Tabla de contenidos para January-February 2025 en Australian Flying

Bankstown-based AMSL Aero announced this week that they had flown their Vertiia eVTOL prototype untethered for the first time. Vertiia is a tilt-wing hybrid hydrogen-electric eVTOL powered by eight electric motors that will generate zero carbon emissions in flight. All previous flights of the prototype have been tethered flights, with the first free flight occurring in the Central-West NSW done on battery power rather than using a hydrogen cell. “Watching Vertiia take to the sky in free flight was a breathtaking experience for our incredible team of engineers and me,” said AMSL co-founder and Chief Engineer Andrew Moore. “This landmark is proof that the design we pioneered seven years ago works, and it moves us closer to our goal of improving the lives of remote, rural and regional communities in…

Both organisations, as active members of the Royal Federation of Aero Clubs of Australia, are unique but share common features, beside the royal status. They have facilities and an ambiance that make them the aviation place to be, operate flight schools alongside their flying clubs, are not-for-profits, run by passionate member-elected boards and are active in their communities promoting aviation and giving support to worthy causes. Similarly, both clubs have fleet replacement challenges, with 30- 40 year old aging fleets of Piper (RVAC) and Cessna (RACWA) aircraft, with increasing maintenance (both clubs have their own maintenance personnel) and downtime issues. The search is on for aircraft that can last the next 20 or 30 years, with an emphasis on glass cockpits, be they in new or renovated aircraft, that prepare…

I’d been following the development of Slings for about 10 years and when I passed ‘Sling Island’ I saw Linda Sollis sitting in her high wing (HW) Sling 4 chatting to people. She’d flown in from Michigan the day before, where she’d had the original Rotax 915 engine replaced with a 160 hp turbocharged fuel-injected Rotax 916. Two years earlier, Linda had personally flown the HW from the Sling Factory in South Africa to Oshkosh in 2022, nine months after she’d commenced a full self-build of the aircraft at the Sling factory near Johannesburg. Her amazing story goes way, way further back than that. I was so intrigued by our five minute chat that I arranged to sit down with her for a one on one in depth interview the…

In 1990, while some members of the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) were in Tucson, Arizona collecting Neptune spares, they stumbled upon a derelict Lockheed Super Constellation. What started as a fleeting, almost whimsical idea soon led to serious negotiations for its acquisition. In November 1991, HARS embarked on what would become a major project. Entrusted with the aircraft, HARS committed to restoring it to a high standard of serviceability, relying entirely on volunteer labour. Restoration work began in May 1992. VH-EAG ‘Southern Preservation’ is the military version of the Super Constellation and is affectionately known as ‘Connie’. Having served its entire working life in the US Military, Connie was retired from active service in 1977 and placed in storage in Tucson, Arizona. New Super Constellations operated the first Qantas…

The $10 million commitment from the profit-for-purpose organisation was made possible thanks to Mounties Group’s 250,000+ members, bringing the organisation’s commitment to a total of $18.7 million. At the centre of the five-year sponsorship extension is the continued operation of the Mounties Care CareFlight Helicopter, a state-of-the-art Airbus H145 helicopter, which last year flew to and assisted in the rescue of more than 250 patients. In addition to the Mounties Care CareFlight Rapid Response Helicopter, the sponsorship supports the Northern NSW Patient Transportation Service, which uses eight patient transportation vehicles and three B200 King Air fixed-wing aircraft; NSW-based Community Education, including CareFlight ‘Trauma Care’ and ‘Sick and Injured Kids in the Bush’ workshops; and, Crash Car Simulators, a community engagement helicopter simulator based at CareFlight’s Westmead location, supporting CareFlight’s life-saving…

Time passes rapidly, and it has been twenty years since an Airshow has been held at Mildura Airport, Victoria. After much planning and organisation, on the 8th of September 2024, the Mildura Aishow came into fruition. The show was opened patriotically with Paul “Poo” Smith, a skydiver with an Australian flag tethered below, dropping out of Wendy Wills’ Aerospatiale Gazelle helicopter. The spectators were treated with various RAAF participants, including the full team of Roulettes in their PC-21’s; a visiting C-27J Spartan; and a B300 King Air from East Sale. Paul Bennet and his team provided the crowd with various formidable aerobatic handling displays in multiple platforms including: The Wolfpitts Pro (Paul Bennet); Edge 540 (Glen Graham); The Grumman Avenger (Matt Henderson); Curtiss Kittyhawk; Supermarine Spitfire; CA-15 Wirraway; and Paul’s…

Whether you’re a bloke in your 30s considering a career change, or a young woman fresh out of high school with stars in your eyes, that dream of commanding a Boeing 787 or designing cutting-edge aerospace technology comes with a sobering price tag. Let’s not sugarcoat it: becoming a commercial pilot or aircraft engineer down under is as expensive as it is challenging. For aspiring pilots, male or female, that coveted commercial license will set you back a staggering AUD $130,000 or more. That’s a 30% increase over the last decade, more than enough to make anyone’s eyes water. But the costs don’t stop there. The aviation industry is grappling with rising operational costs across the board and these increases are trickling down to affect even the smallest players in…

When George Morgan was summoned to Mahindra Aerospace in Melbourne he didn’t really understand what was about to go down. He had done the journey from Latrobe Valley often enough, but this time was going to be different. Mahindra had a “simple” proposition for him: Would he like to buy back GippsAero? That set him thinking. The co-founder of GippsAero, manufacturer of the iconic GA8 Airvan, had sold a controlling interest to the Indian Mahindra conglomerate in 2010, which eventually obtained 100% of George Morgan and Peter Furlong’s company. If Morgan opted to re-acquire the company, it would bring an end to a frustrating and angstridden chapter in Australian aviation history. The investment in time and money would be substantial and success never guaranteed. The only real answer Morgan could…

