Australia — Shark 07 arrives at Fleet Air Arm Museum

Chief Pet­ty Offi­cer Simon Hustwit’s years of expe­ri­ence manoeu­vring a 22.15 metre heli­copter were obvi­ous when he reverse-parked Sea King Shark 07 at the Fleet Air Arm Muse­um yes­ter­day.

Sea King ‘Shark 07’ being moved into posi­tion at the Fleet Air Arm Muse­um. Source: Aus­tralian Depart­ment of Defence Click to enlarge

‘Shark 07’ arriv­ing at the Fleet Air Arm Muse­um Source: Aus­tralian Depart­ment of Defence Click to enlarge

The Sea King is the lat­est addi­tion to the Museum’s col­lec­tion and has been installed in time for East­er and school hol­i­day vis­i­tors to take enjoy the sight of the King proud­ly on dis­play between the Wes­sex and Scout helicopters. 

Shark 07 was gift­ed to the Muse­um in June 2011 in recog­ni­tion of the Sea King’s well earned place in naval avi­a­tion his­to­ry. The Sea King had over 60,000 fly­ing hours serv­ing the nation on oper­a­tions in the Mid­dle East, as well as domes­ti­cal­ly. 817 Squadron also pro­vid­ed assis­tance to many Aus­tralians, fight­ing rag­ing fires, res­cu­ing hun­dreds of peo­ple in flood rav­aged areas and con­duct­ing count­less res­cue oper­a­tions at sea. 

A lot of behind the scenes work has gone into get­ting the Sea King ready for its Muse­um debut. Sea King Logis­tics Man­ag­er Mr Kevin Beare over­saw the process and says the King is look­ing bet­ter than ever. “Many hours have gone into get­ting Shark 07 safe and suit­able for pub­lic dis­play,” Mr Beare said. “All the flu­ids have been drained out of the trans­mis­sion and hydraulic sys­tems, it’s been washed with a spe­cial clean­ing agent and pol­ished with auto­mo­tive pol­ish­es, the 817 With­draw­al Unit have done a great job”. 

For CPO Hus­twit, who was with 817 Squadron for 15 years, it was a labour of love. “I think it’s great that it’s got a place here in the Muse­um. Obvi­ous­ly it’s going to pre­serve the Sea King and some of the lega­cy of 817 for the peo­ple to come and check out and it will be also be a reminder of all that 817 achieved. I’m look­ing for­ward to bring­ing my kids here, and all the boys feel the same. We can bring them our chil­dren here to the Muse­um and show them what we’ve done and what we used to work on. We’re going to be part of history”. 

A for­mal han­dover cer­e­mo­ny for the Sea King is sched­uled for lat­er this year. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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