Plane Crazy Down Under – Looking at the world of aviation from an Australia / Pacific point of view

All Change for the Defence Strategic Review (S02E006)

It’s time to dig into the recently released Defence Strategic Review to assess its impacts on the Australian Defence Force from an aviation perspective. For this episode we’re joined by award winning defence and aerospace journalist Andrew McLaughlin, who helps assess the changes we can expect to see over the next few years.

A big change is the focus on long range strike and missiles for RAAF, Navy and Army to help keep potential adversaries at a distance. We also touch on the lack of news regarding additional F-35s or MQ-4C Tritons, the B-21 Raider being ruled out (for now) and Army’s transition from ARH Tiger and MRH-90 Taipan to AH-64 Apache and UH-60M Blackhawk.

We also ask where we’ll get enough people from to crew all the platforms, look at the types of drones we’re likely to have and the focus on hypersonics and other advanced technologies under AUKUS Pillar 2. There’s a lot to dig into so this episode is a double-length special, running for almost an hour, but that’s what the pause/resume button is for, right? :)

Cover image thanks to Seth Jaworski.

Extended Ranges (S02E005)

With the recent release of the Defence Strategic Review by the Australian Federal Government, a major focus has been put on long range missiles for use by Army, Navy and Air Force to deter a potential adversary from approaching our island continent and/or blockading our ocean supply routes. With this in mind, we release an interview recorded at Avalon 2023 with John Fry, general manager of Kongsberg Defence Australia, covering their National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile, their Naval Strike Missile, its Coastal Defence System variant, and the Joint Strike Missile for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Following Kongsberg, we present a discussion with Mark Robinson, head of Air Traffic Management at Frequentis Australasia. We cover their latest remote digital tower technology and its applications in civilian and military markets. It’s certainly a technology that could be of great use to Airservices here in Australia as well as to the RAAF’s 44WG who provide Air Traffic Control at military air fields and bases.

The two discussions can be found at the following points in the episode:

03:35 John Fry at Kongsberg.
20:18 Mark Robinson at Frequentis Australasia.

Cover image thanks to Stefan Kalm via AP

The Sound of Freedom (S02E004)

Imagine a hoard of RV-6s & RV-7s flying in close formation and performing solo & pair aerobatics. Sounds intense? Well, wait for the Pacific Airshow at the Gold Coast to find out how it looks & sounds. Meanwhile, Mark Newton is one of the pilots in the Freedom Formation and he talks us through his aviation history, his aircraft and the genesis of the show. All this plus a flying car and our Maine Man Micah sends through some audio to include. Check out how it unwinds below :)

02:10 Mark Newton talks about his flying background, his RV-6 and the Freedom Formation.
16:50 We continue our chat with Mark and discuss the Pacific Airshow being held in August on the Gold Cost.
25:55 Lets talk flying cars with Jacky Yang about the Pegasus which blends the needs of road rules with CASA’s rules for the air.
37:36 Micah Engber has sent through a piece welcoming PCDU back to the airwaves with references to the great land down under.

Cover image thanks to the Freedom Formation

The Commentators (S02E003)

The Australian International Airshow in 2023 (aka Avalon 2023) saw not only huge crowds and amazing displays in the air, but also the end of an era as Peter Meehan performed his last show as “The Voice of Avalon,” handing over the reigns to Tony Moclair. It also saw Grant join Angela Stevenson as part of the commentary team for the show.

05:11 We chat with Peter Meehan about his experience with Avalon commentary and Tony Moclair about taking over as commentary team anchor.
21:18 Angela Stevenson talks about her experiences in aviation, as a pilot, as an author and as an air show commentator.
30:53 We capture the official announcement of the AMDA Foundation taking over the Wings Over Illawarra airshow from Bright Events, renaming it to Airshows Down Under: Shell Harbour and making it a biennial event that will alternate with the Avalon event. We also chat with Justin Giddings, CEO of AMDA Foundation, and Mark Bright of Bright Events.

Cover image credit: Steven Pam

Owen Zupp on Resilience (S02E002)

We recently caught up with our friend Owen Zupp to talk with him about the many ups and downs he’s experienced in his career and, most importantly, his current grounding for medical reasons (starts at 1:20 into the episode). We touch on the importance of resilience and how many of the traits that make a good pilot can also help a person get through adversity.

In the second half of the show, we also chat with Owen about the final flight of Qantas’ last 747-400 that drew a flying kangaroo as it departed Australian skies (from 22:16 into the episode). The discussion covers the flight path, the planning, how it was loaded into the flight management system and what it was like being in California during the height of COVID lockdowns.

Cover image credit: Kirrily Zupp

Pushback & Start (S02E001)

The new series has officially launched with the release of this episode and, what better way to come back to the world than at the Australian International Airshow (aka Avalon 2023) where we caught up with plenty of old friends and made lots of new contacts. It seems only fitting that our first released content should be chats with Matt Hall, Bas Scheffers and Bob Carlton so lets get into the show.

04:56 Matt Hall talks about getting through COVID, the potential for something like the Red Bull Air Race to return, the Gold Coast Air Show, flying the Avanti II and his plans for the future.
16:45 Bas Scheffers talks about developments in OzRunways, their new clients and features, upgrading VH-EFB to a Cirrus SR-22, and flying an RV-4.
27:46 Bob Carlton steps us through his day and night show routines, his aircraft testing work plus with his rocket scientist work in retirement.

