Australian Flying

Projects often get so large that the finished product has little relationship to what we set out to build. It happens so often that it has its own term: scope creep or mission creep. Things get added, things get changed and often things get out of ha

The debate about a fleet of CL415 firebombers is not new; it has been mooted before, but with almost zero progress. With the industry divided on the subject, this summers disastrous fires have reignited the argument and this reader believes it is tim

MTOW INCREASE PG 12 PIAGGIO AEROSPACE PG 14 AUSFLY DATES PG 14 ADVISORY NETWORK PG 16 REGULATORY REFORM PG 18 CASA will proceed with a project to allow Approved Self-administering Aviation Organisations (ASAO) like RAAus to administer aircraft up to

An order for nine Avanti EVO twin turbo-props signed just days before Christmas last year looks set to revitalise Piaggio Aerospace and resurrect aircraft manufacture. The contract with the Italian defence force is worth around €196 million. Piaggio

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Michael McCormack late last year appointed former AOPA Australia president Andrew Andersen as the chairman of the new General Aviation Advisory Network (GAAN). Andersen, who is the V

Last December, the Governor-General signed three pieces of aviation regulation that signified the end of a 31-year reform program. The three parts–103, 105 and 131–complete the regulation reform started in 1988 to migrate the Civil Aviation Regulatio

In 1919 Prime Minister Billy Hughes, sensing the important role aviation may one day have for his young nation, put up a challenge, aimed squarely at the wiley Australia pilot service men waiting to return home from The Great War. He put up a £10,000

You don’t have to be a Type-A personality or the captain of the school football team to make a good defence force pilot, but you do have to have a set of skills and capabilities that will get you through training and onto an operational squadron. The

Cirrus recently announced an IFR capable training version of their best-selling SR series, single engine aircraft, known as the TRAC. The SR20 version of the TRAC is powered by the 215 hp Lycoming. This smooth-running engine has proven popular in the

Bryce England knew his days in green were over. The Blackhawk pilot had a set of skills that were a perfect match for the Australian Army, but finding a civil career that challenged his abilities and valued those skills was problematic. Not for him f

It seems to have been around forever. The classic piston twin workhorse, slugging away in remote areas, on poor quality airstrips, in the tropics, in the deserts, and in the big city airports. That familiar aircraft is the Britten-Norman Islander. Wh

Taxiing. It may seem so simple that there is no art to it at all; it’s one of the first in-aircraft skills we learn and we use it every time we fly. And yet, taxi-related incidents and accidents still occur frequently; the ATSB offers seven pages on

The origins of business aviation post World War I and for two decades following World War II have been covered in recent editions of Australian Flying. I now turn to the very exciting period when turbine powered business aircraft began to change the

The unprecedented and deadly beginning to Australia’s 2019-20 fire season saw record numbers of rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft responding to numerous fires burning around the country. On Australia’s east coast, fires have been burning since Septembe

Garmin has introduced a new multi-function electronic flight instrument capable of replacing round gauges in existing instrument panels. Named the GI 275, the unit can be retrofitted to aircraft using the existing 3.125” (79 mm) panel holes. The GI 2

The EFB revolution has forever changed aircraft cockpits to the extent that even commercial aviation companies, aircraft manufacturers and the Australian Defence Force have absorbed them into their day-to-day operations. The flexibility and speed the

Andrew Kendrick always wanted to fly as a kid, growing up in Wallan under the approach path to the airport. With an electronic engineering degree under his belt, Andrew then took a Trial Instructional Flight on his birthday. With only another 29 or s

Developing, writing, consulting and finalising new safety regulations is a big job. As everyone knows, the task of completing the updating and rewriting of Australia’s aviation regulations has taken a long time. In part this has been due to the stop-

CASA’s new draft Advisory Circular 61-16 Spin Avoidance and Stall Recovery Training provided some good holiday reading for us. CASA’s view is now “Spin recovery training is highly recommended for any pilot at any level of licence or experience and is