10.04.2019: It’s time for Aero again, but unfortunately I’m on a business assignment to Australia since around four weeks. And I might stay still a few more weeks, so no private flying for some time.
14.04.2019: There is a large tree in front of our apartment in Sydney, a kind of Eucalyptus, which provides food for birds during the day and for flying foxes at night. They both make an awful noise, especially when the flying foxes arrive after dark and chase away the birds. I have tried to take a picture of one of the flying foxes when climbing through the trees, here the best shot I could take wit h my mobile phone in the dark.
The flying foxes are a kind of bat, with up to more than 1 m wingspan, but with a body covered in a red fur, just like a fox. They don’t have ultrasonic sounding, like ordinary bats, but rely on visual sighting only. They have however extremely sensitive eyes, allowing them to fly at night.
20.04.2019: We are off for a short trip to Melbourne, as the Thursday after Easter is ANZAC Day, a public holiday. So our customer decided that everyone should have a break for a week, which is more than welcome as our work is quite intensive.
On the way to Melbourne we passed the Fleet Air Arm museum, the aviation museum of the Australian Navy, but unfortunately on Good Friday which is one of only four days a year when the museum is closed.
Somewhere on our way there was a kind of flea market, where some visitors flew in by floatplane. Cool…
24.04.2019: Yesterday I realised that the Royal Australian Air Force museum is located just outside Melbourne, and as fairly poor weather was announced for this morning we decided to go there. Below the main building of the museum, with two of the five hangars in which the planes are stored visible behind.
The brick building shown above hosts a well made sequence of displays describing the history of the Royal Australian Air Force, with many memorabilia and pictures starting with WW1 all the way to the Gulf war.
They have a large number of aircraft on display which have been used by the Royal Australian Air Force, my favorite being the Supermarine Walrus shown below.
Below some more impressions from the exhibition, both indoors as well as outdoors.
Below the manned and unmanned version of a drone developed by the Air Force.
In the aircraft restoration hangar they are working on a complete restoration of the only remaining De Havilland Mosquito which has served in combat for the Royal Australian Air Force, a project they expect to take 10 years. From what I understood they intend to restore it to flying condition.
