Recce

Have Searchmaster Operators Been Taken for a Ride?

During the late seventies the reappeared, internationally, a specific requirement for countries to patrol their newly instituted 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zones. In Australia this was big news as it also coincided with the regular, and largely unseen, arrival of Vietnamese refugee boats. The fact that these boats could penetrate our EEZ and land at will was of grave national concern.

So what happened? The Australian government of the time laboured over whether or not to set up a military or civil coast guard operation. In the short term, RAAF P-3 Orion patrols were increased with a little help from the RAN Trackers and patrol boats while in the longer term it was decided to hand the aerial patrol responsibilities over to the Coastwatch division of the then Department of Transport Australia. Our Coastwatch operation would be civil run and there was a rush of hopeful GA and airline operators chasing what could be a lucrative contract in a rapidly decaying commercial environment. The only catch was that you had to operate GAF Searchmaster aircraft.

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