Innholdsfortegnelse for January - February 2023 i Australian Flying

From humble beginnings, in the 1970s, when founder Ron Loccisano purchased a fleet of aircraft, including single and multi-engine pistons and twin turboprops, to provide regional towns across eastern Australia with a daily airfreight service, the company has always taken the long-term view, and invested for the future. In 2004, Ron and his son Michael, who later became the CEO, built on their deep market knowledge, and strong manufacturer relationships, to establish Airitalia, offering aircraft sales, parts, technical support, and advice, servicing clients across Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific. Most of the aircraft sold are still flying today, in multi-engine and IFR training, charter, freight, transport, survey, photography, observer, rescue, and other roles. Says Michael Loccisano, “We are pilots first and businesspeople too, so understand the importance of…

The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communication and The Arts sponsored an aviation industry careers day for high school students in the lead up to Wings over Illawarra Airshow last year, which attendees have labeled a huge success. Around 1300 school students, from Sydney and the southern coast region, mostly arrived in buses to take part in the event held on Friday 11 November, and were treated to an immersive aviation experience. The students were given VIP-style access to interact with many aspects of general aviation, including modern and vintage aircraft, airport management, warbird restoration, aircraft museum operations, drones, jump piloting, and engineering and maintenance. Students were also treated to a variety of air show practice runs, including the Super Constellation and a Paul Bennet Pitts display. Exhibitors registering…

Alice Springs operator Northern Territory Air Services (NTAS) has signed a Letter of Intent for 20 Eviation Alice electric commuter aircraft. The Eviation Alice is an FAR23 twin powered by two magniX magni650 electric motors putting out 700 kW (940 hp) each, with a range of 250 nm and a max speed of 260 KTAS. The aircraft has been designed for zero carbon emissions. NTAS currently runs charter, scenic and shorthaul RPT operations from Alice Springs using traditional legacy twins and 200-series Cessnas. “Australia is recognized around the world for its breathtaking scenery and adopting carbonfree technologies is fundamental to preserving the environment for future generations,” said NTAS CEO Ian Scheyer. “Eviation’s all-electric Alice aircraft provides us with the opportunity to chart a sustainable path forward in connecting communities across…

You could put up a good argument that the aviation industry was turning out perfectly good commercial pilots before academia got involved and changed everything. For absolute sure, the quality was up to scratch, but constant fears of pilot shortages showed that perhaps the quantity was not. Enter the tertiary education institutions; universities, TAFE colleges and Registered Training Organisations (RTO), with the pulling power and government funding to find and train pilot candidates en masse, often with the backing of the major airlines. Courses were defined; skills assigned module numbers. Students came in numbers. But the ultimate decision of who is and isn’t a commercial pilot lies with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the flight examiners that test CPL candidates. Regardless of whether or not the student has…

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE 40%! Spoil yourself or a loved one this Christmas with a subscription to Australian Flying and never miss the latest aviation news, tips and reviews. ONLY $34 NORMALLY $57 (PRINT + DIGITAL) WHY SUBSCRIBE? • ONLY $34 for 6 issues (print + digital) • SAVE 40% off the subscription price! • FREE delivery to your door • NEVER miss an issue! ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? Simply extend your subscription to take advantage of this offer. TO SUBSCRIBE OR RENEW visit www.greatmagazines.com.au/christmas or CALL 1800 807 760 & QUOTE ADV/XM22 Conditions: These offers are open to new and current subscribers with an Australian postal address. Offers expire 31st January, 2023. The publishing frequency of the magazines vary so you may wait up to 12 weeks for delivery of your…

The east coast of Australia has experienced some of the largest rainfalls seen in many years, thanks to a La Niña event which transports high levels of moisture from the ocean into the atmosphere which intern turns into rain. With Flooding events in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania local helicopter operators have tasked by local emergency agencies to bring on their contracted and non-contracted machines to assist with the transport, logistics and even flood evaluation and rescues needed by the communities affected. This urgent need for airlift has seen many companies across the states and territories bring online types which would normally have been getting ready for their fire contract work being deployed on other operations much earlier than expected. The high tempo of operations has seen operators…

