It’s time once again for the Australian International Airshow and Aerospace & Defence Exposition (aka Avalon 2011) and Team PCDU are there to arrange interviews with people & organisations that catch our eye. Today was our first day at the airshow and while much of it was spent meeting people & setting up our schedule for the week, we still managed to:

• Interview Dr Brendan Nelson who was Australia’s Defence Minister during 2006-2007 and, in addition to scoring a couple of rides in F18 Super Hornets, also signed off the purchase of Super Hornets & C17s for the RAAF, the MRH-90 helicopters and many more new projects that are now reality
• Talk to Mark Robinson & Martin Hoffensetz from SAAB about the “Virtual Control Tower” systems they’re presenting to AirServices here in Australia. These systems will allow people to manage control towers from remote locations and could potentially be on trial here in Australia in the near future
• Discuss flight training options with Peter Dow from TVSA Pilot Training including the incredible effort he has put into establishing TVSA as Australia’s first ever VET FEE-HELP endorsed aviation school, allowing students to defer payment of part or all of their tuition fees until they obtain paying work
• Introduce our first “Timbo’s Tarmac” and “Through the Keyhole with Papa Smurf” segments. These will feature daily chats with tarmac operations staff covering newly arrived aircraft and issues that cropped up during the day

Not bad for a first day’s effort. There were a few more chats we recorded but they’ll be carried over to tomorrow’s Quick Cast or a post-Avalon episode we release after the dust has settled. Despite that, it’s still a 50 minute episode so we’re going to attempt a bit of trimming on tomorrow’s episode as our goal is to be about 30 minutes :)

These Avalon Quick Cast episodes are being sponsored by Aviation Advertiser and supported by Red Baron and Temby Automotive.