Yes, Steve & Grant are Fan Boys (big Fan Boys, in fact :) and this episode we demonstrate it once again by interviewing Matt Hall and hanging out with some more fans at the Flight Experience Melbourne Facebook fan page open night in their 737 flight simulator. Seems we’re not the only ones who think a publically accessible 737 simulator is a great thing :)

Here’s how this episode flows:

• First class to be stripped from Qantas 747s? (Australian Aviation)
• QANTAS 767 involved in a tail strike at Sydney
• Qantas 767 returns to Sydney after tailstrike (Australian Aviation)
• Qantas plane in tail strike drama (Kate Schneider @ Herald Sun)
• Air New Zealand has a couple of emergency situations
• Full-scale emergency response as Air NZ jet aborts take-off (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Air NZ 777 involved in emergency at Narita (Australian Aviation)
• Jetstar are rolling out self-service & SMS based check in
• Jetstar jettisons check-in desks for self-service kiosks (Steve Creedy @ The Australian)
• Jetstar to roll out SMS boarding passes from February (Australian Aviation)
• Jetstar expect big results from their expansion into Asia
• Jetstar chooses Singapore for Asian hub (Australian Aviation)
• Jetstar expects payoff from expansion in Asia (Steve Creedy @ The Australian)
• Garuda are preparing for an IPO
• PT Garuda, Indonesia’s state-owned carrier, planning a $340 million IPO (P R Venkat & Tom Wright @ The Wall St Journal / The Australian)
• Garuda to list this year, cancels 787s (Australian Aviation)
• We have another interview with Matt Hall
• Matt Hall announces his supporter’s tour for Perth
• AVTours set up Matt’s supporter’s tour
• We attended the Flight Experience Melbourne Facebook fan open night and recorded some interviews with the instructors & guests who were there at the 737 simulator.
• Shout outs
• Congratulations to Jack Seymour in Wangaratta for doing his trial introductory flight in a Eurofox. You can read about his adventures in flight at his blog: StudentFlight.
• Thanks to Brendan from Essendon (YMEN) for letting Grant tag along when he went flying out to Tooradin (YTDN). While he didn’t get at the controls, being in the backseat of a C172 is still flying :)
• We have a discussion on our forum about where to find the best coffee at airports.

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