Brisbane Show Day Holiday - when the people from the Bush descend on "the Big Smoke" to find the latest and greatest available in equipment and machinery for their properties

To-day the News Desk flying machine (in the aircraft park - front) is one quarter of the current number of visitors - used to be about 30

August 10
A pilot of a Piper Navajo Chieftain made a forced landing on a beach in Darwin's Nightcliff area around 0900hrs - thankfully the tide was out at the time

(8 metre tide variation!)

The "Air Ngukurr plane had flown from Bathurst Islands and was en route to Darwin airport when he (the pilot) issued a may-day call"


The 10-seater twin-engine aircraft suffered some damage to the propellers and was airlifted to nearby Coconut Bay for repairs

August 9
Interesting statistics for USA's Oshkosh Fly-in 2004 released by EAA on it's 52nd Annual Air Show and Convention held in Wisconsin

"More than 30,000 campers were housed along the flight line in aircraft camping areas"

117 persons registered from OZ for a total of 1,429 international visitors from 61 nations

August 10
Belgium Passenger Jet Drama

A cat broke out of its cage about 20 minutes after take-off on a flight from Brussels to Vienna and ended up in the cockpit where it scratched the co-pilot

"The cat was a prized animal that travels to cat shows around the world and had started wandering around the passenger cabin"

 
"The passenger (with the cat) was asleep and at that point the cat managed to escape the cage"

The cat named "Gin" slipped through the opened cockpit door as a flight attendant served lunch

The animal was "very aggressive and scratched the co-pilot" forcing the crew to return to the departure aerodrome