Avalon 2015 is over. My tired old bones say "hooray" but my heart and mind say "damn it!" This year was perhaps one of the more unusual outcomes for the air show. Feedback indicates many in the crowd didn't see anything new in the sky, which is curious given the presence of the WWI replicas that were on display here for the first time. Maybe some of the punters went on the Sunday only, when the WWI stuff didn't get airborne due to a dubious decision over runway safety. In the Good News column, general aviation companies were mostly very happy, with one manufacturer remarking that this year people seemed to come prepared to spend money. It would seem the volume was down but the quality was up.
Australian Flying and the Australian Division of the Royal Aeronautical Society are chuffed to have Aeromil Pacific principal Steve Padgett joining us on the judging panel for the 2015 Wings Awards. Steve knows his way around aviation and aeroplanes perhaps more than most in the aviation community, so he's well qualified to adjudicate on the award nominations. Great news all around.
Even though his skills weren't on display at Avalon for the first time in countless years, Matt Hall was kept busy enough on the QBE Insurance stand talking airmanship. It's one of his favourite topics and he relished the contact with so many of the general public. I managed to button-hole him for a chat about his close second-place in the first round of the Red Bull Air Race series in Abu Dhabi and what it means going into the second round in Chiba, Japan. It seems everything is lining up for his first race win there: his performance, the plane's performance and no jet lag. Roll on 30-31 May!
At Avalon the new OneSKY air traffic management system took another step towards reality when Thales was announced as technology partner with Airservices and the RAAF. The system will be used by both sets of controllers, which probably won't mean a lot to GA; many pilots out there probably didn't know the military and civil systems were different anyway. However, OneSKY will replace TAAATS, which is getting a bit old now, and has had over 200 modifications over the years, so it was probably due for retirement. GA, particularly IFR, should benefit from more efficient sequencing.
The Flying Doctor seems to have started a love affair with the still-to-be-certified Pilatus PC-24 jet. They've ordered another one and optioned a third for ops in SA and the NT. If the PC-24 lives up to the spec sheet, these will cut hours off transfer times for patients. Aeromedical transfer by jet is nothing new, but it seems the RFDS may have been waiting for the right one to come along.
B747-438 VH-OJA - weather permitting - will land at Wollongong on Sunday at 0747. There are absolutely no losers from this. Qantas has donated the aircraft to the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society to be preserved for public display. This is the second time they've done this: VH-EBA was flown into Longreach several years ago and left there. There'll be plenty of opportunity for people to greet OJA on Sunday morning, and if you're there and capture some images or video, we'd like you to send them to us so we can share this event with the rest of the aviation community.
Since pilot Tony Taggart won his long-fought battle to get his medical back, the Australian Flying office has been flooded with other pilots fighting similar battles. The reams of paper coming in all tell a similar tale: AVMED seems to be making decisions that over-ride expert medical opinions. Another is that even if all the AVMED requirements are met or exceeded, there is no guarantee of a medical being returned. AVMED sets the hurdles, the applicant jumps all the hurdles, AVMED still doesn't declare them the winner of the steeplechase. It is hoped DAS Skidmore can get this sorted and restore some respectibility to AVMED process before the whole department goes down the drain.
May your gauges always be in the green (not amber),
Hitch