Plane Crazy Down Under » General Information

Episode 81 – An Infrequent Flyer Goes To Europe

steve — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:27:33 +0000

Our first show for 2012 is hosted by Steve Visscher and Anthony Simmons. Anthony recently travelled to the United Kingdom where he attended the Imperial War Museum at Duxford on their final flying display for 2011. The theme centred around the Korean War, the aircraft that flew and the people that flew them. Anthony presents a series of interviews from the day in his first major production for PCDU.

Click HERE to go to the Episode 81 Page

2012 Series Is About To Begin!

steve — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:53:58 +0000

Christmas and New years have come and gone and with the usual festivities over, the PCDU team are back on deck and preparing for an exciting year of podcasting.

Plans are being made for attending several local aviation events, including Natfly, Tyabb Air Show, and the Parafield Air Show. We have been already recorded a few interviews and the team is out & about making contact with a range of interesting people in the aviation scene in Australia & New Zealand. In addition, Pieter Johnson has already sent us another From Up here to Down There segment.

Episode 81 is in the final stages of production, and features some wonderful content from Anthony “The Infrequent Flyer” Simmons’ recent travels to the UK. Keep a look out for this show over the next few days!

We look forward to having you join us again this year, and we hope you’ll continue to contact us with story leads and topic suggestions. You can contact us any time at planecrazydownunder@gmail.com , or join the conversation on our Facebook Page or Downwind Forum. You can also find us on Twitter as @pcdu

You’ll also find us on our regular segments for Flight Time Radio and The Airplane Geeks Podcast

Looks like another busy year. Talk to you soon!

Episode 80 Now Available!

steve — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:42:57 +0000

As 2011 draws to a close, our final show for 2011 has gone live on the feed for you to enjoy. Farewell 2011 (Tom Cruise Wraps My Dolmades), is the 80th show in the series and our 30th show for the year.

Anthony “The Infrequent Flyer” Simmons joins us this time around as we cover a number of topics, including interviews from our recent end of year Fly-In at Aus Air Services in Tooradin, Victoria.

David Vanderhoof chats with Steve about military helicopters plus reviews the year that was. Visit David’s blog at www.whatjustflewby.com
Mo Ferrando from High Alpha Media explains the intricacies of their remote control Hexocopter & Octocopter, and how they use them for amazing aerial photography
Grant chats with David Pilkington about his career in aeronautical engineering and his enthusiasm for aerobatics. Check out David’s excellent website here
We catch up with Adam Wooley from the Internode National Junior Gliding Championships in Kingaroy, QLD, for an update on proceedings

Click on the episode in the menu to the left for more detailed notes on episode 80.

As is tradition with our end of year shows, we take the opportunity to thank all those who have supported us throughout 2011. It’s been an amazing journey this year, starting off with Avalon, moving on to NatFly, Oshkosh, the Qantas grounding and much more. Our coverage of the Australia/New Zealand aviation scene in 2011 has seen a tremendous growth in our listener base, and we sincerely thank you for coming along for the ride. We trust you have found the programme both entertaining and informative.

If it’s aviation personalities, events, or industry & political figures, you’ve heard them all on PCDU this year. We look forward to continuing the fun in 2012.

Wishing you all a safe and happy festive season, and a wonderful 2012.

The PCDU Team

Steve Visscher

Grant McHerron

David Vanderhoof

Bas Scheffers

Anthony Simmons

Anthony Crichton Browne

ATC Ben

Dan Morris

Kathy Mexted

Pieter Johnson

Adam Visscher – Photographer

Steven Pam – Video and still photography

Allan Van’t Padje – PA & Mobile Studio Operator

PCDU and Aus Air Services Christmas Fly In – Tooradin Victoria – December 17th

steve — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 06:26:33 +0000

Come and join us on December 17th at Tooradin Airport (YTDN) as we dust off the mobile studio and have some fun with our friends at Aus Air Services

Grant, Steve and Anthony “The Infrequent Flyer” Simmons will be in attendance to record an episode of the show, assisted by Allan Van’t Padje who’ll be setting up an array of speaker towers and running the panel

BBQ, drinks and discounts on flights all weekend!

We hope to meet you there!

We’re chatting with Tim Smith

Grant (Falcon124) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:35:15 +0000

In our latest episode (Tim Smith: Flying Saved My Life) we get to hang out with Melbourne comedian Tim Smith, recording an hilarious chat about his flying. A lot of fun and some great stories along with some serious & important points.

It’s also a relatively short episode, which after our previous one on the Qantas Grounding, is probably a good thing :)

Dreamliner Visits Auckland

steve — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 02:34:40 +0000

The Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” is branching out further and further around the globe lately as the evaluation programme continues.

With the recent entry into service of the type with launch customer All Nippon Airways, interest has intensified in our region with Air New Zealand, QANTAS & Jetstar eagerly awaiting deliver of their airframes.

On Friday, November 11th, Dreamliner N787BA, completed a 13 hour 40 minute transit from Seattle, crossing the Pacific and arriving into Auckland with Air New Zealand Chief Pilot Captain David Morgan and 30 Boeing test & evaluation staff aboard . The aircraft made a low pass over the city before landing at AKL.

The aircraft will stay in New Zealand for a few days before heading across the Tasman to Sydney.

Listener Daniel Talbot was there for the big event and has kindly shared these pictures. You can find more of Daniels photography at www.danieltalbot.co.nz

Coverage of the Qantas Grounding, including an appearance on Al Jazeera

Grant (Falcon124) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:03:57 +0000

In response to the momentous news that Alan Joyce (CEO) and the board of directors at Qantas had decided to ground the entire airline on Saturday afternoon, Steve & Grant launched into gear to assemble a broad collection of interviews & discussions about the event. The result is a hefty 2 hour, 15 minute episode that’s packed with interviews with politicians, union leaders, Dick Smith, analysts and us. You can read all about it and listen to it by visiting:

PCDU Episode 77: Qantas Crisis: After the Grounding.

