Yesterday I took this snapshot of the domestic departure display board at Cairns airport in Queensland. I know there is nothing overly special about it, but it is the first time I have seen a flight where I am a member of the flight crew on the departure display at any airport! Admittedly the destination was Groote Eylandt a nondescript island in the Gulf of Carpentaria that does not boast much more than a manganese mine...However it is a far cry from the days of  flying Cessna 206's which often involved walking through some back water airport terminal yelling out at the top of my voice the names of my passengers.

 If anybody has read back far enough in my blog I have blogged on about dry season bush fires in the past in a post called 'Bush fires in Africa' and also posted an impressive picture of a bush fire in a later post called 'Taking the private jet lifestyle on safari'. Last night whilst flying over the Kakadu national park at night I photographed these flame fronts from twenty thousand feet above...note the navigation light at the top of the picture.
 The May/June edition of Flight Safety Australia had a small write up on a crash which I mentioned in my April 12th post about the Air Tanzania crash. In that post I said the aircraft involved was only four years old, but according to Flight safety Australia the aircraft was built in 1997. It goes on to say that the number two engine actually penetrated the fuselage, how nobody was killed I do not know. The more I speak to contacts in East Africa this incident looks more and more like negligence on the flight crews behalf.
Looking down at Cairns airport from surrounding hills. This a perfect position for any plane spotter / aviation geek to observe aircraft movements.