Doomscrolling the world of Facebook one idle day, I saw images of 2 A-4K Sims in Florida, I immediately (without consultation with my dear, and long suffering wife) messaged the original poster, saying that if he ever wanted to part with one of the Sims I was *very* keen. He said that no, he had plans for them.
Fast forward a few weeks, and I get a message saying that he was keen to part with one of the Sims, the ‘less complete one’ for an amount. I immediately (again) went home and *told* my wife I was buying it…. And bless her, she doesn’t even try to talk me out of it! I had a grand plan where I would sell my beloved motorcycle to fund it, that’s how excited I was…
The deal was done, and conveniently we were about to ship a container from the States back to NZ for work, which would keep the shipping expenses under control!
Just before the pickup date I get *another* message from the seller offering the second Sim, the almost complete one, at a discounted price if I took both.. That was way beyond my means, sadly. I approached another Skyhawk fan who took the offer, and the deal to ship both HotShot Sims back to NZ was done!
And that, dear readers is the story of how we managed to return 2 historic A-4k Combat Tactics Trainers to New Zealand!
The second Sim is now up and running at Pukaki Airfield, while mine is awaiting some restoration and conversion to run P3D.
Just after delivery, unwrapped and exploring exactly what I’d just bought!
The Ejection Seat is real, out of an A-7, but similar to the A-4 seat. The original Sims had fibreglass seats.
Lots of old tech in here, given that they were built in the early 1990’s, CRT screens for the DU’s and RWR, and lots of nice mil-spec switches. This is going to be a long-term project, starting with restoration of the shell which is showing the bumps and bruises of being shipped across the globe.