In addition to producing this episode, Grant was invited to appear on Al Jazeera’s English channel to briefly discuss the current Qantas grounding.

Here’s the video of the discussion recorded with Grant in the Southern Skies Online Media studio.

Our thanks go to Al Jazeera for providing us with this copy of the discussion and allowing us to display it.

There’s also a “behind the scenes” video that Steve took of Grant in the studio being interviewed:

Plane Crazy Down Under – Out and About!

steve — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:11:25 +0000

The team with the mobile studio at Coldstream

Not all PCDU material is recorded in the studio and over Skype. We also get out and about in the aviation community with our mobile studio. We can attend your aviation event to record interviews or entire shows, provide commentary, or entertain your guests with pre recorded content from previous PCDU shows.

We can also provide up to 12 high quality weather proofed speaker towers to cater for any occasion – enough to stretch along 300 metres of flight line!

Steve & Grant recording at NatFly 2011 in Temora

Recording content with guests and speakers at your aviation event allows your message to be spread more widely through inclusion in our podcast series.

If you’d like to have Grant, Steve and the PCDU team attend your next aviation event, email us at planecrazydownunder@gmail.com

Our Oshkosh 2011 Coverage (Oshcasts 1, 2 & 3 and Beyond)

Grant (Falcon124) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:04:08 +0000

AirVenture Oshkosh 2011 was an incredible experience for the team from PCDU, one that we’re all still getting over. There was so much to do & see and so many wonderful people to meet, naturally we weren’t able to do all we would have liked to. One of the tasks we had that fell by the wayside in the rush was putting out daily updates. Maybe if Grant could have found some RedBull on site, they might have made it out each day :)

Now that we’re back in Australia, we’re being kept pretty busy catching up with our families, getting back on top of everything at our “day jobs” and working through all the content we’ve gathered. It’s going to take a few months to get it all completed, but we’re working on it as best we can :)

You can find the daily reports in our PCDU Commentaries blog as we’ll be creating an Oshkosh 2011 Summary page as we did for Avalon 2011. For now, we have a few of the daily reports completed and loading episodes featuring the additional Oshkosh content we’ve not already released.

Daily Blog Reports:
Day 1 – Getting there isn’t always the best part!
Day 2 – Rockford Bonanza
Day 3 – Arrival en Mass

Audio Episodes:
Oshcast #1
Oshcast #2
Oshcast #3 (Hugging Your Roo)
Episode 73:Oshkosh:The Greatest Show on Earth

What do you want from Oshkosh 2011?

Grant (Falcon124) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 05:19:22 +0000

It is our intention to cover Oshkosh from a “down under” perspective to the best of our ability. We’ll be looking for the Aussie/Kiwi angle from attendees to volunteers to businesses to government agencies. We plan to produce three episodes during the week of the show and provide constant coverage on our home page, at Aviation Advertiser and through various social media portals. This will include a mixture of audio, video and photographs, presented with the aim of giving you a genuine feel for the spectacle that is AirVenture 2011. As was the case with our Avalon 2011 coverage, we anticipate several follow up episodes featuring additional content after the event. Steve will also be travelling to Arkansas, the place where he completed the bulk of his flight training, to collect interviews with some of the people that influenced his passion for aviation.

We would like to offer our audience the chance to give us some indications of what you’d like to see, hear and (virtually) experience about Oshkosh while we’re over there. By posting your own comments on our updates, you can give us some direction and we’ll try to come through for you if we can.

Joining us at Oshkosh will be Bas Scheffers and David Vanderhoof as well as Mike Wilson who is going to help us with transport, camera and other technical work. We’ve received some amazing sponsorship from Pracy Racing and Jetride Australia who have covered our airfares to Chicago and back (thanks guys!!!! :) while Aviation Advertiser is chipping in to help cover a lot of the accommodation and food costs while we’re there. This has helped immensely but we’re still going to be out of pocket a rather large amount and we’d like to chip in some $$$ to say THANKS to our friends who’ll be helping us while they’re there.

If you’d like to help ensure we can get the coverage you want to hear, feel free to chip in some $$$ via the DONATE button on our home page. We’ve already received a few “Go hard!” packages from friends and every little bit helps. The more we get the more chances we have of being able to run around & pump out the content you want to hear, read & see.

As always, we are not entirely comfortable asking our audience for donations, however, this is a huge undertaking which may exceed the generous funding levels of our wonderful sponsors. In this unique instance, we ask you to consider the substantial effort we put into this programme, entirely on our own time, and give away each month at no cost. We believe our product compares favourably to monthly print publications, yet for less than the cost of a magazine you can help us achieve our goals on your behalf. Your financial assistance for this series of shows would be greatly and humbly appreciated.

We’re really looking forward to this and no matter what, we’re going to bring you along for the ride :)

Meanwhile, here’s the latest animated video from our friends at Thromby Airlines about their foray into online media and podcasters. We hope you enjoy it and recommend you visit their site for more great Thromby Air fun.

We’re going to Oshkosh 2011!

Grant (Falcon124) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 23:55:03 +0000

As announced in our latest episode (Episode 67: Team Pracy: Racing, JetRides & Aircraft Imports), Steve & Grant will be going to Oshkosh 2011. YAY!!!! :)

Thanks to a generous offer from Team Pracy (see JetRide Australia, Aircraft Imports and Pracy Racing), we’re going to be at Oshkosh 2011 for the whole week. We’re also picking up some additional sponsorship and assistance from other groups, including the fine folks at Aviation Advertiser, to help cover the costs of setting up camp on site (yes, we’ll be camping on the field in the midst of the action :)

In addition to Steve & Grant, Bas Scheffers will also be at Oshkosh 2011 as he’s had his tickets & plans locked in for a very long time. We’re also going to be joined by David Vanderhoof, our code-sharing historian who also appears on the Airplane Geeks podcast. In fact, for a while we thought Bas & David were going to be the sole PCDU representatives at the show.

