snakes mating

Oshkosh 2005 photographs

Australian International AirShow 2005 photographs

Tribute to my uncle Pat Dollisson who died 4/3/05.

Traveling to the USA?Check out Stewart's problems with TSA in 11/04.

Look at the Defence Air Show at RAAF Amberley 2004.

Check out Caboolture Air Spectacular 2004

A tribute to my father, Group Captain Jack Dollisson, DFC, AFC, retired who passed away Saturday 6/12/03.

Our 2003 New Zealand trip and photographs.

Please note our aviation quiz - give it a go and tell your friends.

Narrabri trip 2003 click here.
Enjoy the Australian International Air Show 2003 through the photographs of John Freedman and David Crawford.

RAAF National Memorial Re-dedication 1/11/02 photographs of the flypast, aircraft details and more.

What's new this week
(7/7/08) My temper's up again, this time against Formula One and the spineless Victorian Government. Many of you won't yet be aware that the long term planning for next year's Avalon AirShow has been turned upside down over the past few days. The F1 TOLD the Vic Gov that the dates were 27-29 March 2009, take it or lose it.

The spineless government accepted even though it meant AirShows would have to alter its long planned event. It is impossible to host two International events in the Melbourne area at the same time. Can you imagine the nightmare this presented the team at AirShows DownUnder? Overseas exhibitors whose longterm planning was turned on its head, acts possibly coming by sea transport (aircraft too small to fly across the drink) now having to scramble to re-arrange sea transport, We're only eight months out from the show.

F1 doesn't have this problem, all its cars and equipment are packed into specially built containers for air transport from one race circuit to the next. It would have been much simpler to adjust the Australian F1 race meeting than alter the International AirShow. Our Avalon is one of largest air shows in the world and deserved better treatment from the State Government.

I tried to adjust our motel accommodation this morning and learned that Geelong is hosting a Rotary Conference on the same weekend as the NEW Avalon dates. It seems that Geelong Council is trying to have Rotary host its event two weeks earlier to allow Geelong to accommodate both events successfully. I hope this is sorted quickly because at the moment I've only been able to get three night's accommodation at our chosen motel... I don't fancy a park bench for the rest of the week.

We are supposed to receive some rain this week. We are desperate for rain as our whole region is back in drought, everything is brown or bare earth. It did rain a little overnight but the winds have sucked that off the ground.

Stewart and I are interested in bike racing, the human machine kind not motorised. So over the next month we'll be sitting up each night to watch the Tour de France. Naturally we're hoping for an Aussie win, so go Cadel! We just love watching Robbie McEwan fly out of the pack at the finish of various stages. We hope he is successful in winning one or two stages as Sprinter. The best part of this coverage is seeing the lovely countryside of France and learning more about the country and its people and playing spot the Aussie flags. Maybe one day we'll follow the Tour for real. Then watch out for Aussie flags around the course!!

Bring on the rain, please.

(2/6/08) Vale Graham Camage friend and aircraft importer. Graham died in an accident in his Nanchang at Moruya Airport on Saturday afternoon. I feel so sad and have done since I saw the footage of the crash site on the ABC's Canberra news on Saturday evening. Our thoughts and best wishes are for his family and large circle of friends and business acquaintances.

I have been reviewing photographs this morning from a trip to Moruya with Graham last year to see his new hangars and Nanchang restoration business. We flew from Canberra airport in his Mooney on a grey day (26/9/07) and had a lovely barbeque lunch with the good people at PM Aviation, Phil and Lauren. After a good look around the airfield we took off and returned to Canberra. A most enjoyable day for me. Good memories.

I was horrified to hear Bill Woods report on last night's TEN news that 'a stunt pilot' had crashed at Moruya in an 'old' Chinese Nanchang. Where do these news people get their information? Graham was a good and experienced pilot who spent years of flying the Nanchangs he imported. We won't forget you Graham.

Yesterday Stewart and I attended the inaugural annual Bomber Command commemorative ceremony at the Bomber Command Memorial in the grounds of the australian War Memorial. It was attended by more than 1200 people including the Governer General and Mrs Jeffrey, the Chief of Air Force Air Marshall Geoff Shepherd and Mrs Shepherd and hundreds of members of Bomber Command and the extended families and friends.

It was a beautifully done ceremony. It will be held each year on the first Sunday in June in future. The men who attended feel they have finally come out from the shadows and been recognised. We who follow them must pick up the baton and carry forward their memory. Lest we forget.

One of benefits of attending this event was catching up with a good life time friend of my father's, Geoff Michael. Dad and Geoff met in England during the war and their friendship included their future wives and families. We are planning a gathering of our families for later this year. Mum is thrilled and sad Dad won't be there. I'm sure he'll be there in spirit.

