Baradine experienced a louder than usual ANZAC Day service when an air force plane buzzed the main street.
The PC-21 training bird flew about 150 metres directly above Lachlan Street from the east at precisely 11am before making a southbound pass at 90 metres altitude on its way back to Dubbo.
Baradine RSL sub-Branch secretary Brad Edwards joined in 1997 after he left the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and said he couldn’t recall any previous fly-overs in the town during ANZAC Day.
“We only really found out confirmation last week,” the former ground crew member said on 24 April.
“We feel very privileged to be given the opportunity for that to happen for Baradine.
“We’re only a little, tiny community. We’ve only got 14 members in our sub-branch.”
Former RAAF Roulettes display pilot, Squadron Leader Ben Hepworth, flew the propeller plane over a crowd of about 200 people.
The flight commander teaches the next generation of army, navy and air force pilots at RAAF Base East Sale in Victoria.
He has also flown submarine hunter and surveillance aircraft the P-3C.
During the flyovers, he had to fly a minimum 60 metres above the highest structure within 600 metres.
Mr Hepworth said that made the first pass more challenging because of a large tower in the area.
“It’s a pretty complex planning system with a lot of approvals and processes to go into it, but it’s awesome when it comes off and the weather’s nice,” Mr Hepworth said.
“We have a very advanced military planning tool.
“We’ll go and put in exact waypoints and latitudes and longitudes with accuracy down to the meter, and then we’ll map that out and load that up into the plane.