It’s always a thrill to be asked by Australian Flying’s Editor, Steve Hitchen, to write an article for the next edition. However, it’s also difficult to decide on what to write. In this column, A Spot of Recreation, I’ve tended to talk about how it is we do what we do, why, and the excitement of it. This time, after speaking with Steve, I’ve decided to take it in a slightly different direction and share some of my thoughts on those that have enabled the growth of recreational aviation in Australia and beyond because, without them, columns such as this wouldn’t be possible. I recently attended the Australian Aviation Hall of Fame (AAHOF) awards at Shellharbour Airport and what an evening it was. It was the who’s who of our industry…

The Regional Aviation Association of Australia (RAAA) in October released a seven-point plan to tackle the crippling shortage of maintenance engineers in the aviation industry. Since training for engineers changed from CAR 31 to CASR Part 66 regulations in 2011, new entrants in the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) industry have dropped significantly, which the RAAA attributes to confusion about training pathways and barriers to qualification. RAAA CEO Steve Campbell said the paper focused on shortand long-term solutions to address engineer shortages, and that the recommendations are very achievable. “Our hope is that our industry does not have to wait for an aviation white paper process, which will take years, before the government focuses on solutions such as the ones we are proposing,” Campbell said. “We value the white paper…

Living your life to the fullest is one thing; living your aviation life to the fullest is another. We all know the truth, we are so blessed to do what we do, but we won’t be able to do this forever. Perhaps your medical isn’t renewed, or you simply can’t follow a checklist anymore and you know it’s time. Sure, there are other things in life, but in the meantime, there’s far too much fun to be had in the air. 1 Maralinga Tjarutja There are thousands of seriously scenic places to fly into or over in Australia, but that particular best flying list has been written just as many times. Why not somewhere that pilots don’t put on their pretty list? Somewhere with a dark, interesting history worth finding…

If you hang around airfields, and especially those inhabited by seasoned pilots and instructors, you will have heard many memorable, some funny, and some completely inappropriate sayings and adages. It’s time to take a look behind the adages, and reveal the wisdom they contain. In your own good time “Time to spare, go by air.” This expression is particularly appropriate in general aviation, especially for VFR pilots. And with what seems like years of La Niña weather in Australia, the frustration of not having blue skies on the weekends is widespread. Planned journeys by light aircraft have been delayed by floods, low cloud, strong winds, smoke, COVID, and even runway repairs. Believe it or not, the word “get-there-itis” is now starting to appear in dictionaries, and a typical definition is…

The lifting of COVID restrictions and a full agenda kept CASA busy in 2022 and we’ll be keeping the throttles open as we move through 2023. Major 2022 milestones included the release of our RPAS and Advanced Air Mobility Strategic Regulatory Roadmap and our General Aviation (GA) Workplan. We made progress on defining future strategies and we recently released Australia’s first draft advisory circular on guidelines for the design of vertiports. We also continued to bed down the flight operations suite that came into effect late in 2021 and transitioned most of Australia’s previously registered aerodromes to Part 139 certified aerodromes. At the time of writing, we had delivered six of our GA Workplan initiatives with at least one more to come before the end of the year. These initiatives…

A national aviation academy for training aircraft engineers is needed to remove inconsistency and disparity between each state and territory on the way that engineers are trained and the training is funded. This problem started in 2011 when the Certificate IV in Aeroskills and Diploma in Aeroskills replaced and the previous CASA basic exam model. It wasn't well understood or communicated, so aspiring aircraft engineers completed a Certificate IV in Aeroskills as instructed, but they weren't aware that to attain an aircraft engineer licence (LAME), they had to complete the diploma with a CASR Part 147 registered training organisation (RTO). Additionally, the funding is the responsibility of the individual states and territories which has led to inconsistency. So those from the first four cohorts that came out with the Certificate…

