Australia — Vietnam War Helicopters to get new homes

Min­is­ter for Defence Materiel Jason Clare today released the Request for Offer (RFO) for six Iro­quois heli­copters reserved for sale to his­tor­i­cal organ­i­sa­tions.

From today his­tor­i­cal organ­i­sa­tions will be able to apply for one of six Iro­quois Heli­copters for sta­t­ic display. 

Pri­or­i­ty will be giv­en to his­tor­i­cal organ­i­sa­tions in Aus­tralia that have strong his­toric con­nec­tions with the aircraft. 

“The Iro­quois heli­copters — affec­tion­ate­ly known as Hueys — served the Aus­tralian Defence Force for near­ly half a cen­tu­ry and fea­tured promi­nent­ly in the Bat­tle of Long Tan dur­ing the Viet­nam War,” Mr Clare said. 

“They also assist­ed in many peace­keep­ing and human­i­tar­i­an missions. 

“Their final deploy­ment was to Suma­tra in Indone­sia to pro­vide assis­tance fol­low­ing the 2004 Box­ing Day Tsuna­mi,” Mr Clare said. 

“The heli­copters flew from dawn till last light every­day, deliv­er­ing food, water, med­ical sup­plies and aid work­ers to affect­ed areas. They com­plet­ed approx­i­mate­ly 300 mis­sions, evac­u­at­ed close to 500 peo­ple and deliv­ered 150 tonnes of vital supplies.” 

Iro­quois heli­copters were with­drawn from ser­vice in Decem­ber 2007. 

“It is impor­tant that we pre­serve these heli­copters to ensure their con­tri­bu­tion to our mil­i­tary his­to­ry is not for­got­ten,” Mr Clare said. 

Eleven Iro­quois heli­copters have already been allo­cat­ed to Defence bases around Aus­tralia and one to the Aus­tralian War Memo­r­i­al in Can­ber­ra for sta­t­ic display. 

Anoth­er five Iro­quois heli­copters will be kept by the Aus­tralian Defence Force as train­ing aids and anoth­er two have been offered for sale to nation­al returned ser­vice organisations. 

Organ­i­sa­tions dis­play­ing the Iro­quois Heli­copters will be sub­ject to the approval of the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment, under their Inter­na­tion­al Traf­fic in Arms Reg­u­la­tions .

The heli­copters will need to be demil­i­tarised at a cost of up to $10,000 per air­craft. The cost of this work, and oth­er costs asso­ci­at­ed with prepar­ing the dis­play will be the respon­si­bil­i­ty of recipients. 

RFO doc­u­men­ta­tion will short­ly be avail­able for down­load after reg­is­ter­ing on the AUSTENDER web­site www.tenders.gov.au cit­ing ref­er­ence DMOFD/RFO117/2011.

The ten­der will close on 27 Jan­u­ary 2012. 

Queries relat­ing to access­ing the RFO doc­u­ments can be brought to the atten­tion of the AUSTENDER helpdesk on phone: 1300 651 698; Inter­na­tion­al: +61 2 6215 1558, or by email: tenders@finance.gov.au

Queries relat­ing to the sale process or the equip­ment avail­able for sale can be brought to the atten­tion of the Defence Dis­pos­als Agency by phone +61 2 9393 2914, or by email: disposals@defence.gov.au .

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

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