AERO is almost done - again. We go to press this week. Stewart is tied to his computer checking layouts and text. I'm sure you'll enjoy this issue. The weather has turned greyer and cooler. It was beautiful up until yesterday, but we desperately need some rain. they say we could get some this week - bring it on!

(20/5/08) Stewart is home and we have a new budgie. The house was too quiet without a bird. I did the rounds of the pet shops in Queanbeyan and Canberra and settled on a little grey baby budgie. I liked the clean shop and the helpful staff and the birds were in a special room closed off from the normal flow of traffic in the store. He was placed in a small box (lots of air holes) for the trip home. The store owner felt this would be safer than having him rattle around in the new cage.

He was fairly quiet on the long trip home. I could hear his big feet moving in the box. He freaked when I slowly placed my hand in the box to lift him out. He was very quiet once placed in his new home. He sat on the low perch and just watched me. I watched him, trying to come up with a suitable name. I decided Ash was appropriate, and it has become Ashy. He is settling in and we're learning his personality. Things are back to 'normal'.

(12/5/08) Vale Cheeky Wilson, our little mate died yesterday morning after a short period of 'sleepiness'. Old age for humans, and he was a good age for a budgie at eight and a half. He made our lives hell and gave us much joy, life was certainly not boring while Cheeky shared our home.

He is now with our previous budgies in the garden. I've told the older boys to look after him and I'm sure they will, especially the Chook. The house is empty of his demands - and Stewart is away, so I'm male free!

Thankfully, Cheeky chose to leave us just before Stewart had to leave for the airport. A sad way for him to go off overseas - but better than it happening while he was away. As usual I was left to do the 'deed'.

Since I last wrote we've been to the Gold Coast for the first Cirrus Owners Fly-in and to Temora for the AAAA annual fly-in in conjunction with the Temora Aviation museum. Both were wonderful weekends meeting new friends and enjoying aeroplanes. The weather was dreadful on the Gold Coast (sunny Qld!) with torrential rains for most of the time. We did get a little sun on Sunday before we left.

We attended the ANZAC Dawn service in Temora and its special feature was a fly past by five aircraft - a lovely touch. We certainly appreciated it as they drowned out the boring priest whose speech was not relevant to the occasion. We were at the airport when the ANZAC march took place which included a fly past with the Museum's original Spitfire and Wirraway - wonderful.

The Antique Aeroplane Association put on yet another wonderful fly-in. It is drawing international attention with people coming specially from England and the USA (and maybe others I didn't meet). It was a shame the bad weather in southern Qld and parts of Vic and SA stopped many members attending in their aircraft. Still ,more than 150 aircraft flew in.

Stewart and others were in seventh heaven walking amongst the beautiful old aeroplanes. Much interest was shown in the two Avro Cadets, one of which only made its first flight since restoration the day before the fly-in. It took out the award for best restoration and the other won the Grand Champion award - justly so. We had lots of fun and enjoyed catching up with friends.

Stewart is on his way to France for the annual Airbus media briefing. This year he and a few others are going to the MRH90 factory in Marseille before coming home next Sunday. Lots of time in an aluminium tube for a few days in France!

I have my vegetable patch marked out, weeds aqnd grass killed, and am now working my way along turning the clods and putting in lime, blood & bone, kitchen scraps (pureed) and other bulk material. I will plant a green manure crop to build up the soil. This will be put back into the soil before planting vegetables and fruots in spring. Exciting process.

Federal Budget night tomorrow. So far it sounds just like a Labor (sic) budget. Watch out for rampant inflation to follow. They don't appear to learn anything from history, do they? Enjoy the media circus, I'll be watching a movie or listening to music because I can't stand any of it.

(10/4/08) We found out last night that the telephones for our whole area went out on Tuesday - not just our modem as suggested by the technician. In fact he told us our line was fine. This morning I rang Telstra again and explained that the lines were working okay and we'd like to cancel the technician for Friday. I was thanked for ringing back.

Next my mobile beeped, a text message from Telstra telling me our telephone was reported faulty at 15.30 08/04/08 and was repaired at 15.33 on 08/04/08. Sorry Telstra this is not true. We had dead lines and no light on the modem until Wednesday morning.

A friend has just rung to ask for our assistance for the RFDS Open Day at Bankstown Airport on Sunday 18 May. He and a friend wish to start collecting donations ahead of this fund raising event and he wants photosgraphs of RFDS aircraft, especially Pilatus PC12. We're more than happy to assist as we strongly believe in the RFDS and love the PC-12.

I have lived (a life time ago) in far north-western Queensland where you are dependent on the RFDS in cases of emergency. In fact we had regular RFDS clinics and we raised serious funds for the service. I have a real soft spot for this charity. Why not come along on the 18th and donate generously?

(9/4/08) We think the telephone and fax lines are okay. We lost them early yesterday afternoon and Telstra said they thought it was our (Telstra) modem. A technician is to come on Friday to check it. Thankfully they diverted our calls to a mobile so we were not totally cut off. Mind you who want to make all their telephone calls on a mobile? Especially when the majority are STD.

