Chartair – Aviation Historical Society of Australia

DerekB06/03/202303/06/2023

Aviation Heritage Vol. 54 No. 1 (March 2023) Contents Listing

The latest quarterly edition (March 2023) of the AHSA journal – Aviation Heritage – has recently been posted to members. The full contents are...

1919 Captain Henry Wrigley and Sergeant Arthur William Murphy completed the first crossing of the continent of Australia from south to north when they departed from Katherine, Northern Territory and flew to Darwin on Friday 12 December 1919. This was the fourteenth and last leg of an aerial survey of a suitable route from Melbourne to Darwin. Along the route they surveyed landing sites and made descriptions of the terrain over which they flew. They were planning to arrive in Darwin before Ross and Keith Smith, Walter Sheirs and James Bennett who flew from London in the Vickers Vimy G-EAOU but the Vimy arrived in Darwin two days before them. The small landing ground which had been cleared at Katherine needed to be extended to allow the B.E.2e to take off. They flew directly northwards from Katherine to Darwin, a flight of approximately 310km following the overland telegraph and railway line. Source: Tom Lockley, Wrigley and Murphy: Australia’s First Transcontinental Flight; AHSA (NSW) Inc., 2009.

2019 The Civil Aviation Safety Authority announced that a milestone in Australia’s aviation safety regulation development program was reached on 12 December 2019, with the Governor-General’s signing of the final three flight operations Parts of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998 (CASR). The new CASR Parts streamlined and modernised the rules for sport and recreational aviation, ballooning and parachuting activities in Australia. This substantially completed a program that had begun 25 years earlier, migrating the aviation safety rules to the CASR from the Civil Aviation Regulations 1988 and numerous other instruments. Two years earlier, when CASA had 10 regulations to finalise to complete the CASR suite, Chief Executive Officer/Director of Aviation Safety Shane Carmody made a commitment to industry that the Authority would ‘get them done’. The regulations are part of a suite of nine flight operations regulations that commenced on 25 March 2021, affecting every pilot and air operator in Australia. Source: transparency.gov.au website

2019 The Pilatus PC-9/A aircraft of the RAAF were withdrawn from service on 12 December 2019 after more than 30 years of operations and over 500,000 flying hours since entering service in November 1987. The PC-9/A was replaced by the newer and more capable Pilatus PC-21. Deputy Air Commander Australia, Air Commodore Guy Wilson joined hundreds of personnel and their families from the RAAF, maintenance provider Airflite and representatives from Pilatus at a function and flypast to mark the type’s withdrawal, at RAAF Base Pearce, north of Perth, Western Australia. AIRCDRE Wilson said “The aircraft has successfully supported 103 pilot training courses and graduated more than 1400 pilots from Navy and Air Force. For those who have flown and supported the PC-9 fleet, seeing them retire will be an emotional experience – but the introduction of the PC-21 allows us to deliver modern and effective training that will serve the next generation of pilots." The retired PC-9/A aircraft were allocated as training aids, to heritage centres, or disposed through commercial auctions. Nine PC-9/A aircraft from Number 2 Flying Training School (2 FTS) at RAAF Base Pearce made a final flight formation before retirement. During the flight A23-001, the first PC-9 delivered to the RAAF, suffered a bird strike and had to land early, leaving eight PC-9s to complete the formation flypasts. Source: Department of Defence