During the end of last month, the Hawker Pacific maintenance hangar, previously operated by Air Express who also now longer exist, closed its' doors for the last time after more than 40 years of operation here on Archerfield, casting, what remained of the highly skilled workers, onto the already overcrowded job market

And almost right on queue is the "Chocolate" airship making its' annual visit to the 'field on Tuesday of last week

That makes it two of the "long time" companies on the 'field to close their doors in recent times

Refer the Sunland/Southern Skies article in February of this year

• The Comment is "Told ya so" when businesses continue to close on this airfield
  
  Check out "quite airfield" comment back in October 1996
  
  
• The "Headwind" now appears to be greater than that of the air(port) speed!

During the past few weeks, one of the ever persistent problems for the owners of unique aircraft on the 'field, like "grounded due lack of paperwork", has finally been resolved

The Hempels operated AN2 Bi-plane has, at last, received its' Certificate of Airworthiness

Also, the news desk has been informed that Howard Hughes Lightwing aircraft based at Ballina have also got their C of A's.

It has only taken the owners of these aircraft about 7 long years of "negotiating" with the Government agency CASA to achieve this result!

The shakeup in CASA continues, another aircraft on the airfield, a CAP 32 also obtained a C of A after only waiting 3 years!

The new Aircraft Categories championed by A.O.P A. are finally working!

The latest Federal Budget has hit light plane flying (again). Avgas prices are to rise and it appears that we are about to return to the 'bad days' of only a few years ago when Government taxes amounted to more that half the cost of buying a litre of petrol

• A Litre of Avgas cost 60 cents at Archerfield last week, what will it be next month?

Meanwhile, outside of OZ, aviation and aviation products continue to be developed at a remarkable pace

Just released by the USA's Garmin Company, known best for their GPS navigation units, is an 'all in one' GPS/Moving-Map Mobile Phone, Fax, Internet and navigation combination unit for light aircraft

• Click HERE to view the recent Garmin news release in txt format

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The Italian aircraft manufacturer, General Avia, saw one of its products pay a visit to this airfield last Wednesday

Flown by an Italian couple, this Kiwi registered Avia F.22R was on it's way from Italy to New Zealand and called in for refreshments and fuel

One of the more unusual visitors to the field during the past week has been an "experimental" STOL aircraft called a Storch

This aircraft, fitted with a 4 cylinder 4 stroke Rotax engine and having a stall speed of only 22 Kts has the unique ability to hover in almost any sort of reasonable headwind

The short (as in very) take-off and landing machine is a copy of the 1930's German design

The Hervey Bay built Sunbird Seeker also dropped in for a visit Monday

The recent inclement weather around S.E. QLD. caused the planned return on Wednesday to be cancelled