Suffice to say we’re very excited to be going and so long as our heads don’t explode with the torrent of aviation joy surrounding us, you can expect to get heaps of Oshkosh content with a Down Under perspective as Plane Crazy Down Under embarks on the “Up & Over to Oshkosh” tour :)

Talk to me, Goose!

steve — Sat, 07 May 2011 09:33:45 +0000

Yee hah! Jester's dead!

Steve scored a ride in an L39 Albatros with Mark Pracy from Jetride Australia, flying from Tooradin airport (YTDN) in the south east of Melbourne. Mark ran them through a combination of horizontal & vertical manoeuvres during which Steve experienced a sustained peak of 5G's. Best of all, he didn't even hurl!

In flight video was captured along with the briefing and a few interviews. We'll be putting together a special video episode that combines Steve's jet ride and Grant's 8G RedBull aerobatics ride last year with Joel Haski from Red Baron. We'll also be putting together an audio episode on high-thrill adventure rides. Watch for these to come out in the PCDU feed in the near future.

Meanwhile, here's a quick video of Steve returning to the ramp in the L39:

www.flickr.com

Steve's L39 JetRide Adventure photoset

RAAF Air Pilgrimage at Point Cook

Grant (Falcon124) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 23:25:39 +0000

On March 31st the RAAF Air Pilgrimage fleet arrived at the RAAF Museum at Point Cook after spending three days flying from Temora to Tocumwal to Ballarat and then to Pt Cook. Celebrating the 90th birthday of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), the flight consisted of warbirds, antiques and GA Aircraft. We were onsite at Pt Cook for the arrival of the aircraft and recorded a number of discussions with people on the flight line. You can hear the full content in Episode 61: The Great Pilgrimage, see some of the photos we took on our RAAF Pilgrimage Flickr page and watch a summary video below:

www.flickr.com

Plane Crazy Down Under's RAAF PILGRAMAGE 2011 photoset

Avalon “Not So” Quick Casts Are Here

Grant (Falcon124) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:52:11 +0000

Team PCDU are at the Avalon International Airshow (#Avalon11) and we’re putting out a daily Quick Cast episode with interviews & information gathered that day during the show.

March 1st: Day 1:

Brendan Nelson – past Defence Minister
Mark Robinson & Martin Hoffensetz from SAAB – Remote Tower system
Peter Dow from TVSA Pilot Training – Flight Camp & VET FEE-HELP system
Timbo’s Tarmac & Through the Keyhole with Papa Smurf segments

Click here to listen to the full Day 1 audio quick cast

March 2nd: Day 2:

RAAF Heron operators
Lockheed Martin’s ISR flying testbed aircraft
Timbo’s Tarmac

Click here to listen to the full Day 2 audio quick cast

March 3rd: Day 3:

Matt Hall
USAF F22 Raptor pilot & maintainer
Timbo’s Tarmac & In the Keyhole with Papa Smurf segments

Click here to listen to the full Day 3 audio quick cast

March 4th: Day 4:

B1B crew
RAAF Hot Air Balloon pilot
Owen Zupp
Squadron Leader Louise Burr
Timbo’s Tarmac & In the Keyhole with Papa Smurf tarmac reports

Click here to listen to the full Day 4 audio quick cast

March 5th: Day 5:

SQDN LDR Matt Harper, RAAF F22 Pilot
David Wheatland & the GA8 Airvan
Flight Lieutenant Skye Smith
Timbo’s Tarmac & Taffy covers the keyhole for Papa Smurf

Click here to listen to the full Day 5 audio quick cast

March 6th: Day 6:

Paul Simmons, CA27 Sabre pilot
Nikolay Timofeev, world champion aerobatics pilot
A view from the B52′s Lounge
Kent Pietsch & Chris Williams from the Jelly Belly team
Ian Honnery
Ed Stubbs
The final Timbo’s Tarmac & In the Keyhole with Papa Smurf tarmac reports

Click here to listen to the full Day 6 audio quick cast

These Avalon Quick Cast episodes are being sponsored by Aviation Advertiser and supported by Red Baron and Temby Automotive.

Video summary entries produced by Steven Pam.

Avalon Airshow is around the corner!

Grant (Falcon124) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:45:11 +0000

With Avalon Airshow about to present us with a broad range of aviation this March, we thought it would be a great idea to give you a history of the show. Who better to provide this than the man who’s been with the show since before it even began?

Check out Episode 52: The Misty Dawn of Avalon for a great interview with Ian Honnery, CEO of Airshows Down Under on the history of the Avalon Airshow plus much more.

Our Tribute Episode to the F111 is out!

Grant (Falcon124) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:40:36 +0000

Steve & Grant standing behind F111C, A8-134

Our F111 Tribute Episode (Episode 51: Pig Out!) has been released and is getting great reviews. It’s packed with awesome content from our visit to RAAF Amberley and covers pilots, maintainers and simulator staff as well as a speach by the CO.

(Click on the image to view a larger copy)

Flight City B777 Simulator Session – We Have a Winner

Grant (Falcon124) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 12:11:15 +0000

Thanks to the folks at Flight City Simulation Centre in Perth, we have been able to give away a one hour flight session in their Boeing 777 simulator to give away, valued at $275. Of the many people who correctly recognised that the airline jingle belonged to “Australian Airlines,” Graham Neal was the lucky winner.

Congratulations to Graham and also to David Mitchell & Greg Spencer who were our “runners up” winning a PCDU T-Shirt each.

Thanks to all of you who entered, even those of you who had incorrect answers. We’re working to bring in more prizes for future episodes so watch this space :)

PCDU team are appearing beyond their own podcast

Grant (Falcon124) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 23:25:07 +0000

Some of you may be aware that the Plane Crazy Down Under team can be found beyond the bounds of the PCDU podcast. In addition to venturing out of the studio to attend events and record interviews, we’re also occasionally appearing in print (yes, print!) and other forms of recorded history.

