of Aotearoa New Zealand’s areas of economic interest, exclusive economic zone, the South Pacific, and the Southern Ocean including Antarctica.
Over the past six decades crews have found hundreds of missing people drifting in vessels in the Pacific and have been the first to arrive at scenes where natural disasters have struck, both in Aotearoa New Zealand and in our neighbouring Pacific Islands. They have also operated beyond our region in security and stability roles.
