A bit of a complex issue, and I don't know the full ins and outs of it.
In partial answer to the original question, though - the CT4A as flown by
1FTS at Point Cook were state registered with an A19-XX tail number. When retired from RAAF service they were mostly put up for sale and civilian buyers had them put on the VH- register, as I remember. I don't know how much of a hassle that was, but I think they were under the warbird legislation. They went on sale for about 60 grand or so, which wasn't bad I thought!
CT4B as flown at BFTS Tamworth are civilian registered with a civvy maintenance release etc.
As noted above there have been some funny issues with respect to them vs the ones flown down at CFS in Sale, eg the BFTS military instructors needed civvy instructor and instrument ratings where the CFS guys didn't. There have been some changes to that mooted at various times but as far as I know that's still the situation.
The CFS aircraft, however, are from the same pool as Tamworth, so still VH registered machines.
Last edited by Arm out the window; 19th May 2012 at 22:09.