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By Grant (Falcon124), on December 31st, 2014% Podcast: Play in new window | Download (92.1MB) Subscribe: As the final hours of 2014 draw to a close, we’re getting our last episode for 2014 out the door. The boys have been kept pretty busy with their day jobs lately but, despite this, they’ve managed to do some flying:
- Grant’s been taking friends on their first balloon flights including Evan Schoo and Darren Craven
- Fred Samson took Steve for a fly over San Francisco while he was there a back in October
- Steve got to fly a 172 in Las Vegas thanks to Rod Rakic & AirWork Las Vegas, an OpenAirplane member
- The PCDU aeroplane fleet has expanded thanks to Jonesy picking up a 1974 model Cessna 172
After the hangar talk settles down, we get into the episode itself which includes the recent Avalon Airshow Media Launch, Steve’s time at the Red Bull Air Race in Las Vegas and Grant’s trip to Auckland in New Zealand for the Wings Over New Zealand Forum meet up. The episode stacks up in the following list:  Steve with the AirWork Cessna 172 he flew over Las Vegas
- Grant attended the media launch for the Avalon Airshow which was held in the old Qantas hangar where they used to park a 747 while doing heavy maintenance on it. There was wind on the hangar walls, doors opening, vehicles moving and people talking which all made it a rather “interesting†place to record the following chats:
- 0:16:29 – Jeff “Trappo†Trappett finally gets a chance to appear on PCDU (that or he couldn’t run away fast enough :) ) and talks to Grant about his P51, his C47 & his Sabre
- 0:22:34 – Paul Bennet talks about his new Wolf Pitts aircraft, the manoeuvres it’s letting him do and where things are at with Paul Bennet Airshows (sounds like he’s got a bit of an airforce happening :) )
- 0:26:36 – Darren Craven talks about owning & flying a Winjeel
- 0:33:30 – Gordon Robinson talks about flying Australia’s only Fokker Dr.1 triplane replica all the way down to Melbourne from Brisbane
- 0:39:38 – Andrew Carter owns & flies the Dr.1 replica that Gordon flew down. He talks to us about setting up the Australian Vintage Aviation Society to commemorate WW1 & bring to life aircraft of the era.
- 0:48:28 – Of course, there wouldn’t be aircraft at Avalon without a session on Timbo’s Tarmac and Grant made sure to record one at this event
- Back in October, Steve went to the USA to experience the Red Bull Air Race in Las Vegas (his family still thinks it was a family trip :) ). While at the event he recorded the following interviews:
 Steve chats with Matt Hall at the Red Bull Air Race in Las Vegas
- 0:59:33 – Eric Cieslar & Peter Wezenbeek are Matt Hall’s race technician & race tactician and they talk about their roles in keeping Matt flying in top form during the races
- 1:05:30 – Hannes Arch talks about standardised engines and how they’ve highlighted the pilot’s skills as opposed to engine power
- 1:09:06 – Kirby Chambliss talks about the challenges he’s faced this season and the changes he’ll be making for the next season
- 1:13:42 – Mike Goulian talks about his involvement with Cirrus aircraft and the hassles he’s worked through this season
- 1:19:48 – Steve catches up with Matt once again just prior to the start of the second day to discuss qualifying
- 1:21:55 – Steve presents a wrap up of the race after the winds came up and they had to cancel the day’s flying (audio courtesy of the Red Bull Air Race content pool)
- 1:24:21 – Rod Rakic talks about OpenAirplane
- As Steve was on a Qantas A380 heading to the USA, Grant was on an Air New Zealand A320 heading to New Zealand to attend the Wings Over New Zealand Forum gathering at Ardmore Airport near Auckland. More than just a gathering, this event included plenty of presentations on great topics, all hosted within the New Zealand Warbirds hangar. While Dave Homewood is releasing much of the content from the event on his Wings Over New Zealand show, Grant recorded a few items of his own:
- 1:33:54 – Brett Nicholls talks about owning two ex-RNZAF BAC 167 Strikemasters and what it’s taken to get them running for publically available joy flights with Jetfighter Military Adventure Flights
 Graham Wood taxies the DH.83 Fox Moth
- While Grant didn’t get a chance to record with Melanie Salisbury from Aviation Tours NZ, she did pass on some information about their “Planes, Trains & Automobiles†tour of the UK in July 2015 which includes Duxford’s “Flying Legends†airshow. It looks like a great tour with plenty of aviation goodness packed into it :)
 Steve & Grant recommend you check out Spotters Mag
- Steve & Grant have been enjoying the new Spotters Mag, an eMag for aviation spotters with a version just for Australia & New Zealand. Highly recommended!
- Carlos Stebbings from the Plane Talking UK show is doing his pilot’s license: onya, mate!
