August 15  2006
Sign of tough times experienced by aircraft owners in OZ and as a result of a number of flying machines deregistered by the authorities for failure to meet CASR Part 47 requirements


...for the first time since the war years of more than 60 years ago the OZ aircraft register has shown a decline in the number of flying machines recorded...

News Desk Comment

Down from a peak of 12,686 aircraft as shown in the CASA aircraft register files for June 2006 to only 12,277 today ...a reduction of over 400 machines
 

Research & Reference

Data obtained from the CASA website - view HERE

August 18  2006
The downturn of light aircraft activity here in OZ exposes a number of issues associated with the industry that were previously thought to be 'bullet-proof'
 
One such area not mentioned in these pages before is the difficulty of OZ Aeronautical Engineers to maintain an interest and income after so many years of ongoing directional instability
 
In the current issue of OZ's top Industry & Trade Magazine - Factory Equipment News (FEN) - there's a report mentioning the involvement of Toowoomba based aeronautical engineer David Llewellyn in a project to design and build within the next four years “...the first successful diesel aero-engine for 80 years”      ...ahem ..see below ››

Meanwhile Back at AF

Eric Whitney - son of well known Brisbane based aero engineer Bill - has moved his expertise to the "dad" initiated Whitney Boomerang 2 seat training aircraft now under design and testing at Kingaroy
 
28yo PhD 'Doctor' Eric spent time overseas with the German Fokker manufacturer and more recently with Boeing at the military airbase at Amberley where he was involved in the serviceability status of the ageing F-111 Aardvark
 

News Desk Comment

Eric wanted to get involved in an aircraft project from initial design to flying the final product - an area in which he is well experienced having started out flying ultralights a number of years ago moving into light aircraft when finances and time permitted