Sea Kings Bid Farewell to RIMPAC

28 July 2010 By LCDR Fenn Kemp

This has been the last RIMPAC for Navy’s Sea Kings which are due to be retired in 2012 after nearly 30 years of service.

817 Squadron Sea King SHARK 07 embarked on HMAS Kanimbla for Exercise RIMPAC conducts Vertical Replenishment (VERTREP) with USS Bonhomme Richard.

Three Sea Kings have taken part this RIMPAC, based in HMAS Kanimbla. CO 817 Squadron, CMDR Paul Moggach says they’ve been kept especially busy. “We started out doing short logistics movements of people and stores before branching out into doing long range movements of personnel, VIPs and equipment as part of the exercise process. That’s exactly what the Sea Kings are designed to do – provide maritime support. We’ve been able to do that with a number of different units.”

The bulk of their work this RIMPAC was carried out with the amphibious group. “The USS Bonhomme Richard and the USS Cleveland were fantastic to work with,” CMDR Moggach said. “The aircrew have also increased their knowledge of coalition aviation with operations conducted to numerous ships from both the Amphibious Task Group and the Carrier Strike Task Group the most significant being the landings on the USS Bonhomme Richard and USS Ronald Reagan.”

The Sea Kings began as anti submarine aircraft. But over the years their role has changed to be a lot more versatile. The aircraft have been flying with the Australian Navy for about a third of the time the RAN has been in existence. CMDR Moggach says when the time comes to say goodbye, he and his Squadron will be sad to see the Sea Kings go.

“The Sea Kings are large, relatively agile and responsive. They have a great internal capacity and an impressive external load capacity. It all adds up to making the Sea King a versatile aircraft for its role in the Maritime environment “, CMDR Moggach said. “I’ve been flying them now for almost 19 years. They are fantastic machines.”

Sea Kings Bid Farewell to RIMPAC

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