I rang back today to let Telstra know that the modem lights are all on and the lines are working okay. They wanted to cancel our technician. I asked if we could keep the faul alive as the modem fault may be intermittent. I was told we'd be charged if the fault was in our equipment - how? It all belongs to Telstra!

It is impossible to get people in call centres to understand the importance of communications when you live in the country and you are the primary contact for the local Fire Brigade (often life and death situations) and you operate a business. Four days without any communications in this day and age is just not acceptable. Even at snail's pace we need the Internet access because others assume we're ignoring them if we don't respond quickly.

(1/2/08) I should ask for rain more often because we did get a little more. Then we had really hot windy days to remove all the moisture from everything. I've been battling birds to save some of our fruit for us. I'm not winning much - the trees will have to be fenced in so I can control bird access. I don't mind sharing but I'd like some pears, plums and apples without chunks out of them.

Today the ABC Newsradio team has been saying climate change sceptics would find it difficult to explain the hottest January on record. I say hottest January where? Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, all of Australia. I think not. Weather is not climate, and weather is constantly changing. We had our coldest December in 2007 on our records (13 years). I was whining about 'where is summer?'

Our January was the same average temperature as the past five years. So we didn't have a 'hottest' January ever recorded.

We are so sick of hearing about 'climate change' and green energy. We're about to have unsightly wind turbines (and noisy) on the hills around us to kill our few remaining majestic Australian Wedgetail Eagles. We have a soft spot for these beautiful birds as they are the logo for our magazine.

We changed many of our light bulbs (like most people) only to learn these are far more dangerous to the long term health of our planet than the old incandescent globes. They contain mercury, enough in one globe to poison the earth forever. Do they contain any warnings on the packets? I don't remember seeing anything.

So we need to set up collection points everywhere so people may return used globes for the mercury to be collected and disposed of safely. How many will go into landfill before anyone realises what a disaster they pose for the planet?

It seems that kneejerk reactions to all sorts of things will continue to cause us even worse future problems. Remove incandescent globes because they use more power and cause 'greenhouse' gas. Replace them with globes which actually have the potential to poison us and the planet. Do you get it? Are we idiots to blindly follow the directions of those who supposedly know better than us? Yes, we are.

Why use precious water and land to grow food plants, not for human consumption but to be used to run engines? Biofuels are the next major problem we face. Already in Europe and elsewhere this nonsense has caused a huge increase in the cost of food. Who wins humans or engines?

Sceptics? Definitely. Worried about what is being done to our planet? Certainly. There has to be a better way than what we're seeing at the moment. I'm growing more and more of our needs because I don't trust anyone or any food company any more. If we could be self sufficient we would be. We're getting closer to it every year.

Stewart is busy working on AERO. This weekend he'll be working with the Fire Brigade at the Bungendore Country Muster (with ear plugs). They organise the car parking, collect the money and keep an eye on the camp grounds. Let's hope there's no fire or road accident that needs them over this period. I'll stay right out of it as I can't stand country music.

More rain please. No more dry evening thunderstorms, thank you. My plants really need the rain and so does our water tank.

(13/08/07) If you're visiting Brisbane please don't use Black & White Taxis. I rang their number to book a taxi to the airport. I was told by the 'troll' that they had my address and a car had been booked. Twenty minutes later I rang again to be told my call was logged and a car would be sent immediately. Ten minutes later (and an hour to my flight leaving) I was informed by an ignorant person that 'I' gave them the wrong address and shouldn't have used the automated system. I couldn't get a word in edgewise with this male person who hung up on me!

Great, high and dry and less than a hour to make my flight. I grabbed the Yellow Pages and found Yellow Cabs, rang the number and waited until I reached a human voice. The lovely lady couldn't believe my experience, checked the address (correct) and sent the first cab she could find to me. Thankfully he was prompt and I caught my flight with no time to spare. Mum has removed Black & White's number from her telephone and replaced it with Yellow Cabs.

Just proves my theory, you can't trust technology. If you know me I don't use ATMs, won't do transactions online and try to do most things the old and proven ways. I would be lucky to catch a taxi one or two times a year, usually one that pulls in front of you at an airport - so I don't have experience with automated systems. You can guess that I won't ever use them again, can't you!

If you're looking for the latest AERO Australia this is what it looks like:

.........................................................................................................................
'Take Back The Web, Firefox' please try this new web browser. No more unwanted pop-up windows, good security and much more. It's only 4.8Mb and its FREE. You may buy all sorts of merchandise from Mozilla to fund work on Firefox and Thunderbird, the companion e-mail programme.

The AERO Australia web site address is www.aero-oz.com.au. Looking for AERO covers to check if you have them all?

Don't forget to check our events page for interesting aviation shows or activities.