- Steve would like to thank Captain Harry Wubbin for his hospitality on board QF93
- Steve & Grant thank Paul Burfitt from 64 for his great help this year
- Don’t forget that the Avalon Airshow 2015 is coming up in a few months and we’re looking forward to seeing you there
- With tickets on sale already, it’s definitely time to start thinking about the Temora Aviation Museum‘s Warbirds Down Under event coming up in November
By Grant (Falcon124), on December 31st, 2013% Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:25:52 — 100.4MB) Subscribe:  Steve & AntCB chatting with Chris Sperou It’s been an amazing year but as 2013 draws to a close, we’re squeezing one more episode out for you. We’ve combined some content not yet published from Avalon & AusFly with some great reports supplied by other members of the PCDU team. We’ve also got a competition running to win one of five copies of Owen Zupp’s new book.
In keeping with our trend for 2013, this is yet another 2+ hour episode packed with great avation content, including:
- 0:09:06 – Steve & AntCB chat with Chris Sperou at Avalon 2013
- 0:18:30 – Grant talks with Bevan Anderson from AvPlan
- 0:25:11 – Peter Edwards from Cirrus talks about their latest aircraft
- 0:31:53 – Sue Woods talks with Grant about the latest Jabiru news
- 0:37:09 – Maikha Ly reports on a recent Free Flight model aircraft competition
- 0:49:21 – Dave Homewood talks with Peter Daniell, the CEO of Air Wakatipu at Queenstown in New Zealand
- 1:19:27 – Damien Rose reports on Caribou Cargo
- 1:46:14 – Listener Mail:
- Ian Kershaw sent us an audio comment about Owen Zupp’s eBook “50 Tales” which leads into the news that Owen has released a new eBook called Solo Flight about his fund-raising flight around Australia in a Jabiru. We have a competition running where you can win one of five copies of the eBook but you’ll need to listen to the show to find out how to enter (it’s easy! :)
- Evan Schoo sent us an audio comment about his perspective on Grant’s balloon flight with Kathy Mexted
- Mick from Fankston (our good friend, source of many interesting emails & Shangri-La pal) has found that Virgin Australia’s 737-800’s don’t have a window at seat 9A … OUCH!
- Rashidi Merrifeld sent us a link to a video he’s created about wanting become an airline pilot when he’s older
- Paul O’Rourke told us about the Cobden Fly-in coming up on Feb 15th & 16th, 2014. You can arrive around 10 am and stay or pop in whenever and say hi. A BBQ lunch will be available. You can camp under your wing or check out accommodation on the Cobden Aeroclub Facebook page. Monitor their page for updates and ‘LIKE’ it or call before departing for the fly-in. AVGAS will be available. Contact: Warren 0428-024-633 or Bill 0403-498-005 E: cobdenaeroclub@gmail.com
- Melanie Salisbury from Travel Managers in NZ wrote to us about their Bomber Country tour of the UK happening in July 2014. It’s a 19 day escorted tour covering Duxford’s “Flying Legends,†Waddington & RIAT plus has options for Farnborough. If you can cover the price tag ($9,200 per person) then it looks like it’ll be a great tour
- Steve Tupper from Airspeed has released a trilogy of great episodes about his entry into being an airshow performer
- 2:09:30 – We talk about a few of our favourite moments from 2013 and the things we’re looking forward to in 2014
- 2:19:21 – We give some shoutouts to some of those who have helped us during 2013
Just for the fun of it, here’s a few photos of the team during 2013
 Grant & Steve in the main Studio  Team PCDU at Avalon 2013  Anthony Simmons at the Media Room Work Desk during Avalon 2013  Ben Wickham & Kathy Mexted about to fly in the MRH-90 Taipan  Steve & Grant with Ryan Campbell at AusFly 2013  Steve & Grant chatting with the F18F Super Hornet Demo Crew  Kathy Mexted after her Taipan Ride  Maikha Flying a Lightie
By Grant (Falcon124), on June 16th, 2012% Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:42:53 — 70.7MB) Subscribe:  Way back in April, Steve & ATC Ben flew “Ben Air” from Lilydale (YLIL) to Temora (YTEM) for the RA-Aus NatFly 2012 event, leaving Grant behind in Melbourne attempting to recover from bronchitis. While not as vibrant as 2011, there was still plenty of activity to keep Steve & Ben busy recording the following items:
- 0:02:46 – Introduction to NatFly 2012
- 0:03:25 – RA-Aus directors Steve Runcleman & Steve Tizzard discuss the event
- 0:10:55 – Rohan Wittington talks about the amazing Petrel Amphibian
- 0:18:28 – Chris Cabot from Wagga Air Centre discusses the Tecnam P2006T
- 0:28:07 – Peter Wezenbeek walks us through the Wingmate Data Recorder
- 0:33:02 – Andrew Tricket & his team will be releasing Sport Pilot TV in the very near future
- 0:39:22 – Graeme from Stawell Aviation steps us through the Air Safaris they run
- 0:45:51 – Chris Brandon at AirCreation Australia has some very cool trikes available (you know Grant wants to fly them, right? :)
- 0:54:07 – Greg Robertson from Best Off Aircraft Australia had the Nynja on site for people to examine
- 0:59:15 – Bas & Rowan from OzRunways talk about their presence at NatFly, the workshops they were running and their future plans for the software
- 1:09:57 – Steve & Ben wrap up their NatFly 2012 experiences
 ATC Ben preparing “Ben Air VH-RCR” for the great journey north At 1:17:12 Steve, Ben & Grant have a chat about NatFly then we launch into an ATC Q&A where Ben answers questions about runway incursions plus aircraft callsigns and how ICAO handles them.