Most of you may know of the Australia Desk segment segment we produce for the Airplane Geeks podcast. In fact, that’s where our show started when we found that we had too much to talk about than would fit in the time allocated for the Australia Desk.

We’re also producing the Flying Down Under segment for the FlightTime Radio Show that Milford & Charlie have been broadcasting every Saturday morning on radio W-BOB in Florida. Our segment plays every fortnight and is sponsored by Planehook Aviation Services.

We’re also starting to appear in print media too, including an article by Kathy Mexted on the Centenary Airshow at Melton and a write-up about PCDU in the Australian Pilot magazine. You can find links to these two articles in our new PCDU in the News page under the “About Us” menu entry on our site. We’ll update that page as we appear in print, on radio shows or maybe even on TV.

Slowly but surely, we’re spreading the word about aviation down under to the rest of the world. Don’t forget that you can help to spread the word which will, in turn, help us to keep promoting the fun & benefits to be found in aviation.

Oshkosh Podapalooza 2010

Grant (Falcon124) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:38:49 +0000

We never made it to the Podapalooza event at Oshkosh 2010 although we did try and a recording of our attempt was played for everyone there. As many of you may know, a recording of the entire event was capture and has been circulated on a few of the podcasts that were there. In each case the podcast adding the podapalooza entry to their feed has made their own intro to it covering their own perspectives on the event.

We thought about doing the same but figured that most of you have probably already heard it from the other feeds. Rather than add yet another download of the same content to your already overloaded stash of podcasts, we’re going to follow the Airplane Geeks’ lead and point you at places to get it if you haven’t already heard it:

The PilotCast (Podapalooza was started by the original hosts of The PilotCast)
The Pilots Journey (this one has a great summary of who was on the show)
The Mile High Flyers
The New Pilot PodBlog
The Student Pilot Cast

So go & check it out if you haven’t already heard it and by the way, be sure and listen to all those podcasts we’ve listed there if you’re not already (as well as all the others we list in our podcasts we like section :).

The new look site

Grant (Falcon124) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 22:14:12 +0000

We’ve revamped the site layout yet again with the aim of making it easier to find information and important stuff. Mostly this is handled via the menu bar across the upper part of the page (About Us, You can Help Us, etc) but also by putting some more white space in the design to make it a bit easier on the eye.

Another key part of the redesign is the list of episodes are now highlighted down the left hand side of the page, rather than buried in the stream of messages like this. Hopefully that makes it easier for you to find them if you’re playing them from the site rather than getting them through the feed.

There’s also the large space at the top for big announcements and such, like the one there now telling you that yes, we’ve been picked up by another group of aviation podcasters. Milford & Charlie at the Flight Time Radio show in Florida have graciously offered us a space to run a “Flying Down Under” segment. The Flight Time Radio show is broadcast every Saturday on radio W-BOB in Jacksonville, Florida so we’re tailoring this segment to recreational flyers and the general public. Stay tuned for more about “Flying Down Under.”

Meanwhile, feel free to let us know what you think of the new layout, either by leaving comment here or using our forum.

We tried to get to Oshkosh 2010

Grant (Falcon124) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 02:37:03 +0000

Air Venture: Oshkosh is the place to be if you’re into aviation. There’s something for everyone from home builts to military to warbirds to commercial to seaplanes to antiques to balloons and everything else imaginable. If you love aviation, you have to get to Oshkosh.

For the past four years a group of aviation podcasters have been gathering to produce the “Podapalooza” session. Imagine a room full of people and a table at one end packed with many of the people behind the voices in your head. All hanging out, talking about flying, aviation topics and social media. Pure podcasting fun :)

Since we started Plane Crazy Down Under, we’ve tried twice but never been able to make it to Oshkosh. Back in 2009, Stephen Force of the Airspeed podcast took a quick “Hello Oshkosh” piece we produced and had it played at the Podapalooza and on the EAA radio show during the event.

This year we couldn’t make it again (DOH!) so we put another promo together. It’s longer but encapsulates what we’ve been up to for the past year. They played part of it at the Podapalooza so we’re adding the original piece to our feed so you can hear how we tried to get there but couldn’t quite make it.

Maybe 2011 will be “third time’s the charm” and we’ll get there at last? :)

Introducing PCDU Commentary

Grant (Falcon124) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 13:34:31 +0000

We’ve set up a blog where Steve & I can post our opinionated observations & commentary on the aviation scene down under. We still have our personal blogs (Grant’s is Fly Me Friendly and Steve’s is AusFlier) but they’re more for our own flying adventures.

So check out PCDU Commentary and add your thoughts & comments to ours.

1000 Downloads for Episode 1

steve — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 11:28:18 +0000

Some time over the past few days, our fledgling episode number 1, “And so it begins” has crossed the 1000 downloads mark! This surely is cause for a small measure of celebration, considering that in it’s first week, we were pretty happy to see it hit 40 downloads. Over the following few weeks, it struggled up to around the 200 mark, and has trickled slowly upwards ever since.

Our first few shows, and episode 1 in particular, were basically just the uncut versions of the Airplane Geeks Australia News Desk that we have been producing since March 2009. Listening back to those earlier shows now, made as they were with cheap PC microphones, no mixer, and recorded directly off Skype, it’s almost a little cringe worthy compared to the standard we strive for now. However, if you’re new to our show, and are perhaps reading this page before heading off to iTunes to download our earlier efforts, please do so with the view to coming on a journey with us – not only in terms of content, but with a view to observing the learning curve we’ve been on that’s taken us to the magazine style, radio show format you hear today.

