Few airlines these days manage to break even, fewer still actually produce a net profit. It hardly matters whether the airline is a short-haul commuter or a large international operator. Falling passenger demand, and thus overcapacity, high interest rates and rapidly increasing operating costs have brought the world’s best operators to their knees. In this
During the course of the next few years, the RAAF will have to decide on an aircraft to replace the ageing Aermacchi MB-326H. One of the principal contenders is certain to be the British Aerospace Hawk, which several services (including the US Navy) evidently judge to be the finest jet trainer currently available, and which
John Conley started in aviation around the age of fourteen at Broken Hill, working for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Two years later, the eager young lad found himself flying sundry aeroplanes from war surplus, and also commenced doing the odd deal or two, buying and re-selling aeroplanes to new owners. In 1946, John registered
In their haste to get a replacement carrier, any carrier, for HMAS Melbourne the Royal Australian Navy lost badly to the twin ravages of international crisis and a lack of local political support. Prior to the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands, it looked certain that the RAN would have their HMAS Australia in service as
The General Aviation industry throughout Australia and the world is currently in a state of crisis. Falling sales, a third of what they were during the halcyon days of the late seventies, have reduced America’s ‘big three’ to much smaller concerns beginning to concentrate on the higher end of the market in order to survive.