Webmaster Welcome

Welcome to the first issue of the ALSFITT Newsletter on the web! The newsletter has not been a great success in the past with about four restarts that I can recall. Those of you that have been around for a while will remember the different versions of the newsletter over the years. There has be times when it was deemed that some material submitted for printing in the newsletter was to sensitive and accordingly they banned its inclusion. Well although this is not an official site I do request that your articles be kept on the clean side as I don't want this site banned from being viewed on intranet computers.

The idea of the newsletter is to bring news to all fellow ALSFITT's, SEW & Fabric Workers past and present. It can detail the things that are happening at your place of work and/or the social antics of your comrades around the various units. It could also detail the successes people have made since their release to the outside. Truth and accuracy should never stand in the way of a good funny yarn! I'm hoping the publishing of the newsletter on the web will be a great morale booster and hope all members look forward to its regular release. So send me your articles and I will add them to this newsletter.

Webmaster ALERT!
For security reasons this webpage has had all current events and news removed. From now on there will only be historical news and information in the web-based newsletters.

P.S. The webmaster reserves the right to edit articles of an extremely sensitive nature.

Past and/or present members, I need you to send me your articles (stories, pictures and/or graphics) if you want this newsletter to survive on the web. Any good stories will be included in the stories section of the site. Any pictures will be added to the pictures section of the site. Any information about past or present members will be amended in the member's lists area of the site. Any items for sale will be included in the products section of the site. Also if members wish to advertise their businesses I will add a link of your site in the links area of the site.

Let us know what you think and encourage everyone to check out this newsletter, it has great potential. I will try to correlate all the info I receive and keep everyone informed on the whereabouts of all ALSFITTs, SEWs & Fabric Workers past and present serving in the RAAF, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or anywhere else they may be.

The ALSFITT WEB WORM is the replacement for 'Dear Coly'. The worm is likely to pop up any where any time. If you have anything that you think the worm should know about, please tell the . All things the worm sees or hears will go in this section. Things that the worm has seen or heard recently are:

• Rumour has it that 'Barney' is trying to rejoin, it's also rumoured he will turn up at Edinburgh,
• Mick Adams has discharged without telling anyone! If anyone knows his whereabouts, let the web worm know,
• Tractor has attempted to rejoin,
• Since Pete Martyn has discharged he is surrounded by tarts and rollin' in dough, and
• Tets has spat the dummy and put in his discharge! true Tets????

The following members have discharged recently, (or soon will be);

Simon Dakin, Pete Martin, Christine Morrison, Greg Bayne, Mick Adams, Dean Brook-Rereich, Brad 'Muddy' McEwan.

Aircraft Research & Development Unit (ARDU) Life Support is currently contracted to Raytheon Systems Australia and is manned by three ex RAAF personnel, Steve Webb, Brian Lusher and Peter Crawley. The new life support facility was completed in April 2000 at a cost of $600K and is complemented by first class OH&S technology in a purpose built repair chamber for immersion suit and other repairs requiring adequate extraction and breathing air resources.

The unit is responsible for Test and Evaluation of new technologies and methodologies to aircraft in the ADF inventory. It is anticipated that the technologies and methodologies tested at ARDU of future weapon system programs will have a development and implementation timeframe of 3 to 5 years, rather than minor changes to existing projects.

Aircraft supported by the unit include the F-18 Hornet, F-111, PC-9, Hercules, Blackhawk and Iroquois. Flying clothing is maintained for thirty-five aircrew with the majority of members having both rotary and fixed wing ensembles. Aircraft survival systems are maintained to a degree with the major components being serviced at the Force Element Group.

The commodore pictured above is from the V8 Supercars that where in Adelaide for the Clipsal 500 in April this year. Driven by Mark Poole, it raced a hornet (piloted by SQNLDR Jim Wally) but unfortunately for Mark the hornet was a little to quick. V8 racing drivers, Larry Perkins and Greg Murphy both had rides in a PC9.