Our statistics show us that many first time listeners happen across episode one but don’t continue on with us. Given the lower production standards back then, we understand why this is the case, however we suggest sampling one of our shows from, say, episode 20 onwards. These shows were made using studio quality microphones, mixers and solid state recording devices. And frankly, we feel we’re delivering the shows far more professionally now. As time has gone on, we’ve been privileged to meet and interview a wide range of fascinating people and have introduced a number of segments designed to make the show just a little bit different with each release.

For those of you who continue to faithfully download Plane Crazy Down Under each week and participate in our community, we thank you sincerely for your support. We plan to continue delivering quality content to you each fortnight, and we encourage our new listeners to take the step and venture past our initial effort. Come on the journey with us and become another valued member of the PCDU community!

Open Day at Tooradin this coming Saturday

steve — Thu, 20 May 2010 11:04:08 +0000

The flying school at Tooradin, just south east of Melbourne, is back in action! After a few quiet years, the school has been bought by Aus Air Services who have quickly set about restoring an operational status.
Steve & Grant ventured out the Tooradin and recorded a quick interview during which we discovered that an open day is being held this Saturday, May 22nd from 12pm, AEST.
This is a chance for everyone to head down and have a look at this great little airfield, meet the staff and have a look at their fleet of training aircraft. The airfield also houses the Commando Sky Divers operation and Wings & Fins restaurant, which has also recently re-opened for business.
Tooradin Airfield is located on the South Gippsland Highway, just south of the township, and just a pleasant 60 minute drive from central Melbourne. Check out their website at www.ausairservices.com.au for details of the RA-AUS training aircraft, Tiger Moth flights, and Piper Chieften charter aircraft.

Grant & Steve help out with the Airplane Geeks

Grant (Falcon124) — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:20:41 +0000

Grant & Steve produce a weekly “Australia Desk” segment for the Airplane Geeks podcast that provides some news & information from down under. It’s usually presented with a bit of a cheeky theme and makes use of Steve’s extensive sound effect library. That’s the usual process and we have a blast doing it for the guys over in the USA.

Recently, however, we were too tired to make an episode so Max Flight invited us to join the Geeks and record live with them. The results are, suffice to say, hillarious and their guest, Karlene Petitt, demonstrated true mettle by not only sticking around to record with us but joining in the fray.

So if you’ve not already heard the episode, go and check out Episode 96: Karlene’s Flight to Success and you’ll hear a great interview with Karlene, Grant & Steve joining in the fun for the news review and a set of out takes at the end of the show that go longer than entire episodes of some podcasts :)

Catching up with Owen Zupp at Point Cook

Grant (Falcon124) — Wed, 12 May 2010 22:30:59 +0000

Owen Zupp will be arriving at Point Cook on Sunday the 16th by about 12:30 so he can be on the ground before the RAAF Museum’s 1pm flying display starts. We’re going to be on site to meet up with him and watch the display.

If any of you are in Melbourne then come on . . . → Read More: Catching up with Owen Zupp at Point Cook

Two Great Journeys are Under Way

Grant (Falcon124) — Wed, 12 May 2010 04:57:30 +0000

Owen Zupp is half way around his There and Back Australian tour, raising funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Flying a Jabiru J230, Owen’s trying to raise $10,000 in donations to the RFDS so go to his site and “give a dollar to the doctor.”

Meanwhile, Ken Evers and Tim Pryse have left Australia and are flying around the world in a Gippsland Aeronautics GA-8 Airvan. Their Millions Against Malaria flight is raising funds towards malaria research so if you can spare a few dollars, go to their site and donate.

Check in regularly with both sites as their routes may take them near you. Owen, Ken & Tim welcome the opportunity to meet people at each stop, so feel free to go and say HI as they pass through.

If only I could do this…

Grant (Falcon124) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 05:50:27 +0000

How cool would it be if the seat selection process at the check-in kiosk system allowed you to do this:

XKCD's "Seat Selection" cartoon

If you like the cartoon, send an email to orders@xkcd.com and ask them to add #726 to the list of signed comic prints that are available to purchase. Heck, even if you don’t, please send the email anyway – some of us are hanging to buy a signed copy of this one :)

PCDU on Sun n Fun Radio

Grant (Falcon124) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 23:57:17 +0000

Thanks to Stephen Force (aka Steve Tupper) of the Airspeed podcast, we were invited to appear on a special “Aviation Podcasters” event being held on Sun N Fun Radio at the Sun N Fun air show. We were on first and, given the joys of timezones, it meant an early morning start for us to be on the show. For Steve it was 8am in Melbourne but for Grant it was 5am in Indonesia where he’s working at the moment.

So despite a bit of a lag and a very flakey connection in Indonesia, we managed to do our bit on the show. It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed the opportunity to hang out and chat for a bit.

If only we could have been there, rather than connecting via Skype. Oh well :)

Pending GAAP to Class D conversion

Grant (Falcon124) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 10:17:35 +0000

In June of this year, Australia’s General Aviation Aerodrome Procedures (GAAP) airports are going to convert a US FAA based Class D airspace. We’re trying to arrange an episode dedicated to this topic before June but meanwhile, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) have arranged a number of workshops around the country for pilots to learn about the changes and how they will affect them.

If you haven’t already, go to the CASA GAAP page and follow the links there to sign up. This is critical not only for any pilot who flies at these airports but even those who fly near them. You never know when you may have to divert to one. Besides, as Bas Scheffers points out in his CTAF(R) blog article on these workshops, it’ll be a great way to meet pilots in your area :)

Who’s going to the Red Bull Air Race in Perth?

Grant (Falcon124) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:07:51 +0000

If any of you are going to the Red Bull Air Race in Perth, let us know so we can arrange a meet up (or tweet-up if you’re so inclined :) Steve’s got media accreditation and will be taking photos & recording interviews with the pilots, their teams and the race organisers.

