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Issue 111: October 1995
Death of the Nomad
The recent decision by Defence Minister, Senator Robert Ray to withdraw the GAF Nomad from Australian Defence Force service pretty well signals the final nail in the coffin for this much maligned aircraft. The bagging that the Nomad has always attracted from our military and the very one-sided report on the ABC’s 4 Corners programme in early September have combined to ensure that the four dozen or so Nomads remaining in civil service indeed have a heavy PR cross to bear.
The Nomad programme is nothing less than a national tragedy. It is a monument to political and bureaucratic indifference and a perfect living example of how not to run a commercial aircraft programme. Conceived in the late sixties essentially as a make-work programme to keep GAF busy after Mirage production ceased, the aircraft went from a single-engine design to a twin with almost unheard of STOL performance. However, the constantly changing of spec from so many different parties of influence eventually produced the aircraft we know today and wasted much money that could have been wisely used in producing a better design in the first place. Sort of like a public service committee designing a racehorse and coming up with the fabled camel.
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