Jake Nelson

The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has awarded a major tender to Sphere Drones for its HubX mobile drone platform, which will initially be deployed across national parks and reserves including Yiraaldiya, Tugalong, Nattai, Yathong, and Kosciuszko.

The group – which comprises Webjet, motorhome and car rental e-commerce site GoSee, and travel tech company Trip Ninja – has entered the stock market after splitting from parent company WEB Travel Group Limited, with more than 97 per cent of shareholders voting in favour.

Ted Colbert III, who took over Boeing Defense and Space in 2022, has been temporarily replaced by the division’s chief operating officer Steve Parker while the company looks for his replacement.

In this exclusive premium podcast, Jake Nelson speaks to Raul Villaron, head of Asia-Pacific for Embraer, about how the planemaker is pushing harder into the Australian market – and what regional jets could do for our aviation sector.

The latest BITRE data – the first since Rex axed its domestic jet operations, which consistently posted high on-time performance, at the end of July – showed QantasLink as the most reliable individual airline in on-time departures and arrivals, though Virgin saw the lowest cancellations.

Gap Drone’s four-metre-long Autonomous Transport Logistics Air System UAV is slated for commercial launch in 2026, with the start-up set to test its navigation and propulsion systems on a smaller-scale “Baby Atlas” demonstrator platform in coming weeks.