SIMON When we come back, the Avalon Air Show. Have you ever been, we love an air show, don’t we? Um, especially if you’re a, you know, especially if you’re a pom poms. Love air shows can speak to John Goldsmith in just a moment. He’s in Avalon. He runs a flight simulator and he’s in Avalon showing off wearing his pilot’s uniform with his lapels and his little hat.

So listen in… I’ve got a song for you…

Let’s go to Avalon. Right now it’s the Avalon Air Show. Today, John Goldsmith joins us from Revesco Aviation. G’day, John.

JOHN Hi Simon.

SIMON How you going? Very well. How’s Avalon today?

JOHN It’s got a bit of cloud over it, but it’s 29 degrees. So they, uh, mainly careers day here today, not so much the public day. So, there’s been three trade days, right and there we’ve seen some heavy military jets this morning and we’re gonna see some shortly, so the timing of the hookup’s perfect because if they were coming through, we wouldn’t be able to talk to each other.

SIMON We love, we love a good air show. John, when I was a kid, we used to go to air shows in England all the time. Farmsbro? I think I saw a…

JOHN Farnborough.

SIMON Yeah, Farnborough. I remember as a kid seeing the Harrier Vertical Jet, the jet used to take off vertically. So they, we love ’em in England. We love ’em in Australia too, right?

JOHN Oh yeah. Yeah. Now there’s, the public days tomorrow and Sunday we’re expecting 200,000 people here.

SIMON Oh, right. And what’s the star of the show there, air displays, John or coming to see you and your flight simulator? What sort of stuff can people do?

JOHN Oh, well you know, like coming to see us, obviously is a highlight, but probably, but we’re probably upstaged by something like the F22 Raptor which is the latest jet that we have, which defies all basic aeronautical knowledge that we’ve learned. Really on day one. Well, it doesn’t fly traditionally. It’s, um, what they call a Vector Thrust, system so it can almost stop in midair and turn around. Yeah.

SIMON Yeah wow! A Vector Thrust.

JOHN Vector Thrust.

SIMON Yeah, so is it mostly Australian suppliers and people there? John, or is there an international flavour?

JOHN Uh, it’s actually mainly Australian this year, in previous years. Uh, we’ve had the Malaysians, like we had the Malaysian Air Force two years ago with their aerobatic team. They’re not here this year. I can’t remember exactly what it was, whether a Galaxy or something like that, but that was due to fly-in, maybe they ran into some, maintenance issues around Guam somewhere and got stuck or so they said, but you know, they might have had their funding cut. Who knows?

SIMON Talking to John Goldsmith from Revesco Aviation and listeners, have you been to an Air Show and did you like it? I remember going as a little kid to Farnborough in England. John, so you’ve got a Flight Simulator?

JOHN Yep.

SIMON You’re based outta Jandakot. Uh, any other any other simulators there?

JOHN Uh, yes, so we’ve got the Boeing Triple Seven Simulator for our Multi-Crew training, which is transitioning pilots to be able to fly Multi–Crew jets and we’ve also got a Beechcraft King Air Simulator and also a Diamond DA42 Aircraft backed up by a Simulator for that and in that one we are doing multi-engine instrument ratings. So it’s cost-effective to put someone in the sim to make all the mistakes there before we put ’em in the aircraft, you know, at about three times the price of the simulator.

SIMON Yeah. So, so John, so you know, it’s pretty good you buy a prezi and come down there and have some fun with it. But you do do training as well, right?

JOHN Oh, yeah. So we do Multi-Crew train like CASA requires pilots these days, to do 20 hours. And I mean, the course is really learning to work together. Teamwork, Leadership, Decision-making and Communication because of all the accidents over the years that have happened by, you know, as soon as you put two people on an aircraft and each of them thinks the other one’s flying it, there’s problems.

SIMON Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Alright. Alright, John, we’ll take some calls from our listeners. Thanks for chatting to us today. Pleasure mate. See you mate. See you John. 

John Goldsmith from Revesco Aviation. They’re based down at Jandakot and he’s over at the Avalon Airshow. It’s a huge one, isn’t Australia’s biggest? Have you been to Airshow? I can remember going as a kid they were huge in England. You know, military aircraft, I think it was the Harrier, the Hawker Harrier Jump Jet, I think it was called. Remember seeing that when I was a kid. What are your air show memories? They’ve been held in WA as well. Give us a shout.