Sadly, Grant’s being sent to Indonesia with his work so he’ll be sitting in the middle of Java gnashing his teeth at the thought of what he’s missing. Hopefully the distractions of work, culture and learning a new language will keep him from getting too distraught :)

So chime in if you’re going to be in Perth and we’ll arrange some sort of gathering.

Meetup at the Centenary of Powered Flight Airshow

Grant (Falcon124) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:14:10 +0000

The Centenary Air Show is being held this Saturday (20th March) at Diggers Rest near Melbourne. The air show is being held to celebrate 100 years of controlled powered flight in Australia and will feature flying & static displays along with other entertainment and attractions.

Naturally we will both be there which no doubt means Grant will be busy tweeting & texting madly yet again. We’re going to be interviewing pilots, crew & staff, meeting up with folks and hopefully lining up a few visits & reports for future episodes.

If you’re going to be at the airshow (and let’s face it, you should be :) then post a message here or in the forums, email us, tweet us or SMS us on the day to arrange a meet up. The weather is looking pretty friendly with predictions of light winds, a few clouds and a top of 26 Celsius.

NOTE: The start of the flying display will have Ken Evers & Tim Pryse flying off in their Gippsland Aeronautics GA-8 Airvan to start their Millions Against Malaria around the world journey. You may recall that we interviewed them in Episode 27: Trans World Adventures :)

Meet up at Point Cook Air Pageant

Grant (Falcon124) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:09:43 +0000

If you’re going to the RAAF Museum’s Point Cook Air Pageant this weekend (Feb 28th) then post a comment here or send a tweet to @PCDU, @Falcon124 or @SteveVisscher to let us know. We’ll try and organise a meet up somewhere before the show starts depending on who’s around and what interview slots we manage . . . → Read More: Meet up at Point Cook Air Pageant

The Jetstarisation of QANTAS is not over yet

Grant (Falcon124) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:00:49 +0000

Thanks to an opportunity presented by Shashank Nigam, Grant’s just had an article about the ongoing Jetstarisation of QANTAS published on Shashank’s Simpliflying site.

It provides a background on the birth of Jetstar, its growth to date and how it is destined to consume more of QANTAS’ mainline routes & aircraft. Head on over to Simpliflying and check out the article.

Thanks to Shashank for giving us the opportunity to gain further exposure to the global aviation world, it’s very much appreciated :)

So you want to help?

Grant (Falcon124) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:17:43 +0000

Are you one of the many people who have been enjoying this podcast and want to help ensure it grows and continues into the future? Well, we certainly appreciate your intent and would like to work with you to make it happen (funny that :)

Here are three great ways that you can help us to keep bringing in the fun & interesting content for you:

Donate: If you’ve got a few spare dollars, donating them to a worthy cause is always a wonderful thing. In the absence of a suitably worthy cause, please consider clicking on the big yellow “Donate” button and sending some to us. Even $5 helps if enough of you do it. We’re trying to get an advertising system set up but it’s early days and we’re not sure if it will ever work out, so donations really help.
Put up our Flyer: We’ve created a nifty flyer that promotes our podcast and is intended to be put up on notice boards around the world. It’s already showing up in a few flying clubs, flight schools, pilot shops and airport cafes around Australia. If it’s not appearing where you work, fly or hangout, why not download our flyer (150k PDF), print out a few, put them up around the place and maybe even send us a photo. Don’t forget to ask permission first before you put them up, just in case :)
Tell your friends: As the guys at the Airplane Geeks podcast keep reminding us, another great way to boost listener numbers and help keep Steve & Grant motivated is to “tell your friends about our podcast”

Feel free to contact us if you have some other suggestions for helping us to grow and keep the fun happening. We certainly don’t have all the answers but are enjoying finding a few new ones as we go along.

Download, print & distribute our flyer

Ten minutes of fame in a 737 Simulator?

Grant (Falcon124) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:35:10 +0000

The crew at Flight Experience Melbourne are having an Open Night on the 27th January and we’re going along. They’re giving away 10 minute sessions in their 737 sim to the first 20 people in the door (need to register before hand).

We’re going to be there to interview people for a future episode as well as have some fun (and enjoy the drinks & nibbles :)

If you’re in Melbourne, Australia and can get to the QV Building in the city from 6pm on the 27th January, you really should get yourself there. More information about the event and the registration form is available on their blog.

Hope to see you there :)

iTunes Feed Glitch

Grant (Falcon124) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 04:14:15 +0000

Some of you may have experienced some problems downloading from our feed lately. This was all thanks to updating to the latest version of the PodPress plugin, unfortunately. It seems the latest version didn’t mix well with our site and started sending out broken URLs to each episode’s MP3 file in our RSS feed (we’re not the only ones to have experienced this).

The problem was fixed by rolling back to the previous version of the plugin, but for about 4 to 6 hours around New Years’ Day the feed was broken (episode description text was fine but the episodes wouldn’t download).

If you’re still experiencing a problem downloading our episodes, make sure you’ve got the latest version of the feed in your system. In iTunes, this means right-clicking (or cmd-clicking :) on the Plane Crazy Down Under podcast entry and selecting “Update Podcast.” This will force iTunes to download the most recent copy of the RSS feed file.

Once that’s done, retry the broken download and it should all work nicely.

Meanwhile, I’m waiting for a fix from the PodPress developer and will, in future, try not to be amongst the first to try out a new version of a plugin :)

We’re interviewed on Erk Pod

Grant (Falcon124) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 04:35:10 +0000

In the relatively quiet time between Christmas & New Year, Erk from the Erk Pod podcast bravely travelled down from Sydney to Melbourne, seeking sites to enjoy, experiences to be had and southern podcasters to interview. Having found PCDU a few months earlier, Erk asked if we wanted to be interviewed about the podcast, how it came to be and what’s involved in keeping it running. Who were we to say no to some publicity? :)

The results can be found at Erk Pod Episode 236 and it’s worth listening to for some insight into what goes into making PCDU is produced each week.