At 1:29:12 we then move into Listener Mail:
- Lavan Ruben is a 14 year old aviation enthusiast who got to visit the 787 ZA003 at Melbourne (YMML), posting some videos on his YouTube channel: My Travels and Spotting
- Jack Miller wrote in to say Hi and talk about his Aussie aviation blog General Aviation Australia
- Andrew Brown writes in from the UK to say he really enjoyed the Geoff Whitty interview
- Howard McClernon writes in to say he’s been sifting through the archives and enjoyed Lang Kidby’s talk about his flight re-enactments wwaaayyyy back in Episode 14
 Temora’s making us all feel welcome We then wrap up the episode (1:34:46) with a chat about helping to keep councillors from contemplating the closure of Kyneton airfield near Melbourne then a great shout out (at 1:36:50) to GippsAero for the first flight of their GA10 turboprop aircraft.
Notes:
* The Aus Air Services advert is provided courtesy of Star FM 94.3
By Grant (Falcon124), on May 24th, 2011% Podcast: Play in new window | Download (71.4MB) Subscribe: We are fortunate to have Dick Smith return to PCDU, joining us to discuss his views on Australia’s aviation environment. We talk about his time as chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority and then his return as chairman of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. He mentions some of the initiatives he started that worked as well as some that didn’t quite work as planned. Dick also gives us a rather candid look at his views on user fees, ministers and what’s going wrong with aviation today.
Once again this discussion with Dick is sure to generate divided commentary from those in aviation, both old & new. If you’ve not already listened to our previous chat with Dick about his early flying adventures, you really should check it out now.
Following our chat with Dick we have a dramatic change of scene as the Infrequent Flyer (aka Anthony Simmons) returns to give us his View From the Lounge angle on the Avalon Airshow. Then, to answer Anthony’s question of “How it all flows together” we have ATC_Ben return to present his latest Controller’s Corner where he explains just what went on at Mercat Manor.
Following that we have a few interviews recorded at Avalon:
- FLT LT Pete Komar, an F-18F Super Hornet pilot with the RAAF
- BAe Hawk Mk127 techo LAC Brian Dick
- Pilot Officer Emmanuel “Muz” Murray talks about flying the BAe Hawk Mk127
- SGT Kerry Dimar who works in logistics with the BAe Hawk Mk127
To keep with the Fast Jets angle, we’ve thrown in some cockpit audio from Steve’s flight with Mark Pracy in JetRide’s L39 Albatros.
For this episode, we’ve dived into the mailbag to bring out:
We also give a shout out to:
By Grant (Falcon124), on March 26th, 2011% Podcast: Play in new window | Download (55.8MB) Subscribe: The Australian International Airshow (aka Avalon 2011) is over but the show must go on. We have mountains of content from Avalon 2011 in addition to the interviews we released in each of our daily episodes.
Yes, that’s right: If you haven’t downloaded & listened to each of the daily episodes then you should stop right now and go do it. There is some amazing content in those episodes that will NOT be in the post-show Avalon episodes, including F22 Raptor pilots, B1B crew, Dr Brendan Nelson, remote tower systems, Simmo & the CA27 Sabre plus much much more.
This episode we focus on the Trade Show aspect of Avalon 2011, gathering together the interviews we recorded with various corporations during the first few days of the show:
After some intense trade show coverage, we also step back a bit with the latest ‘View from the Lounge’ update from Anthony Simmons before winding up the episode with some Listener Mail:
- David Thornton says “Hi” from the UK and thinks our Avalon Quick Cast episodes were just like being there.
