This morning, I heard a jet engine note I didn’t recognise (I live on the flight path to Perth Airport) and so I went out into my garden. The plane responsible flew over my house, and I am almost certain it was an English Electric Canberra. I 'phoned the RAAF base at Bullsbrook and asked a girl on the switchboard if I could talk to someone about the matter and she asked me what I wanted to know. I told her and she asked me if I was sure that it wasn’t a Hawk or a C-130. I told her that it wasn’t so I asked again if I could talk to someone who might know and she told me that RAAF flights were restricted information! If it was a Canberra, (there is only one air worthy Canberra on Oz) then it’s movements are unlikely to be of a secret nature. I have e-mailed Jandakot Airport and asked them if they have any knowledge of a Canberra passing them or landing there, but as yet I have received no reply. Does anyone here have any information regarding a Canberra flying in Western Australia this morning, 10th October 2013? Is there any other plane that looked like the Canberra? The engine positioning was very distinctive and unfortunately I paid more attention to that than I did the wing shape.
Why would you pester the RAAF about an aircraft type that they haven’t operated in the past 30 years or so? 
It would obviously have to be a privately owned bird (the only one in Aus apparently) so you should track down the owner and contact them.
I would normally suggest that it might be one of NASA’s WB-57s but since NASA has closed up shop recently I suppose not.
Closed up shop? Really? Hmmmm.
I would have thought that being as I was asking around would have demonstrated the fact that I know very little about the Canberra other than some of the records it has set. The fact that I live due west of the RAAF at Bullsbrook means that I see a lot of the planes leaving that base fly over my house. It was reasonable therefore to contact the RAAF base to enquire about the possibility of the one Canberra in Oz having taken off from there. Most bases of that nature have an office for public relations and the job of those in that office is to answer the questions asked by the public. For you to suggest that the WB-57 is sufficiently like the Canberra for me to mistake the two is ludicrous.
I am sure that your note has given you some kind of self satisfaction, but personally, it puzzles me how people such as yourself can gain satisfaction from responding in such a way to a perfectly reasonable question.
Call Base Operations or whoever handles the airport side of your RAAF station…someone involved in the airport operations. The “girl at the switchboard” probably had no idea what you were talking about.
And cheer the _____ up.
Or you could just assume it might be the “only flying Canberra in Australia”.
http://www.aviationmuseum.com.au/aircraft_colection/canberra/index.html
From the description page that FlyNyc provided, this interesting tidbit:
- In December 1972, it was involved in yet another incident, which resulted in the ejection of the navigator. *
Did the aircraft just toss the navigator all by itself?
What a surprise that must have been. I hope he was ok…
I’m guessing that NASA has ceased all flight operations due to the Great 2013 Guberment Shutdown. I went to check on their website but whadaya know- the whole site is offline:
“Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available.
We sincerely regret this inconvenience.
For information about available government services, visit USA.gov.”
To the OP- I was just suggesting that you contact the operator of the Australian Canberra directly instead of the RAAF which stopped flying them in 1983… it seemed like the most logical route to take. I see FlyNYC already provided a link for you to do so if you wish. Also, I suggested the NASA WB-57 since the Martin B-57 Canberra is a license built version of the English Electric Canberra that was used by the USA. NASA still uses them quite extensively and around the globe, maybe even down-under sometimes. Of course the WB-57 has a much larger wingspan than the original B-57 Canberra but you did mention that you didn’t pay much attention to the wing shape so…