It is not every day you get to see an F/A-18 travel through the heart of town - on the back of a truck.
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But yesterday, a retired Hornet did just that - on its way to RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory.
The retired fast jet is set to be mounted on a platform for tourists and locals alike to enjoy from close proximity.
After more than 35 years of service, the Australian fleet of single-seat F/A-18A and two-seat F/A-18B Classic Hornets was retired in November last year.
The Hornets entered into service in 1986, with many of the nation's 17 Classic Hornets operated by 75 Squadron out of RAAF Base Tindal, adding to the importance of the base.
At Tindal's official opening ceremony in March 1989, then-Prime Minister Bob Hawke paid tribute to the man the Base was named after.
"After Pearl Harbour, with the stunning advances of the Japanese armed forces through South-East Asia and the Pacific, and with the bulk of Australia's own armies engaged in the struggle in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, Australia's vulnerability indeed, our virtual defencelessness was exposed as never before," Mr Hawke said.
On February 15, 1942, the fortress of Singapore that Australian defence planners had relied upon as principal guarantor of safety, fell to the Japanese.
Four days later, for the first time in Australian history, Australian soil was struck by an enemy as Japanese air forces attacked Darwin.
"Amidst the confusion and horror of that attack, the defenders of Darwin displayed many individual acts of heroism," Mr Hawke said.
"But perhaps none better illustrates the determination and the grit of the Australian armed forces than the actions of Wing Commander Archie Tindal.
"On the morning of 19 February, as the Darwin RAAF Base was under attack, Wing Commander Tindal manned a machine gun mounted on top of a trench, and kept up a steady rate of fire as the air strike continued.
"When he was killed by a cannon shell he became the first member of the RAAF to be killed in combat on the Australian mainland. It is in his memory, and in recognition of his courage, that the Base is named."
At the opening ceremony of RAAF Base Tindal, Mr Hawke also highlighted the importance the base would be hold into the future.
"There are many lessons to be learned from the events of 1942," He said.
"It was a dark year but the fact is that in the long months and years following that first attack on Darwin we did eventually repulse the enemy from our shores and from our region.
"We did it with the generous and courageous assistance of our allies, especially the Americans who stood shoulder to shoulder with us in the worst of the fighting.
"The grim lessons of the Second World War brought home to Australians the vulnerability of our nation to attack and external threat.
"We learnt also that Australia cannot abrogate its responsibility to provide for its own security: ultimately we Australians are responsible for our own destiny.
"That is what RAAF Base Tindal is all about.
"So with this ceremony we are marking the inauguration of one of the most important defence bases Australia has developed in many decades.
"Tindal provides tangible proof of the technological strength and the strategic orientation on which Australia's defence planning will be based into the 21st century.
"More particularly, it is concrete evidence of the key role which the RAAF will continue to play in preserving our national security in the North.
"RAAF Base Tindal is the permanent base for a squadron of F/ A-18 aircraft, a major component of Australia's Tactical Fighter Force and the most powerful operational unit in our far North."
Throughout their three decades of service, multirole fighter fleet of F/A-18s completed more than 400,000 flight hours
At their retirement, then-Defence Minister Peter Dutton said while the Classic Hornet would no longer take to our skies, the fighter and attack aircraft would 'remain in the memories of those who flew and maintained it'.
"After taking to the sky for more than 30 years, after serving our nation with great distinction for more than three decades, after being an icon of Australia's leading-edge air combat capability for a third of a century, we say farewell to the Classic Hornet - to the formidable F/A- 18," Mr Dutton said last year.
"Unquestionably, the Hornet has been an exceptional aircraft. Exceptional in its own right, but all the more exceptional because it's been crewed and cared for by exceptional people."
Former Katherine Mayor Fay Miller said it was 'great' to see a retired Hornet return to its Katherine home to be put on display.
"(I am) happy to see this come to fruition," she said.
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