Despite the annoying habit of our “day jobs” and families encroaching into our PCDU time, we’ve finally managed to get some time to record an episode. Steve even managed a marathon effort of post production to edit a coherent episode from our opinionated news discussion and an interview with Saj Ahmad. Go Steve! :)

Despite my best efforts to drone on endlessly, Steve’s also managed to keep the episode under 2 hours, but not by much. Hopefully this will give you heaps of fun listening as you travel to & from work, mow the lawns or do your household chores :)

Here’s how the show came together this time:

• Robinson R44 crashes on a mountain beside a massive drop
• Men uninjured after chopper crash (Jeremy Sollars @ Lismore Northern Star via Warwick Daily News)
• Chopper incident ‘not so dramatic’ (Damian Bathersby @ Sunshine Coast Daily)
• Three men dodge death after their helicopter crash lands on the edge of a canyon ridge… two feet from a one mile drop
• Tiger’s IPO closes over subscribed – oh wow!
• Tiger Air offering overcomes doubts (Kevin Brown @ Financial Times)
• Blue skies for Tiger? (Stephen Bartholomeusz @ Business Spectator)
• Backing at home for Tiger Airways (Steve Creedy @ The Australian)
• Tiger IPO closes fully subscribed (Australian Aviation)
• Australia’s “self-serve” passport gates not working well
• Self-serve passport gates ‘easy to cheat’ (Monique Ross @ ABCNews)
• SmartGate passport hits 1m milestone (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Lie down all the way to LA: Air NZ (Thanks to Mike for pointing out the article)
• RNZAF aerobatic team lose a pilot in a training crash
• DEATH OF AIRMAN – 3RD STATEMENT (Press Release from RNZAF)
• RNZAF loses pilot in Red Checkers crash (Australian Aviation)
• Pilot doused burning plane wreck (Michael Forbes @ The Dominion Post)
• Brother pays tribute to pilot (Manawatu Standard)
• Dead air force pilot was top trainer (TV NZ)
• Red Checkers Ground Aircraft (NZ Herald)
• Death with no regrets, says pilot’s family (Iain Hyndman @ Wanganui Chronicle)
• Scathing report released on the F35 JSF project
• JSF faces another scathing report (Australian Aviation)
• Some notes concerning Australia's exposure to the risk that the Joint Strike Fighter is a failed project (Ben Sandilands @ Plane Talking on Crikey)
• We review a recent “Traffic Report” from the Australian Aviation magazine (our favourite aviation magazine :)
• VH-EBK (A330) withdrawn from QF domestic and repainted in JetStar colours in Manilla
• VH-OGA (a 767-300ER) withdrawn from service
• JetConnect withdrew it’s last 300 series 737 (ZK-JNC) which has gone to storage in Tucson – entered service with Australian Airlines on Dec 31, 1988 as VH-TJB “Fortitude” – transferred to JetConnect on Jul 29th 2004
• Some new aircraft with funky names have arrived for Virgin Blue
• E-190 VH-ZPO = “Portia Macquarie”
• 737-800 VH-VUT = “Yabba Dabba Blue”
• 737-800 VH-VUR = “Star City”
• 737-800 VH-VUS = “Chitty Chitty Broome Broome”
• VB’s 737-800 VUA that was previously used for mile-high karaoke with the Black Eyed Peas as they toured Australia has been returned to normal configuration & colour scheme.
• We have a chat with Saj Ahmad about 737/A320 re-engining and lots more
• Instead of reading some listener mail, we review a recent discussion on our forum about Podcasting Beer between Turb, Grand Vizier, Scofreyjet and ourselves
• We have a stack of shout outs for this episode:
• Ms Dark Sarcasm (aka Jennifer Barry) had her first solo (YAY!). You can follow her flying adventures on her blog: A need for Airspeed
• David Optimal is now a Grade 3 instructor (YAY!). You can follow his news via his blog at DavidOptimal.com
• Robert Cigliano has started a new aviation podcast called The New Pilot Podlog
• Zyola from the Mile High Flyers podcast has been getting lots of her lady pilot friends in Hawaii’i to listen in to PCDU – go go Aussie accent power :)
• Also big thanks to our anonymous donor from Canberra

As usual, our theme music track is “YouNameIt5” by Brian Simpson (aka t3cat5) and our sound effects come from SoundSnap.com.