Angus Mitchell, Chief Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) was not pleased to have to announce the conclusion of an investigation into the crash of a B206 Long Ranger in the Kosciuzko National Park. Here was another instance of a VFR pilot continuing flight into non-visual conditions. It had cost the lives of two people and destroyed the helicopter. Just 30 minutes earlier, the aircraft had been safe on the ground after the pilot made an precautionary landing due to low cloud in the Brindabella Ranges. Then a decision was made to continue the flight into marginal conditions that proved impossible to penetrate. It’s a sad, tragic story, and one that is beginning to become far too familiar. In April 2021 the pilot of an RV-7A died after…

In late October the Australian Aviation Hall of Fame (AAHOF) held the first induction dinner in their own space at Shellharbour Airport. The 2022 dinner was the first held since the coronavirus outbreak, and AAHOF president Steve Padgett said it was a good feeling to finally hold an induction event. “After two years of canceling the event, we finally got around to getting the inductions done,” he said. “It was a difficult one because we were also completing our new home with the stories and images, and the weather was terrible. “But about 160 people turned up and it was a great night upstairs in our own dedicated area.” AAHOF is now colocated with the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) at Shellharbour Airport after many years of holding the dinner…

Diamond Aircraft’s goal for the single-engined DA50 RG retractable was simply to build the world’s safest and most efficient general aviation aircraft. Like a top wine or cheese, the best things take time. The aircraft had a long gestation, with multiple engines, avionics, and configurations considered. The opportunity to test fly this big European single was four years in the making. The trip to the head office, in Wiener Neustadt, Austria, proved to be well worth the wait. The DA50 landed as a modern T-tail with advanced technology; passive and active safety features, five seats, four-doors and retractable undercarriage. It has a Continental CD-300, 300-hp V6 diesel engine. Things like single-position, crash resistant seats (the pedals move instead), 26-g roll bar double-shielded metal fuel tanks with steel braided fuel lines…

Almost everyone reading this article will remember life before mobile devices; that there was once a time when we weren’t tethered to recharging, updating and replacing devices. Instead, our pilot lives involved multiple trips to pilot shops where we would buy reams of paper in various forms: maps, ERSA, AIP and so forth. Ten years ago, if you wanted to fly around Australia, you would have to purchase a WAC pack, which would cost over $500. Many of us would give over a whole Sunday afternoon to updating our AIP supplements and outdated maps made excellent wrapping paper. Twelve years ago, with the invention of the iPad, everything changed. Around the world, software engineers who were also pilots simultaneously developed the electronic flight bag. “As soon as I saw the…

Aficionados of home flight simulators are straining at the leash to get their hands on the new X-Plane 12. At the time of writing, the full package had not yet been released, but was due to be available in the early days of December 2022. Developers Laminar Research took a different tack with this latest version, releasing an Early Access version to leverage the experience and input of users to disinfest the final version of bugs before it went live. X-Plane 12 comes nearly two years after Microsoft returned to the market with the trumpeted release of Flight Simulator 2020. An amazing platform with stunning graphics, it blew the minds of those using it for the first time. However, it had more bugs than a Moreton Bay backpackers, and would…

At the time of writing, the NBAA’s Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition (NBAA-BACE) has just concluded in Orlando, Florida. After ongoing pandemicrelated cancelations and disruptions, the international business aviation community returned en masse to the event that featured almost 1000 exhibitors showcasing emerging technologies, the latest business jet releases and the best new products and services for the business aviation industry. NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen summed up the event as “a stirring celebration of business aviation’s proud history, but even more thrilling, it was a look into our promising future,” stating that the show demonstrated how “the future will be shaped by safety, security, sustainability, talent development and innovation.” With a focus on looking forward and shaping the industry of the future, several key challenges emerged. Addressing these…