Australian Aviation Heritage Centre, Darwin April 2016

In Darwin, in the north of Australia, is the Australian Aviation Heritage Centre: a collection of pristine and well restored airframes, that reflect the history of the RAAF. Parked outside are a number of cannibalized civil airframes. Frank visited te museum whilst traveling through Australia in April 2016.

Some background information on the aircraft depicted here: the Boeing B-52G is on loan from the USA and is one of the two that is displayed outside the United States. The Sabre (A94-914) is in fact a CAC (Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation) Avon Sabre, an improved version of the F-86F. They were in service till July 1971.The displayed Mirage IIIO (A3-36) is an aircraft that made a crashlanding in 1985 and was restored into its original glory; Mirages entered RAAF service in the early 1960s, replacing the Sabres and were in turn replaced by the F-18 Hornet in 1989. The F-111C on display (A8-113) is an aircraft that first served with the USAF (as 67-113) and was delivered to the RAAF in 1982as one of four attrition aircraft; in total the RAAF ordered  28 C-models (basically an improved version of the USAF F-111A), as a replacement for the Canberra; the last of the F-111’s (the G-model) were phased out at the end of 2010.