Here at CASA, we’ve been working on a domestic and international level to make sure we’re prepared for the changes that are already starting to sweep through the global aviation community. From sustainable aviation fuel to electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, these are changes that will eventually affect everybody from sports and recreational flyers to general aviation and airlines. They cover not just the introduction of emerging technologies in new aircraft types and the retrofitting of more conventional designs, but areas such as flight crew licensing, training and maintenance. We’ve seen how the dramatic growth of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) has created new business models as well as making inroads into legacy aerial work. Rapid change is one of the reasons we have refreshed our RPAS and…

General aviation has been through years of neglect from the regulators, successive governments, and–it must be said–the industry itself. We've long known of the challenges, but ineffective advocacy butted up against unwilling bureaucracy to ensure stagnation. And that advocacy was ineffective in no small part due to a divided industry intent on pursuing self-interest. But since the General Aviation Advisory Network (GAAN) emerged from the ruins of the General Aviation Advisory Group in 2019, a level of cohesion has crept into GA advocacy, demonstrated effectively in the 2021 and 2023 strategy papers. The 2023 version was wrapped up in secrecy so that it didn't steal the thunder of the Aviation White Paper, and was finally published in October 2024, 10 months after it was handed to the minister. However, it’s…

Regional Aviation Association of Australia (RAAA) CEO Rob Walker has expressed his organisation’s concerns over the south-east VFR corridor proposed for Bankstown. The concerns were contained in an RAAA submission to CASA’s Office of Airspace Regulation made on 22 October this year. The proposal envisages an outbound lane running from Revesby Station to Casuarina Oval and Woronora Cemetery, and an inbound lane from Engadine to Ridge Golf Course, Sandy Point Mine and Brighton Lakes Golf Club, with Class C airspace overlying at 1500 feet. “The RAAA has concerns that the proposed altitude (surface to 1500 ft above mean sea level) and the narrowing of the corridor near waypoints SPTM [Sandy Point Mine] and CASO [Casuarina Oval] may have a negative impact on safe operations due to the potential high air…

Boulia is in far western Queensland, Australia. Traditionally, it is the land of the Pitta Pitta people, who have lived in the region for thousands of years before European settlement. Today, it is cattle farming country, where 50,000 hectares would be classed as a small farm. The summer daytime temperature averages more than 45° C, and the annual rainfall is just 250 mm. It’s remote, hot and dry, so unsurprisingly, only 458 people live there. At race time, the population swells to more than 4,000 people as grey nomads from around the country arrive to join in the fun. The first camel came to Australia in 1840. It was the sole survivor to arrive in South Australia from a herd intended to provide overland transport. Unfortunately, even this camel didn’t…

I couldn’t say I was comfortable with this. Here I was sitting in the left seat, the safety of the journey completely my responsibility, and rain was splattering the windscreen with increasing force. Visibility was getting close to zero. My only comfort was that I was not in an aeroplane, but driving a Mercedes Benz down a Slovenian motorway on my way to Pipistrel Italia. Regardless, the weather wasn’t instilling any confidence that I was going to get air under my backside once I got there. My task that day in September was to test-fly Pipistrel’s two certified aircraft: the Velis Electro–the only type-certified electric aircraft in the world–and the Rotax-powered Explorer, a CS-LSA certified version of the Virus SW. And although the fickle weather spilling off the brooding Julian…

Dassault Aviation, the renowned French aerospace giant, has a strong reputation and undeniable class in designing top-tier business jets, and fighter jets, for that matter. Yet, the Falcon 6X seems to take things to a whole new level. Because, in short, it’s stunning, possessing an undeniable “je ne sais quoi” – but we’ll have a crack! From its striking appearance to its excellent performance, and peerless passenger comfort, the Falcon 6X was destined to turn a few heads when the elegant, twin-engine business jet entered service in late November 2023, after receiving simultaneous type certification from the FAA and EASA on August 22, 2023. Since then, this fine French business jet has gone on to embellish the fleets of a number of contented, globally recognised private jet charter & aircraft…

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This short article is based around pilot (and instructor) radio use in airspace that has a CTAF. TL; DR? You’re using a scarce resource, think before you speak. This doesn’t mean “don’t speak”, it means “think first”. There’s a lot of garbage on CTAFs. If you’re an IFR pilot, it’s time to KISS. If you go broadcasting that you’re departing on the 135 radial or arriving on the Charlie November Tango STAR, you are not helping. You know what the VFR guys know about that? NOTHING! “One Zero miles north at 3500, inbound”, “departing to the southeast”, USEFUL! You win the “I know more than you” contest, but you are not helping anyone by tossing in IFR stuff. Really. There’s also people skirting along the edge of “in the vicinity”,…

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Safeskies 2024 conference, an event spearheaded by a keynote speech from the formidable Former Major General Jeannie M. Leavitt, Chief of Safety at the United States Air Force and its first female fighter pilot. A diverse range of highly accomplished, successful female aviation leaders also contributed to an inspiring and thought-provoking two-day event. The conference concluded with a panel of twelve heads of aviation associations or similar organisations, each presenting their sector’s dominant safety challenges. I played my small part in the proceedings, joining friends and associates from across the aviation spectrum. Expertly moderated by Greg Hood AO, the panel raised a range of topics. There were the expected common threads - labour shortages, integration of emerging technology aircraft into controlled airspace,…