The first locally registered Embraer Phenom 100 light jet will be on site for the public to crawl over for the first time at Avalon next week. Owned by Chris Dunphy and operated by business jet management company EliteJet, VH-PNM bears all the Phenom 100 hallmarks including customised exterior livery and interior decor, separate lavatory/powder-room behind a rigid door, and many of the features usually expected of larger corporate jets. According to Dunphy, “The Phenom 100 is a great business tool and an excellent platform for the jet co-ownership market, which is completely undeveloped in Australia,”. Click here to read our flight test of the Phenom 100.
Earlier this week that collection of Australian Post stamps commemorating the 90th anniversary of the RAAF (mentioned in ‘Week in brief February 18 2011') was launched. The release of the four stamps marks the retirement of the F-111 “Pig” after 37 years’ service. The four Air Force Aviation stamps feature the F-111 (60 cents), the F/A-18F Super Hornet (60 cents), the AEW&C Wedgetail ($1.20) and the C-17 Globemaster III ($3.00). The collectable stamps are available at participating Australia Post outlets, via mail order on 1800 331 794 and online at www.auspost.com.au/stamps. Or you can pick them up at Avalon if you’re quick.
And if you plan on being at Avalon next week, you’re almost guaranteed to find your way to the Hawker Pacific stand. We dare say you’ll see it from a mile off – it’ll be the one with the Hawker 4000 business jet, the Beechcraft King Air 350I, Bonanza G36, twin-engine Bell 429 helicopter, Bell 407 helicopter, and the Diamond DA 42 L36, DA 40 and the DA 20. Phew! That fleet of eight aircraft on static will be enough to turn anyone’s head, and personally we can’t wait to crawl over this impressive line-up.
Remember hearing about that pilot, passenger and their dog that walked away from an emergency landing in Western Sydney after their single-engine Piper suffered what was thought to be an engine failure on February 9 while en route from Ballina to Bansktown? Well, a local community newspaper is now reporting that the ATSB is investigating if the canine, a black poodle-cross named ‘Sass’, was a factor in the crash. And we thought we’d heard it all. For the record, Sass did escape from the busted-up Piper once it came to a stop and bolted to a nearby house, so he/she must be guilty… .
Leland Snow, founder and president of Air Tractor, Inc. and the inventor of modern aerial spray aircraft, passed away on Sunday February 20 at the age of 80. Snow leaves behind a 53-year legacy of aircraft design and innovations that ushered in the era of the modern aerial spray plane. Today, various Air Tractor models are used for agricultural purposes, forest and wildfire fighting, narcotic crop eradication, fuel-hauling, fighting locust plagues, and cleaning up oil spills around the globe from Canada, Mexico and Central and South America to all over Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Macedonia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Just last year the 2500th Air Tractor was delivered.
CASA has once more made visual pilot guides for Australia's five busiest GA areas available through its website. The documents, covering Archerfield, Parafield, Jandakot and both the Sydney and Melbourne basins, have been out of print while information was being updated. CASA will send you any visual pilot guides you require for free – and by ‘free’ they mean at a cost of $15 for packing and posting. The guides contain a plethora of information for pilots flying by visual flight rules, so are worth getting, but you could just download them for free here and surreptitiously print them off at work… .
The Northern Star up in northern NSW reports that the Evans Head Airpark project at Evans Head Aerodrome is shaping up to breathe new tourism life into the region. Aimed at eventually rivalling Longreach’s Stockman’s Hall of Fame and Temora’s Aviation Museum as a tourism attraction, a proposed redevelopment would see the 80-hectare site converted to include a military aviation museum, a boutique motel and convention centre, a 70-lot residential airpark precinct, commercial aviation facilities including 14 aircraft maintenance and support hangers, a wetland conservation area and camping facilities. The group behind the plans, which includes pilot and former Olympian Grant Kenny, is apparently submitting a tender for a decommissioned RAAF DH-4 Caribou to display at the museum, as well as possibly an F-111. Read the full story here.
Mahindra GippsAero’s GA8 TC Airvan has gained international recognition with a listing on the Earthrounders Website, a register of pilots who have flown around the world in light aircraft. As we reported here, Victorian pilots Ken Evers and Tim Pryse undertook the Airvan circumnavigation flight to raise funds for malaria awareness. And in considerable recognition of its many virtues, the Airvan is the very first Australian-designed and manufactured aircraft to feature on Earthrounders. Nice one!
How’s this for a daring escape? Adelaidenow.com.au reports that 49-year-old pilot Marlee Ranacher swam through a crocodile-infested river after her single-engine Cessna suffered an engine failure as she was flying low over the Victoria River in the Northern Territory. A prominent pastoralist, Ranacher had taken off from Bullo River Station, 350km southwest of Darwin. After landing on a mudflat in the middle of the river and watching her aircraft get consumed by the river, she walked about 1km before swimming about 500m and eventually being rescued by her husband. Ranacher is our new hero!
The Whitsunday Times reports that the Whitsunday Aviation Village Estate (WAVE), Australia’s first integrated residential air park, continues to expand with its latest house open for public inspection this Sunday. The newly completed house features three bedrooms, a custom built swimming pool, outdoor entertaining area, double lock-up garage and an open planned living room, but the clincher here is the fact that it’s got a hangar on site. How cool is that? For more on WAVE click here.
The debate in the US about whether to require pilot licences to include photos of their holder continues, with reports this week that the FAA’s photo proposal has drawn many negative comments and led to several advocacy groups including US AOPA, EAA, and the National Association of Flight Instructors asking for the proposal to be modified or dropped completely. According to these groups, the FAA could charge up to US$50 more for a licence with a photo and would cost pilots about US$446 million over 20 years.