It amuses (read: peeves me severely) me that all the articles say that "pilots and engineers are included in the deal". Where the hell are they getting these pilots and maintainers from?? Perhaps the NZ government does actually think of their military personnel as just depreciating assets that can be on-sold at their whim.
There is only 1 current A4 pilot in the RNZAF - a friend who is on a reserve contract to fly for 1 week a month.
Whoever actually buys the A4s, is getting them for a third of their value, so why not chuck in a few pilots as well. So what are they going to do? Demand that all of the lads return from their new jobs around the world, so that Helen can sweeten the deal a bit. We wouldn't want to have any say in our futures anyway.
Ha ha & b*gger off.
Just before we left, it was amazing how quickly the books were re-written to say that in spite of enlisting on a 20 year contract, it actually didn't mean anything, so no we weren't entitled to redundancy.
(Although the RNZAF did release us from our ROSO)