Cover image credit : Wayne Nugent – Australian Motorsport Images

Rumours of our demise…

Rumours of our demise have, sadly, been accurate … well, until now that is!

Check out our latest episode that just went live today: https://www.planecrazydownunder.com/2023/02/28/pcdu-episode-131-reflections/

PCDU Episode 131: Reflections

Rumours of our demise have, sadly, been accurate … well, until now that is!

We’re back and looking to give PCDU another whirl with a new series coming out shortly, but we thought a good way to get back in the groove would be to do that “Farewell” episode we’d planned to do *way* back in 2018. We are indebted to those who sent in the amazing farewell messages you’re going to hear in this episode, but don’t forget to stick around to the end and hear what’s coming up.

Meanwhile, here’s how this episode’s farewell messages unfold around our chatting:

06:00 Max Flight from the Airplane Geeks.
08:07 Pieter Johnson from Aviation Xtended.
11:57 Carlos, Matt & Neville from the Plane Talking UK show
15:56 Steven Pam.
17:24 Damien Rose.
23:17 Dave Homewood from the Wings Over the New Zealand show.
25:06 Martin Rottler.
28:01 Captain Jeff, Dr Steph, Captain Dana & Captain Nick from the Airline Pilot Guy show.
31:47 Ray Davis.
35:12 Glen Towler.

We wrap up the episode with a discussion of what’s coming next. Stay tuned!

Our Avalon coverage begins (Episode 130) and we went back to school (Episode 129)

We’ve launched our first episode of Avalon 2017 coverage and it contains the following items:

Kimberley Turner from Aerosafe
Patrick Coleman from Garmin
Associate Professor Andrew Kornberg and the Fly for the Kids charity
Matt Hall on the F-35A and also on his new aircraft for the Red Bull Air Race
Kurt Lyall from RocketRoute and Alan Wilson from AirBP
Steve’s F-35A news bulletins for AIR News
Kreisha Ballentyne-Dickes from Cirrus Australia
Heidi Fedak from Gulfstream
Timbo’s Tarmac

You can access the episode and its show notes here: PCDU Episode 130: Avalon 2017 – Alpha

As if that wasn’t enough, previously back in February we’d also released Episode 129 which had both Steve & Grant going back to school on separate occasions. For this episode, Steve spent some time at his old Secondary Collage (Brentwood) with the RAAF F/A-18A simulator and then Grant spent some time with TVSA out at Bacchus Marsh aerodrome discussing options for learning to fly (and flying the very sexy Bristell LSA tail dragger :) ).

You can access the episode and its show notes here: PCDU Episode 129: Going Back to School.

PCDU Episode 130: Avalon 2017 – Alpha

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Steve, Grant and Maikha were on-site at Avalon recording plenty of content and this episode is our first collection of audio content covering some of the companies, people and aircraft we encountered while there. Steve & Grant have already started editing the next batch of content for Episode 131 and Maikha’s starting to wade through all the video he collected so we can show you a few of the sights from the event (and there were many!).

For now, enjoy Episode 130 (Avalon 2017 – Alpha) which unfolds as:

0:03:18 – Grant meets with Kimberley Turner, CEO and founder of Aerosafe, and chats about her love of aviation, founding Aerosafe twenty years ago and the company’s operations in the aviation safety and risk management environment.
0:19:18 – Steve catches up with Patrick Coleman from Garmin to review a number of their products including the G1000 & glass cockpits, ADSB transponders, the G5 digital primary attitude indicator, the status of ADSB deployment in the USA and Australia and interfacing with their systems via tablets and cards.
0:26:14 – Maikha talks to Associate Professor Andrew Kornberg about his flying experiences, the Fly for the Kids charity that he runs and the month long circumnavigation of Australia flight he is about to start to raise funds for the charity.
0:40:02 – Steve chats with Matt Hall about the F-35A compared to the F/A-18A Classic Hornet then tells us about his new aircraft for this season’s Red Bull Air Race.
0:49:00 – Steve reminds you to leave us a review on iTunes or help support the show via our Patreon page.
0:50:22 – Grant walks through the Rocket Route fuel app with Kurt Lyall and then talks with Alan Wilson about AirBP‘s sponsorship of the app.
1:00:23 – During the show Steve was exercising his radio reporter voice and provided a number of F-35A related bulletins for Australian Independent Radio News, one of which we’ve included here.
1:00:52 – Steve tries to get Kreisha Ballentyne-Dickes’ awesome job with Cirrus Australia but she was too quick for that so instead they talk about Cirrus aircraft, training packages and the SF50 Vision jet.
1:07:22 – Grant once again gets to hang out with Heidi Fedak, Gulfstream‘s Director of Corporate Communications, as they chat inside a G650ER. It’s an amazing corporate jet and the perfect location to talk about Gulfstream’s biggest & fastest jet, their range and the current corporate market.
1:16:42 – It wouldn’t be PCDU’s Avalon coverage if we didn’t have a Timbo’s Tarmac section and this time Steve joins Grant to chat with Timbo and he braves the background noise of a BAE Hawk 127 flying past then an F-16 starting up to tell us what’s been happening air-side at the show.
1:20:24 – Steve wraps up the episode.