Issue 380: RAAF hits 100 & the Vickers Viscount

Emerging bleary eyed to clamber onto the coach the next day to return back to Sydney, I powered up my laptop to see what I’d missed. It turns out a lot. The area where I lived, North Manly, had been ordered into lockdown due to a cluster of COVID cases and, within hours, states started slamming shut their borders, flights were cancelled and stood up workers were asked to stand back down again. Frankly, it was the hangover from hell. 

Fast-forward two months, and things are scarcely any different. More transmissible strains of the virus are being met with ever more decisive reactions. Already in 2020, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and Auckland have entered circuit breaker restrictions for just a handful of cases. Whatever the rights or wrongs of this, it’s a disaster for the aviation industry. We might be at the beginning of the end, but we have no idea how long this journey will end, or just what carnage is ahead of us. 

What on earth then are Rex thinking, as they prepare to begin flying between Sydney and Melbourne on 1 March? The chaos, it thinks, brings opportunity because its two established players are hurting like never before, while it has secured a fleet of leased 737s and $150 million in funding. This issue, I examine everything we know so far, and ask whether they have a realistic chance of claiming a slice of the golden triangle, aviation’s most lucrative patch of sky.

But aside from the domestic carnage, we finally have some rather excellent news to celebrate. On 31 March, our very own RAAF turns 100. Perhaps more so than the centenary of Qantas, this matters for more reasons than are obvious. The Air Force not only was the second independent air force in the world – in what was an alien concept at the time – but also the organisation that paved the way for commercial aviation in Australia. In this issue, Chris Frame talks through its extraordinary history with the man who knows best, Chief of Air Force Air Marshal Mel Hupfeld. 

In what I think is one of our best and most important features of the past 12 months, Hannah Dowling speaks to Tom Caska who, as she writes, is perhaps one of the industry’s greatest success stories when it comes to true resilience in the face of adversity. Tom was a QantasLink pilot, flying the Dash 8 Q400 out of Cairns, and had clocked up thousands of flight hours as a bush pilot, before a kitesurfing accident paralysed him down the left side of his body. He then spent a year working with physios learning how to walk again, and time with counsellors to deal with the post-traumatic stress. It’s an experience that would have broken most people mentally, but he came back to launch his own drone photography company. Aside from this being an important story to tell, we hope it will inspire many of our readers struggling with stand downs and redundancies. 

Also in this issue, our longstanding but peerless contributors return. In Right Hand Seat, Dave Prossor talks us through how to diagnose, and treat, carburettor icing; Eric Allen has another special report on the history of the Vickers Viscount, which introduced turboprop power after decades of piston-engined airliners; while Tony Arbon’s analysis discusses the surprising number of new allocations on the Register. And, if you are truly sick of this new decade – and who isn’t – Rob Finlayson takes us back to what is truly the best years of them all, the ’80s, with these stunning shots taken around Australia and beyond. He’s provided us with captions and background information, my favourite of which is “Photographed at Norfolk Island Airport, whilst on my honeymoon. Obviously, my visits to the airport were very brief, but I still managed a few interesting shots, such as this one!”

Finally, this issue marks my third attempt at writing Traffic, following in the unfollowable footsteps of Gordon Reid. And while I’m no match for the great man, I am really, really trying. This issue I chart every one of Qantas’ second batch of repatriation flights – no mean feat as they are kept quasisecret by the government – an Antonov An-124 in Brisbane to fetch some F/A-18A Hornets for Canada, and – at last! – some actual deliveries, to Pionair, Pel-Air and Virgin Australia.

Enjoy the issue, 

Adam Thorn,