Gate guardian

A gate guardian or gate guard is a withdrawn piece of equipment, often an aircraft, armoured vehicle, artillery piece, or locomotive, mounted on a plinth and used as a static display near to and forming a symbolic display of "guarding" the main entrance to a site, especially a military base.

[1][2] Commonly, gate guardians outside airbases are decommissioned examples of aircraft that were once based there, or still are.

These are usually artillery pieces such as 25 pounders and 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns, but the RSL club at Mulwala has a Douglas Dakota transport aircraft and Dandenong RSL club has a Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter.

Several aircraft are on display at the gate of RAAF Base Wagga, as part of a small adjacent museum.

RAAF Base Darwin has two Bristol Bloodhound surface-to-air missiles as gate guardians.