The Australia Desk

Grant’s holding together with cold & flu medicine long enough to get an Aus Desk recorded with Steve covering: The RAAF’s first C27J Spartan (the ‘baby Hercules’) arrives in Australia BAE Systems gets their contract with the Royal Singaporean Air Force extended until 2019 Another Qantas 747 goes into retirement

In order to prevent a Rob Mark moment on the Oz Desk, Grant has to pass Steve’s breath-a-lyzer test before he can join in reporting on: Qantas & American are teaming up on SYD-LAX route allowing Qantas to redeploy some 747-400s to the SYD-SFO route Alan Joyce joins the chorus of howls against the government’s proposed northern cabotage reductions AirNZ is going to extend the lives of their 767...

It’s the Queens Birthday long weekend here in Australia and while the boys didn’t get any recognition from Her Majesty, some of their friends & guests of Plane Crazy Down Under did as Chris Sperou & Dave Jacka both get Order of Australia Medals and Dick Smith gets upgraded to Companion of the Order of Australia . Yay! :) Meanwhile, Qantas is saying it can make the investments required to r...

The federal government are contemplating a proposal to allow foreign airlines carry domestic passengers between locations north of the Tropic of Capricorn (eg: Cairns, Darwin, Townsville, etc). So, can a reduction in cabotage restrictions in the north end lead to sabotage of domestic operations? Just for a change, the unions, the airlines and many others are all aligning to tell the government tha...

The boys are back with the sad news that the Wings Over Illawarra air show show had to be cancelled due to terrible weather. Bummer :( Deciding to go with military stories, we open with the news that RAAF KC30As are dry plugging their booms off the coast of Brisbane recently. Although no gas was passed (that’s going to happen soon) it verifies that the boom is finally all but working! Next we down...

The boys are back and only slightly embarrassed for thinking last week was the US public holiday. Ooops :) Meanwhile, the Australian government have publically given CASA parameters for the changes they want to see made (basically: CASA are to assess cost impacts & implement the Forsyth Review ). Surprisingly, Jetstar are signing on for another 10 years at Avalon airport (YMAV) and in military...

Steve and Grant traveled to South Australia this week to provide commentary at the Barossa Airshow, located at Rowland Flat in the famous Barossa Valley wine region. They’re joined by their locally based reporter, Maikha Ly, who worked as ground crew for one of the many wonderful aircraft that were present for the airshow – in this case, an 87% scale replica WWI Nieuport bi-plane. In the news, the...

Grant’s getting on his soapbox once again as it seems that CASA are proposing to increase their rates yet many of us think they should first improve their processes and provide safety cases for the services they provide. Sadly, given they’re a government department (and thus a monopoly with no competition), they have no incentive to improve. On a calmer note, we have a new RAAF DCAF (Deputy Comman...

Grant’s back from an exhausting week working on hot air balloons at Canowindra in rural New South Wales but at least he got a chance to fly one of them before he made the long drive back home. Meanwhile, Steve’s feeling relaxed after recovering from his illness last week. With the tragic news of Germanwings Flight 9525 unfolding this week, Australia joins the “ Two Crew Cockpit Rule ” club effecti...

Grant’s back from the Canberra Balloon Spectacular where he’s had a blast playing with balloons including one that’s basically a chair lift hung under a balloon envelope. Woo hoo :) Meanwhile, Melbourne has hosted the Formula 1 Grand Prix but it seems that Team Red Bull aren’t happy with F1 in general. Hey, maybe they’ll put money into more aviation events? At least the F/A-18 handling display &am...

Steve is solo this week as Grant returns from hot air balloon operations interstate and was planning to chat with a guest about the arrival of Qantas 747-400 VH-OJA into the Illawarra Regional Airport in Wollongong but unfortunately the guest had to delay due to health issues. So, instead this week we present an interview with Andre Zimmerman from Pilatus Aircraft about the development of their ne...

Avalon Airshow is over and the boys are recovering from the heat, the long distance walking and the aero-awesomeness. For this segment they chatted with Flying Officer “Guns” about the lessons learned when the RAAF took some C130Js to Exercise Red Flag at the start of this year.

It’s almost time for the Avalon Airshow and the boys are getting excited about some of the new items that will be on display, including an Airbus A400M and an RQ-4 Global Hawk that has made its first landing at a civilian airport. In other news, the date has been set for VH-OJA to make its final flight to the HARS museum at Wollongong: March 8th. Also, Air New Zealand confirms they won’t be doing...

