I know I said I would be writing these posts every week or two…my Operations Manager Dave Lyall, fresh back from the Olympics, just reminded me it has been almost a month since I wrote!! How time flies….
The end of July and first half of August turned out to be a very busy few weeks. We conducted another photo shoot with both aircraft and the Massel race car at Maitland airport, all on the ground this time. I then did a few days of work at the RAAF base, helping out with Exercise Pitch Black in the Northern Territory, before heading away to Queensland with both the MXS and the Extra. That was a very successful trip, where I did 4 demonstrations at Ipswich race track, during the V8 Supercars round and the Extra was kept busy all weekend doing joyflights from Archerfield.
It was then off to Chinchilla. This was a surprise visit that had been organised by one of the mining companies up there, to give a talk on Risk Mitigation, and then take a few of the employees for a flight in the Extra to demonstrate my own Risk Management (quite a graphic demonstration, and sure beats looking at power point slides all day!!).
Out of Queensland, it was race home for another presentation at the 22nd Annual Mechanical Electrical Engineering Safety Seminar…once again talking about how I have managed risk in a risky environment.
We then filmed the TV show Alive and Cooking for 2 days in front of my hangar at Maitland. I took celebrity chef James Reeson for a flight in the Extra, and he taught me how to cook! I am not sure who had the better deal!!
Somewhere in there, my son Mitchell had his 7th birthday and his party with all his mates, we ran a radio ad and competition for Fathers Day, we did some media about the Red Bull Air Race return, and I planned some aerobatic coaching in Echuca and Malaysia, which we have ultimately postponed due to weather (and to give me a breather!!).
So, what’s on the horizon? Well, it seems the Red Bull Air Race is getting quite a bit of attention, as the Herald Sun in Melbourne ran a front page article on it potentially coming to Albert Park. I ended up being interviewed by them and a few radio stations on the topic. Perth then responded with their own articles, followed closely by the Gold Coast. It seems it is in demand as far as a host city is concerned.
For us, we have no major bookings for a few weeks, though we are gearing up for Fathers Day, as we have the Extra ready to go for gifts. We have a few other things coming up in September, though I will leave that for my next post, which will hopefully be sooner than 4 weeks time!
All the best.
Matt.
