Happy New Year

Valuing aviation’s contribution to society

Dorothea Mackellar’s iconic poem reflects that we love a sunburnt country, but this New Year has brought with it devastation on a massive scale. Lives and property have been scarred if not lost altogether. Our television sets have shared images of walls of flames and the sun obscured by smoke, all the while a red ticker tape rolls across the bottom of the screen with updates of the latest threats.

Central to these images are the dramatic shots of our airborne firefighters. Images of turboprop singles, skimming rivers on floats to take on board another load of water, rotary-wing fleets hauling another sling load into the sky from some smoke-laden paddock, or the heavy metal of C130s, DC10s and 737s belching their red retardant. It is a far cry from the lone Squirrel with a “Bambi Bucket” that could occasionally be seen at the fire front many years ago. Now, the sky is alive.