Grant’s back (and so’s his car!) and the boys have a few aircraft stories to present, including: Qantas’ first 747-400 VH-OJA is being donated to the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) at Wollongong where the arrival is likely to be rather spectacular . Virgin Australia are closing off their New Zealand based Pacifc Blue operations. The outback’s version of The Onion newspaper has run...

Grant’s broken yet another vehicle and is stuck in Albury, NSW while the vehicle is repaired so Steve brings Ben Jones on to join the fun from Perth in West Australia. Ben & his brother recently purchased a Cessna 172 from here in Melbourne and then flew it all the way across the country back to Perth. Ben talks about buying the aircraft, the flight over, some mechanical issues and the Cessna...

It’s Australia Day and the boys are taking a few minutes out from a BBQ to record a quick OzDesk with mentions of special Australia Day items, including:The Royal Australian Navy had their new Landing Helicopter Dock HMAS Canberra on Sydney Harbour while Qantas flew an A380 over the harbour (imagine if the A380 had tried to land on it! :) ) Meanwhile, in the USA, SQNLDR Andrew “Jacko” Jackson star...

Grant’s tired after completing his CASA panel interview process for aircraft maintenance management (links to PDF file) and Steve’s hungover after a few too many red wines with the “Infrequent Flyer” himself at the Members’ Reserve in the Melbourne Cricket Ground . Oh my!!! Despite this, the boys still manage to report on: More Qantas 767s flying to the Alice Springs boneyard (where a UT-Air Anton...

The boys received sad news this week with notification of the passing of Captain Jack Curtis, an icon in the aviation scene down under, particularly in relation to DC-3s. In this week’s segment, they play Grant’s interview with Jack in November 2013 at the Warbirds Down Under event at the Temora Aviation Museum . Our friends at Aero Australia Magazine gave a good summary of Jack’s life & chara...

The boys are back for 2015 and wondering what happened to last week? Something about holidays and memos, it would appear :) In this desk we cover the WA Police Air Wing being grounded due to pilots quitting , the last flights of Qantas 767s ( well, sort of ) and regional airline SkyTrans closing the doors but in the most controlled and well managed method we’ve ever seen!

Steve & Grant are back & trying to figure out how to make an AusDesk so, naturally, Qantas is in the news with reports of a shake-up in some senior positions . After that, it’s time to re-visit the PelAir crash of 2009 as the ATSB is re-opening the case following a scathing review of the original report by the Transport Safety Board of Canada. We also take a moment to thank Pieter for his...

Back in September, the Australian National Aviation Museum at Moorabbin in Victoria, celebrated the 75th anniversary of the first flight of their CAC (Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation) Wirraway. The museum’s Wirraway (A20-10) was built in 1939 and saw service as a trainer for the RAAF for nearly two decades. We sent Anthony “The Infrequent Flyer” Simmons (Max’s favourite Australian) out to chat w...

Aside from helping explain where Jabiru comes from, the boys also give an update on CASA’s “Jabiru Consultation Draft” , discuss JetGo’s decision to not fly Sydney to Roma (before it even starts), and enjoy the fact that Brisbane West Wellcamp airport in Toowoomba has gone from bare dirt to accepting its first commercial airline operation in less time than Brisbane Airport took to negotiate who’d...

Steve & Grant bring you the Australia Sports Desk report … ooops, hang on, that’s the Australia Aviation News Desk report – sorry about that :) CASA are all but grounding aircraft with Jabiru engines due to 40 engine failures in the past year (representing about 0.03% of all Jabiru movements) The world’s longest serving commercial 747 pilot has been flying with Qantas since 1969 and will be co...

Grant’s birthday has aligned with Qantas releasing a retro livery that dates back to when he was born. He and Steve think it looks great on their latest brand new 737 ! Meanwhile, Grant’s been off flying hot air balloons and passing his biennial flight review while Jonesy’s flying his “new” Cessna home and Steve’s started a new job with the railway. It’s all “GO” at the AusDesk!

Steve talks with Rod Rakic and brings us an update on Open Airplane , a service that assists pilots who want to rent an airplane. The network now has 72 locations in the U.S. with over 250 aircraft available, now including light twins, LSA, and tail draggers. 8000 pilots have signed up.