The World of Aviation

In what has been described as an Australian first, Queensland’s two leading community helicopter providers – CareFlight Group Queensland and the Sunshine Coast Helicopter Rescue Service (SCHRS) – have announced their decision to merge into a single entity. In doing so, the combined operation will become the largest community-based rescue helicopter service in the country.

The first of 24 MH-60R Seahawk ‘Romeo’ helicopters for the Royal Australian Navy successfully competed its first flight from Sikorsky’s Stratford, Connecticut facility on June 26. The aircraft undertook a number of checks during the flight, including of controllability, engine performance, vibration analysis and navigation. With ‘contractor flight acceptance’ now completed, the MH-60R will now be

Soon to be Virgin Australia controlled Tiger Airways Australia has been rebranded as Tigerair, with the airline’s first aircraft to feature a revised livery and logo unveiled at Melbourne Airport this morning. The name change and dropping the leaping Tiger logo for large ‘Tigerair’ titles promises to be the first step in the airline’s rebranding

Cessna has delivered the first production units of the world’s fastest commercially-produced and certified fixed-gear single engine aircraft – the Cessna TT. The company said the all-composite TT was designed for advanced pilots with advanced technology and greater comfort in mind. “The leather-wrapped side-stick control and additional horsepower provide advanced TT pilots with speed and

AirAsia has resumed flights to Darwin, offering a four-weekly A320 schedule to Bali. Flights depart from Darwin to Bali on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 1930 arriving at 2040 with a flight time of two hours and 35 minutes. AirAsia said it has received strong bookings for the service since releasing sales in April.

International scheduled passenger traffic in April 2013 was up 3.1 per cent to 2.453 million passengers. Year-to-date, international traffic has increased 4.9 per cent to 30.06 million. Some 53 international scheduled airlines operated services to and from Australia, which combined increased capacity to Australia by 6.4 per cent resulting in a lower average load factor