As a kiwi its great to see our old A4's and MB339's still flying in our very cool camo. I'm guessing being an old video they are likely not used so much anymore?
In 1983 the HMS Invincible came to New Zealand with Sea Harriers. As customary in New Zealand we sent out a welcoming party of Sky Hawks to greet them off the coast. Embarrassingly they never saw us coming or picked up us on radar. The Sea Harriers were staying on our Base Ohakea for a week or so. The Harrier Pilots found out the Harrier can be beaten by the Sky Hawk in a dog fight.
NZ should have kept the A4's and MB339's and opened our skies to our allies to train in NZ airspace. We could have also let their navies come and we could have trained against them like number 2 squadron did for Aussie. We could have used the revenue generated to fund our own small fast jet fleet while keeping our own crews and ground staff trained.
New Zealand A4s did a mock air raid on the HMS Invincible after the war in 1983. They didn't even see us coming, we were not picked up on radar and they couldn't scramble the sea harriers in time, we pounced on them.
Perhaps a slow boil project could be preparing consultancy services focused on setting up new combat air for countries like oooohhh I dont know... NEW ZEALAND. That with US draw down of forces abroad are confronted with new security realities and suddenly have an urge to incorporate fast air or even just rotary wing. Seeing as you have setup an airforce like, logistics, engineering, flight ops and personnel management architecture it might translate into that sort of scenario.
