Ellis Taylor

To mark the 50th anniversary of the start of flight tests on the Boeing 747 in February 1969, Australian Aviation is republishing Ellis Taylor’s report from the April 2010 edition of the magazine on the first flight of the latest, most recent variant of the iconic aircraft, the 747-8, in February 2010.

August 31 2010 saw the end of an era as the last Australian registered Boeing 727 departed from Sydney Airport for the final time.

Five years after it started, Pacific Blue had grown from a small New Zealand-based adjunct to Virgin Blue’s domestic Australian services to become a major growth vehicle for the Virgin Blue Group.

With the pilot shortage a topical issue in August 2018, today’s Throwback Thursday feature from a previous issue of Australian Aviation goes back in time a decade to revisit our August 2008 analysis of the then looming aviation skills shortage.

Today’s second ‘Throwback Thursday’ feature article from a past edition of Australian Aviation is this November 2010 issue analysis of Qantas’s fleet requirements. “Getting fleet strategy right is essential to airline success, and we have always been prepared to go straight to the aviation forefront,” Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said in a recent speech. This