Running late, but not gone

Grant (Falcon124) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:27:02 +0000

This is a quick update for everyone who reads the blog & doesn’t just grab episodes via their podcatcher software (Hi gang! Great to have you here :)

We’re working on a couple of episodes at the moment, one of which we’re recording later tonight and should have out in a few days depending on:
a: How well the recording flows – we try to get rid of the “hang on, what was I going to say?” moments for you
and
b: How much time Steve gets to do the post production work

You see, Steve works wonders in post production to tidy things up, blend them together and make it all sound coherent and cool (let’s face it, anyone who can make me sound good has to have talent :) As any podcast producer can tell you, the post-production work can easily take 2 to 3 times as long to complete as the episode took to plan & record. Well, it does if they’re trying to make it sound professional.

We’ve also got a great discussion we recorded recently that’s almost ready to release and it will come out shortly after the next episode (yes, it’s the dreaded Episode 17!). To give you a hint, it talks about showers & learning. Can you guess it?

Doing this podcast around the demands of our day jobs does slow us down and make it tricky to get time for planning, recording and producing. We’ve also had the recent distractions of flying around the place in a DC3 and my aerobatics session in a Yak-52. Don’t worry, we’ll be releasing the recorded sounds & discussions from these events shortly. Of course, that’s what I’ve been saying about my work on the Dawn Patrol recordings too – sorry, my bad :(

The upshot of all this is that we’re working to get the next few episodes out and have plans for many more. We certainly they’ll be worth the wait :)

Cheers,

Grant

Win a copy of Owen Zupp’s Book

Grant (Falcon124) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:45:27 +0000

As mentioned during our interview with Owen Zupp in episode 13, we’re doing our first ever give-away.

Owen has graciously donated a signed copy of his book, Down to Earth, for one of our lucky listeners to win. All you have to do is go to the There and Back website and see where Owen’s journey is taking him (check out The Route for details). Then, suggest a location you think Owen should go to during his journey and say why he should go there.

Send your recommendation to us at PlaneCrazyDownUnder@gmail.com” and we’ll review them with Owen. He will then select a winner and we’ll contact them to send them the book.

Easy, isn’t it? So, what are you waiting for? It doesn’t matter where you live, come up with a suggestion and send it to us.

Please note that Owen’s decision is final and that all submissions become the property of Owen to use as he sees fit.

Combined PCDU/UCAP Meet Up at Temora

Grant (Falcon124) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:25:28 +0000

Looks like a few of the PCDU listeners are going to fly from Essendon Airport (YMEN) to Temora (YTEM) to catch the Temora Aviation Museum‘s next flying days on October 24th & 25th. I had planned to go up there to catch the show and interview some of the staff, pilots and engineers, although I’d originally planned to drive up & back. I’d prefer to fly up there but it depends on weather and if those doing the flying are staying for both days.

As if you didn’t need enough reasons to go and check out the flying at Temora, Matt Hall is going to be flying his Mustang there. It promises to be quite the experience!

Given a bunch of us will be up there, we’re considering doing a combined PCDU/UCAP meet up. Depending on when people are going to be there, we’ll do it on one or both days of the show and/or arrange a dinner session on the Saturday night.

If you’re interested in meeting up at Temora, please post here and let us know. Tell us whether you want to fly yourself there, drive or come along as a passenger in one of the planes if space permits.

Flight Experience Melbourne

Grant (Falcon124) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:50:53 +0000

In Episode 6 we interviewed Carlo Santoro, the owner of Flight Experience Melbourne, a fixed base 737 simulator that is open to the public. People can come in and fly a 737 with an instructor, getting the chance to experience what it’s like flying a commercial airliner.

Having flown a number of full motion simulators, I can assure you that the lack of motion is not something you really notice. During your flight you are so busy flying the aircraft that the sounds and sight picture displayed for you are sufficient to fool you into thinking you really are moving.

In addition to their store in the QV building in Melbourne’s CBD, they also have an online store where you can purchase aviation merchandise, including clothing, DVDs and aircraft models. They also run the Experience This! blog that has interviews with their staff & customers, stories about the flight packages they offer, information about merchandise and much more.

You can also follow them on Twitter via FlightExpQV as well as through their FaceBook page.

If you can make it to Melbourne and haven’t checked them out yet, we totally recommend that you do. Whether you are a pilot, a sim junkie or an aviation enthusiast, a session in this simulator will be an amazing experience. From practicing for an interview with a major airline to just seeing what’s involved up front, you won’t regret giving it a go at least once.

A new look and a delayed episode

Grant (Falcon124) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:26:56 +0000

Those of you who’ve been following our site prior to now will notice that we’ve (finally) revamped the site’s theme, moving from something bland and hard to follow to a much better layout and colour scheme. We’ve also highlighted the iTunes subscription and RSS feed links towards the top right hand side of the page. This should help to address the hassles some folks have had finding our feeds.

Unfortunately, our next episode is going to be a little delayed. While we usually try to release one every week, this week is proving difficult. Steve’s had a hard drive failure on the machine he uses to record & edit the podcasts and Grant’s burning the candle at both ends (and the middle) at his day job. Throw in Steve’s work putting him on night shifts for the next few days and it’s going to be difficult for us to synch up to record.

That said, we should be recording the next episode (#6) in a few days and expect that it will be ready for release by the weekend. We are at least getting the Australia Desk segments done for the Airplane Geeks podcast. Fortunately, they’re easier to record, remix and get out to the world.

Stick with us and your patience will be rewarded as episode #6 promises to have lots of news, commentary and an interview. Don’t forget to subscribe via our entry in iTunes or point your podcatcher software at the podcast feed. You can also subscribe to the full blog feed and get the episodes as well as general postings like this one.

