We’re Australia’s Premier Aviation Podcast
Plane Crazy Down Under has been producing content online since July 2009. The goal of the show is to boost awareness of aviation within the Australia/Pacific region and spread the message to people that flying is fun and achievable. We have built a solid reputation for providing a professional yet relaxed show and our audience is growing steadily.
Each episode usually lasts between 60 to 120 minutes and while some have featured one important interview or discussion, most have multiple segments. Guests on the podcast have included a number of pilots from all aspects of aviation as well as analysts, air traffic controllers, adventurers, business owners and museum staff. Topics and areas covered in the podcast so far range from hot air balloons, recreational flying, warbirds & sport aerobatics through to charter operations, airlines and the military.
Some of our special guests have included Matt Hall, Nigel Lamb, Owen Zupp, Jim Whalley, Ben Sandilands & Saj Ahmad. We have also produced special themed episodes covering a single specific topic including Air Traffic Controller training, a B24 bomber restoration project, our Perth Red Bull Air Race coverage and flying in & over Antarctica.
We typically produce an episode about every 1.5 – 2 weeks and each episode is downloaded or listened to from the site by well over 600 people while the more popular episodes exceed 900 downloads each. Our audience is made up of aviation professionals, enthusiasts and the general public. They are primarily located in Australia & New Zealand (about 75%) the USA & Canada (about 20%) and the balance are from the UK, Asia and other areas.
To learn more about the show, come to www.planecrazydownunder.com where you can listen to episodes, subscribe to our iTunes feed and join our audience with episode comments and postings on our forum.
Steve Visscher
A self confessed podcast junkie and lapsed pilot wth a range of ratings in Australia & the United States, Steve currently drives trains for a living and dreams of getting back in the air again just as soon as life stops putting road blocks in his way. He’s studied freelance journalism (but never finished) and is also a firefighter with the Country Fire Authority in his “spare” time. He often admits to spending far more time than he should fiddling with computers & other “geek” gadgets, and his “leet mixing skillz” are stretched to the max as he works hard to ensure we sound as coherent, intelligent and witty as possible with each episode.
Steve can be found at his Aus Flier blog and on Twitter as SteveVisscher.
Grant McHerron (aka Falcon124)
Grant works as part-time ground crew for commercial hot air balloon operations when he’s not doing IT project management. A perpetual student pilot, Grant has tried a couple of times to get his fixed wing license, his glider pilot’s license and, currently, his balloon license. Each time he gets further into his training, something else comes up and he either relocates around the world or watches his flying money disappear into other causes. Finally being able to link his IT geek with his Aviation Geek, Grant looks after the web site, arranges interviews and generally causes cheeky mischief.
Grant can be found at his Fly Me Friendly blog & associated website as well as on Twitter as Falcon124. He also runs the Experience This! blog, the commercial voice of the Flight Experience Melbourne 737 simulator.
David M Vanderhoof – Historian
Skyhawks, Canberras, Boomerangs, oh my! What’s an American doing on an Aussie Podcast? Answer: Steve and Grant asked. The rest is (for) history!
David is a trained historian who grew up around military and civilian aircraft. With a Pacific War Veteran Father, David has always had an interest in all things South Pacific. Growing up it was A-4G’s and DHC-4 Caribous, the Aussies put their Kangaroos on cool aircraft. (And he knows the rat always stands on the fuselage) Ok it’s really about the Scooters: Kiwi’s, Indonesian’s, Malaysian and Singapore’s.
David started writing for the Airplane Geeks, as their Historian-in-Residence. So it was natural to “Code Share” for the Australia Desk / Plane Crazy Down Under. David is finally getting to do what he always wanted to do, write and talk airplanes. David is an avid plastic modeler and reader. You will always find him paging through books looking up some obscure thing, “geeking” out on the latest Sci-Fi, or “chatting” it up with his new blokes 15,000 Km away.
David can be found at his blog “What Just Flew By?”, as @DMVanderhoof on Twitter and of course weekly on The Airplane Geeks Podcast and here on PCDU in our Aviation History segment.
Anthony Simmons
As a self confessed neophyte, Anthony hasn’t let blind ignorance get in the way of making uninformed comments about the aviation industry. Now a train driver after serving a 13 year sentence for crimes against office equipment in, respectively, a bank and cigarette manufacturer, he provides a look at the world of flight from the man in the back of the plane, not the front.
Despite the handicap of gluing the wings upside-down on an Airfix model in his youth, he has successfully managed to learn next to nothing about planes and the associated infrastructure, bar managing to attract the attention of Custom and Immigration in every country he’s ever visited.
Outside of work he enjoys his collection of novelty cufflinks, the avoidance of gardening and playing inappropriate music loudly to annoy his neighbours.
Anthony can be found in the bar of the Long Room at the MCG when cricket is on, trout fishing at Murrindindi on any long weekend and in the general vicinity of a decent bottle of red at most other times. He also supplies our View From the Lounge segment, an occasional view of aviation from the passenger in seat 22A.
