The New Zealand armed forces practised hitting a different sort of target yesterday — Central Otago.
The load drops from a Royal New Zealand Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules were part of Exercise Skytrain 2024, an operation involving about 125 personnel from the RNZAF and the New Zealand Army deployed to a temporary camp at Wānaka Airport since early last week.
RNZAF Wing Commander Bradley Scott, who serves as the exercise’s detachment commander, said the surrounding Central Otago landscape was perfect for a unique sort of mission training.
"Not only is the airspace relatively clear from commercial traffic ... but at the same time we get significantly mountainous terrain down here in the deep South, which doesn’t exist for us up in the North Island."
Yesterday’s exercise involved a fictitious combat scenario that required the Hercules flight crew to depart Wānaka heading south, attempting to maintain an altitude of about 250ft.
The crew made aerial payload deliveries at two separate dropzones in the area surrounding Roxburgh before landing at Alexandra Airfield for a "troop insertion" and making a quick return to Wānaka.
W Cmdr Scott said the aircraft used in the exercise, NZ7001, was the first H model to roll off the Lockheed production line in March 1965 and had been used in operations across the Pacific and the Middle East.
After 60 years of service, it is due to be retired to the Air Force Museum of New Zealand in Wigram next year.