Spreading the Word

Grant (Falcon124) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:50:12 +0000

In addition to having our feed going through iTunes and our web site here, we’ve also gone to a number of other podcast listing sites, including Odeo, PodFeed.net and Podcast Alley.

Right now we’re waiting for some of them to approve the listing, but if you have a favourite podcast listing site that doesn’t have us included, let us know and we’ll try to get listed with them.

Greetings Oshkosh, 2009

Grant (Falcon124) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 07:58:14 +0000

A recent event at Oshkosh has been the Podapalooza “gathering of aviation podcasters” where attendees get to meet some of the voices in their heads. Much as we would have loved to go to Oshkosh this year and attend Podapalooza, it’s a long long way to swim from down here so all we could do was listen to the other podcasters talking about how they were going and gnash our teeth while trying not to stomp on our iPods.

Fortunately for us, Stephen Force of the Airspeed podcast told us he was willing to smuggle in a short “Hey there” piece for us and get it played at the event. Well, not only was he able to smuggle it in, he even got it played on EAA radio. Wow! Thanks Steve – yet more beers we owe you when we meet!

For those of you who, like us, couldn’t be there and couldn’t listen to the live feed, here’s the little greeting we recorded for everyone at Podapalooza 2009.

TweetUp at the Asia Pacific Aviation Outlook Summit 2009

Grant (Falcon124) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:07:47 +0000

From the 3rd to 6th of August 2009, the Asia Pacific Aviation Outlook Summit 2009 is being held in Sydney at the Four Seasons Hotel down at the Rocks end of George St (near the Harbour). Shashank Nigam from SimpliFlying will be in town to attend the conference and present a keynote.

You may have heard Shashank interviewed on episode 29 of the Airplane Geeks podcast. He’s also been interviewed on CNBC Arabia, the Things With Wings blog at Aviation Week, Asian Airlines & Airports (PDF) and many other places.

I’m going to fly up to Sydney for the day on the 5th August to meet Shashank and interview him for the podcast. We’re also going to hold a combined SimpliFlying/PCDU TweetUp while we’re there.

In addition to having a drink and mixing with other aviation enthusiasts, the event will also offer a panel discussion moderated by Shashank and featuring Karla Courtney from the Frequent Buyer blog and myself. More panelists are being arranged and I’ll list them as they sign up.

Update: Karla’s going to be at the Summit on behalf of her work with the QANTAS Travel Insider site and their associated Twitter account, QFTravelInsider.

You’re more than welcome to come and ask questions, suggest topics and otherwise join in. Dress is smart casual and we’ll be starting at 5:30 on Wednesday 5th of August.

Sign up to follow the event via TwtVite and Facebook. You can also post a comment here or email us so we can keep you updated about when & where we’re meeting.

So, if you’re in Sydney on the 5th of August and can make it down to the rocks from 5:30 onwards (exact venue to be confirmed), you’re more than welcome to come and join us for a few drinks and join in the discussion. It promises to be a great night of fun and information.

Update: Venue has been locked in: Top level bar at Jacksons on George (176 George St) – looking forward to seeing you all there :)

Thanks for the Promotions

Grant (Falcon124) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:33:34 +0000

Steve and I would like to say “Thanks!” to all the aviation podcasters and Twitterati who have made the effort to welcome us to the ranks of content producers. People like Jack Hodgson at Uncontrolled Airspace, Steve Tupper at the Airspeed Podcast, Rod Rakic of MyTransponder, Captain Chris (ex Plane Madness, now LightPlane), @redrowen, @EAARentals and many others have all helped retweet our “We’re here” messages and have recommended our podcast to the people they know. Major thanks to you all, folks.

Of course, no thank you could be complete without very special mention to the guys at the Airplane Geeks podcast. Max, Dan, Rob and Courtney have really helped us get started, from the early “Australia Desk” entries in their podcast to the invitation to join in with a whole episode (we’ll figure out a way, don’t you worry about that!). Even if Courtney is too busy becoming a Canadian to be involved in the weekly episodes, his podcasting guidance has been invaluable.

So thanks once again to everyone who has made us feel so welcome. You’re guaranteed a few beers from Steve & I if we ever get to catch up with you in the real world.

We’re on iTunes

admin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:20:16 +0000

After managing to jump through a few hoops, our podcast is now available through iTunes. You can find it under the Aviation section of the Hobbies & Games category. Woo hoo :)

Now to link our Twitter feed (@PCDU) with the blog, get the blog & podcast feeds on clearly marked on the blog, add an iTunes “subscribe” icon and get the look n feel sorted out.

Never a dull moment down under, that’s for sure :)

Got to start somewhere…

admin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:47:59 +0000

Welcome to Plane Crazy Down Under, an aviation podcast with a focus on the Asia/Pacific area. Produced by Steve Visscher of the AusFlier blog and Grant (Falcon124) McHerron of the Fly Me Friendly blog, Plane Crazy Down Under will feature discussions about aviation news, interviews and anything else we think is suitable for an aviation podcast in this part of the world.

The idea for this podcast came to us when we had been producing the “Australia Desk” segment for the Airplane Geeks weekly podcast and finding that, in the process of editing our sessions down to 5-7 minutes in length, lots of stories and discussions were being dropped. It wasn’t long before we realised that all this material could be made into a podcast of our own and thus, Plane Crazy Down Under was born.

We’re still going to be editing down a 5-7 minute “best of” from each podcast to make the “Australia Desk” segment for the Geeks. After all, we’d be mad to miss out on the exposure we get from all their listeners and they’re a lot of fun to work with :)

For now, the site is active and the first episode is about to be uploaded. In the near future we’ll have the podcast set up properly so you can subscribe to it in your favourite podcatcher. We’ll also get the site looking a LOT better when we get a chance.

Feel free to post comments here in the blog or contact us via planecrazydownunder@gmail.com. We’d really like to get your feedback on what you like, what we’re doing wrong and any ideas you might have for content, interviews, etc.