Plane Crazy Down Under » Uncontrolled Airspace

PCDU Episode 74: Kiwi User Fees … and other issues

Grant (Falcon124) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:53:02 +0000

We’re joined by our mate Dan Morris from New Zealand to discuss some news from the Land of the Long White Cloud. Topics include:

Air Traffic Control in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake, especially the problems they encountered due to centralising all area controllers in one location
How user fees in New Zealand have lead funding being removed for weather briefing service: pilots must now pay an annual fee to access the weather service
What the Air NZ Aviation Academy and student loan funding by the New Zealand government (which remains interest free if you stay in NZ) mean for flight training in NZ
Air New Zealand’s latest earnings report
The rapidly approaching Flair 2011 industry innovation showcase & airshow
The Will it Fly project that is working to produce a replica of the Pearse Flyer from 1903 with updates on the Will It Fly Facebook page

Next up, Steve travels back to his old high school to discover that it’s a lot better than when he was there (and NOT just because his class photo has been hidden :) Thanks to Chris Barry at Brentwood Secondary College and our friends at Aus Air Services, kids at the school have the opportunity to learn to fly as part of their studies. Steve chats with Chris, Angelina from Aus Air Services and some of the kids about this fantastic project.

Our final interview in this episode is a quick chat with Mark Pracy Sr from JetRide Australia and Pracy Racing as he gets ready to head to the 2011 Reno Air Races to fly his L39 low, fast & turning left. We discuss what it’s like to fly the course and how he’s going about keeping himself ready for it.

We wrap up the episode with a quick chat about Dale Watson’s Tiger Airways song on YouTube (thanks to Chris Fenlon for pointing us at it) and the fact that Tiger Airways are back flying, albeit at a reduced level. We also discuss how Crawford Rix was replaced by Tony Davis who is, in turn, leaving the airline shortly after working hard to bring it back from the brink.

Finally, we have some shoutouts, including:

Charlie Willwerth from the FlightTime Radio show is currently in the Mayo clinic under going chemotherapy to fight Leukemia – good luck & get well quick, mate!
Zyola T Mix from the Mile High Flyers has spun off her own project, a podcast about women pilots called The BoXXoffice
The Uncontrolled Airspace podcast has just celebrated its five year anniversary on August 23rd! Woo hoo! Go guys! Congrats to Jack, Jeb & Dave!
There’s a new aviation podcast with us from Canada called Cleared Enroute with hosts Danny Vacar & Chris Johnson (on Twitter as clearedenroute)
Jamie Dodson who writes the Nick Grant Adventures novels and sent us a couple of copies

NOTE: You can find Dan Morris on Twitter as TheGrandVizier, on Facebook and at his blog which mixes aviation & coffee in copious quantities.

PCDU Episode 22: Farewell 2009

Grant (Falcon124) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 12:05:34 +0000

It’s the Christmas & New Year holiday period, plus down here it’s Summer so we’re totally into listening to long aviation podcasts when we’re not distracted by having fun. So, for all of our listeners who have long drives or lots of chores to do around home, we give you our longest episode yet. With a bit of Christmas cheer, we produce just over two hours of PCDU goodness including an interview with Michael Gilmour from Downwind.com.au, our usual opinionated review of the news and listener mail. We also wrap up the year with a tip of the wing to the podcasts that inspire us and the guests who have helped give us some great content.

Here’s how the episode came together this time:

Indian company buys Gippsland Aeronautics and Aerostaff (Australian Aviation)
CASA ups GAAP circuit limit, to use FAA Class D (Australian Aviation)
Satellite-based navigation system to allow air-traffic controllers to pinpoint aircraft (Steve Creedy @ The Australian)
Air N.Z. More Affected by 787 Delay Than Slump, Airlines Says (Tracy Withers @ Bloomberg.com) plus interview with Rob Fyfe on IATA.org
Qantas to launch A380 Melbourne-London services (Australian Aviation) and Qantas to operate A380 on Melbourne-London route
Defence Dept to fix Amberley base creek pollution
Tiger Airways IPO reduced following luke-warm reactions and may be withdrawn
QANTAS 747-400 has an engine failure not long after take off at Changi (Singapore)
QANTAS pilots union upset over JetConnect pilots
Interview with Michael Gilmour from Downwind.com.au
We review our Listener Mail
It’s Christmas, so of course everyone’s going on strike
Here’s our end of year wrap
- Special thanks to the podcasts that inspired us to start PCDU
- Our great guests in 2009 were
  - Matt Hall
  - Nigel Lamb
  - Owen Zupp
  - Bas Scheffers
  - Saj Ahmad
  - Ben Ipolito & Jeremy Peck
  - Michael Gilmour
  - David Vanderhoof
  - Lang Kidby
  - Joel Haski
  - Shashank Nigram
  - Karla Courtney
  - Carlo Santoro
  - Nick Brau
- Special thanks also to
  - Dane Golden & Leo Laporte
  - Adam Visscher (about to be our photographer)
As from now, we have a forum. Yes, that’s right, a place where you can come and chat about our episodes and anything else related to PCDU. Thanks to Michael @ Downwind for making a space available to us.

As usual, our theme music track is “YouNameIt5″ by Brian Simpson (aka t3cat5) and our sound effects come from SoundSnap.com.

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.