- Mac Coble from Florida
- Bruce Dickerson from Georgia
We also have a few important shout outs:
- Gary Towart who helped escort us at the KC135 and warbirds tarmac, preventing us from getting hassled :)
- MozzMan from SRS Photography who escorted us during our interviews with Nikolay, Bob, Kent & Chris plus took a few photos of us in action
- Ian Kershaw who’s put together our new audience survey
- We now have a PCDU Flickr stream where our Avalon 2011 photos are being loaded along with others from past events
Thanks once again for downloading & listening to our show. Be sure to catch up with our Avalon Daily episodes as there is lots of great content in those too.
By Grant (Falcon124), on February 20th, 2011% Podcast: Play in new window | Download (70.9MB) Subscribe:  Steve & Grant are joined once again by Bas Scheffers from Adelaide to discuss a few items, including:
- A follow up to the ADSB discussion we had with Bill Hamilton back in episode 48
- A discussion of the iPhone/iPad application Bas & a partner have been developing called OzRunways covering what it does & how it came to be
- The revelation that Grant actually doesn’t like the TV show “Ice Pilots” (oh, the shame! :)
- Parafield airshow is changing dates to March 25th, 2012 due to weather concerns and to help ensure more Australian Defence Force assets will be available
- Avalon is coming up soon
- Bas is going to Oshkosh and as we may not be able to make it, he may have to be the PCDU correspondent for us (not sure how we’ll get him a more Australian accent though!)
- Hassling Bas to provide a bio for the PCDU “About Us” page
We also have another great chat with our man “Across the Ditch,” Dan Morris from New Zealand, including:
As if all this wasn’t enough, we also have a chat with James Williams from the Podcaster’s Emporium about his recent Business Class trip with Emirates across the ditch to New Zealand & back.
Finally, we wrap up the show with some Listener Mail & Shout Outs, including:
- Bill Morelli from the USA who flies a Zenith Zodiac (nice plane!)
- Paul Bridges who supplied the photo of the Qantas DC3 that graces this episode’s notes
- Colin Sweetman from the UK who has started getting back into his flying and wants to do aerobatics (YES!!!! says Grant :) and also offered to be our tour guide to a number of aviation museums if we can get there (we’ll hold you to that, Colin! :)
- And finally, a big shout out to the people who decided to take part in the “$50 for Episode 50” concept – thanks folks!
By Grant (Falcon124), on June 17th, 2010% Podcast: Play in new window | Download (77.7MB) Subscribe: This episode we feature an interview with Hannes Arch, the Austrian Red Bull champion in 2008 who came second in 2009 and is currently second on points for 2010. We have a great chat with Hannes (starting at 0:05:38) about his involvement in extreme sports, his love of flying and his approach to the Red Bull racing world.
We were also fortunate to get some time with Gary Clark (starting at 1:01:30), the creator of the Swamp cartoon strip. Gary’s experiences in learning to fly and his on going adventures in the air have provided a solid source of inspiration for many of the characters & moments depicted in the Swamp series. It is not uncommon to find his cartoons on the walls in flying clubs & schools, hangars and aviation organisations.
This episode also includes the following:
- A discussion with Angie Morino from Aus Air Services (starting at 0:33:14) about the changes they’ve made at the Tooradin Flying School (YTDN).
- Grant’s quick chat with Richard Turnbull (starting at 0:45:31), a hot air balloon pilot from the UK
- Anthony Simmons’ latest View from the Lounge segment (starting at 0:54:12)
- Our listener mail, including:
- Stephen Silk points us at Ask the Pilot
- Steven Pam provides still more checklist examples
- Trent Donnovan from WA shows that Jandakot (YPJT) is only just behind Bankstown (YSBK) for total movements in February
- We give a few shout outs:
- The Airplane Geeks podcast reaches 100 episodes – well done guys!
- We’ve launched our PCDU Commentaries blog (UPDATE 2017-02-4: After years of inactivity, the blog has been shut down & its posts moved to Grant’s Fly Me Friendly blog)
- Kathy Mexted mentioned us in her article about the Melton Centenary Air Show that appeared in AOPA’s Australian Pilot magazine
- Milford & Charlie from the Flight Time Radio Show over in Florida
- Don’t forget to give PCDU a good comment (or two :) ) over at the iTunes store
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PCDU Episode 34: Arching over the Swamp
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (77.7MB)
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This episode we feature an interview with Hannes Arch, the Austrian Red Bull champion in 2008 who came second in 2009 and is currently second on points for 2010. We have a great chat with Hannes (starting at 0:05:38) about his involvement in extreme sports, his love of flying and his approach to the Red Bull racing world.
We were also fortunate to get some time with Gary Clark (starting at 1:01:30), the creator of the Swamp cartoon strip. Gary’s experiences in learning to fly and his on going adventures in the air have provided a solid source of inspiration for many of the characters & moments depicted in the Swamp series. It is not uncommon to find his cartoons on the walls in flying clubs & schools, hangars and aviation organisations.
This episode also includes the following: