Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Canadair CL-600-2B16 Challenger 604 Bizjet A37-002 Departs Australia For Good

It appears that on Sunday 1 September, the second of the three Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Canadair CL-600-2B16 Challenger 604 bizjets A37-002 departed Australia for good following 17 years of service with RAAF's VIP 34 Squadron.

File photo

A37-002 - as "Ausy 347" - was noted departing Canberra (RAAF Base Fairbairn) for Apia, Samoa, before it then continued to Honolulu, Hawaii and Burbank, California in the United States.

A37-002 (CN: 5534) was delivered to the RAAF in September 2002.  It made numerous visits to Central Queensland with its last believed to be over the weekend of Saturday 20 July and Sunday 21 July when it called into Rockhampton Airport - as pictured below.

A37-002 departs Rockhampton Airport for Canberra on its final visit to CQ  (File photo)

The RAAF's VIP 34 Squadron is replacing the three current Challenger 604 bizjets with three sleek new leased Dassault Falcon 7X bizjets, all of which have now arrived in the country from overseas.  The first, A56-001 arrived in Canberra in mid-April, A56-002 arrived at the start of June and A56-003 has just arrived at the beginning of last month (August).

A56-002 at Rockhampton Airport in mid-July  (File photo)

At this stage, we have only seen the first two of the Falcon 7X bizjets in CQ with the most recent visit being by A56-002 into Rockhampton Airport in July - as shown above.

Photos taken by ‘IAD’, Kayanne Hardsman and Trevor Hardsman  ©️