The Last Minute Hitch: 24 October 2025
24 October 2025
– Steve Hitchen
I have often heard jump pilots saying how much fun they have flying the Cresco/750 XSTOL airframe once the jumpers have departed. It's been compared to fighter planes in its performance, especially on the return to Earth. Yesterday, NZAero extended to me the privilege of having a go myself. I understand now what the jump pilots have been saying to me. In the skies over Bendigo, pilot and director Dee Bond showed me exactly what this remarkable airframe was capable of. My take: it's a pilot's aircraft with the versatility of a Holden ute and the responsiveness of a aerobat. Being one of very few (or perhaps the only?) SETP available with stick controls, and fitted with a 900-shp PT6, it lends itself to serious flying fun. Think about this: the team has logged 70 flying hours around Australia including the Outback Air Race and crossing the Nullarbor. All of this was hand-flown; as the demo aeroplane is configured for jumps, it has no autopilot. That shows you how controllable it really is. Thanks to the team at NZAero for making their demonstrator available, and to Bendigo Flying Club for hosting. You can read more about this in March-April 2026 Australian Flying.
"..this new set of rules is very much in their playground.."
You can count the number of US LSA manufacturers on the fingers of one hand, but you can do that with European manufacturers only if that hand is holding a calculator. Although companies like Zenith, Icon, Vashon, Texas and Super Petrel have their markets, these models have nothing like the world-wide penetration of Aeroprakt, Tecnam, Pipistrel, Flight Design, Bristell, Alpi and so many other marques. This week, the MOSAIC rules to modernise LSAs came into effect in the USA, which may just galvanise some other US-based manufacturers to start prospecting in what is expected to be very rich vein. Cessna had a crack a few years ago with the ill-fated C162, and Piper made an even more flaccid effort with the PiperSport, but this new set of rules is very much in their playground, being more akin to GA aircraft than to LSAs of old. It wouldn't take much engineering to adapt the PA-28 airframe, and the C172 likewise, giving them a head-start on European manufacturers. However, within the halls of Wichita and Vero Beach, brains trusts will have been asking this question for months, possibly years: how do we get into this without bastardising our own markets for the four-seaters? We might get their answers next year, when I am expecting a flood of announcements about new models to hit the market. But, in Australia, there are other questions for our manufacturers to ask, chiefly, how do we maximise our opportunity given the dominance of the European aeroplane builders? The answer as I see it is to be first to market. Get the product out there before new Tecnams, Aeroprakts and Flight Designs start to land on our shores. If there is any country in the world that fits the MOSAIC ethos better than most, it is Australia, and opportunities like this come our way so very rarely.
I heard a chilling transmission yesterday when I was making my way up the Kilmore Gap to Bendigo. It was Melbourne Centre on 135.7 issuing a Safety Alert to two aircraft near Avalon that they would be in conflict with each other in one minute. Good work Centre, I thought. It chilled me to hear soon after Centre issuing a pained warning that the two aircraft then had only 10 seconds to avoid each other! It prompted me to ask a question: what the hell had those two pilots been doing for 50 seconds? As both VFR aircraft appeared to be in G or E airspace, Centre can't give them vectors to de-conflict; that is up to the pilots themselves. To do that, they first need to be switched on enough to cotton on that the call was directed to them. Co-incidentally, returning from Bendigo, I started a climb to clear expected rotors coming off the ridge NW of Kilmore. Almost immediately I heard Centre pass traffic to another aircraft in the same area as me on an unverified VFR paint climbing towards 4000 anticipating a conflict. I reckoned that was me. I called Centre, told them what I was doing and responded to a squawk ident request. I was indeed the paint in question. I stopped climbing. Deconfliction was established, and I got thanked for it. I don't know what became of the Avalon conflict, but I know for listening out and taking action, I arrived home much less stressed than if I'd been given a 10-second warning.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch
Comment from 2 weeks ago:
Dave Prossor14 days ago
Not so far back the Government sold of all the non-major secondary airpprts. The attitude was sink or swim. If they closed the Feds could not have cared.
Since that time the Government has slowly come to the realisation that country people are entitled to and should have access to all the things that the city people have and get. Medical assistance, emergency aid during flood or fire, air flights to the big smoke. Flying Doctor. And much more.
It has taken quite some time for the penny to drop that country people are entitled to all those things that city people take for granted. Our Feds have slowly realised that country people needs and should have airstrips that are fit for purpose. Many votes are involved?
Granting big dollars to support country airstrips, and there should be many more, is not a case of the Feds being good guys and doing this. It is something that the Feds should have been doing a long time back and must continue to do.
24 October 2025
– Steve Hitchen
I have often heard jump pilots saying how much fun they have flying the Cresco/750 XSTOL airframe once the jumpers have departed. It's been compared to fighter planes in its performance, especially on the return to Earth. Yesterday, NZAero extended to me the privilege of having a go myself. I understand now what the jump pilots have been saying to me. In the skies over Bendigo, pilot and director Dee Bond showed me exactly what this remarkable airframe was capable of. My take: it's a pilot's aircraft with the versatility of a Holden ute and the responsiveness of a aerobat. Being one of very few (or perhaps the only?) SETP available with stick controls, and fitted with a 900-shp PT6, it lends itself to serious flying fun. Think about this: the team has logged 70 flying hours around Australia including the Outback Air Race and crossing the Nullarbor. All of this was hand-flown; as the demo aeroplane is configured for jumps, it has no autopilot. That shows you how controllable it really is. Thanks to the team at NZAero for making their demonstrator available, and to Bendigo Flying Club for hosting. You can read more about this in March-April 2026 Australian Flying.
"..this new set of rules is very much in their playground.."
You can count the number of US LSA manufacturers on the fingers of one hand, but you can do that with European manufacturers only if that hand is holding a calculator. Although companies like Zenith, Icon, Vashon, Texas and Super Petrel have their markets, these models have nothing like the world-wide penetration of Aeroprakt, Tecnam, Pipistrel, Flight Design, Bristell, Alpi and so many other marques. This week, the MOSAIC rules to modernise LSAs came into effect in the USA, which may just galvanise some other US-based manufacturers to start prospecting in what is expected to be very rich vein. Cessna had a crack a few years ago with the ill-fated C162, and Piper made an even more flaccid effort with the PiperSport, but this new set of rules is very much in their playground, being more akin to GA aircraft than to LSAs of old. It wouldn't take much engineering to adapt the PA-28 airframe, and the C172 likewise, giving them a head-start on European manufacturers. However, within the halls of Wichita and Vero Beach, brains trusts will have been asking this question for months, possibly years: how do we get into this without bastardising our own markets for the four-seaters? We might get their answers next year, when I am expecting a flood of announcements about new models to hit the market. But, in Australia, there are other questions for our manufacturers to ask, chiefly, how do we maximise our opportunity given the dominance of the European aeroplane builders? The answer as I see it is to be first to market. Get the product out there before new Tecnams, Aeroprakts and Flight Designs start to land on our shores. If there is any country in the world that fits the MOSAIC ethos better than most, it is Australia, and opportunities like this come our way so very rarely.
I heard a chilling transmission yesterday when I was making my way up the Kilmore Gap to Bendigo. It was Melbourne Centre on 135.7 issuing a Safety Alert to two aircraft near Avalon that they would be in conflict with each other in one minute. Good work Centre, I thought. It chilled me to hear soon after Centre issuing a pained warning that the two aircraft then had only 10 seconds to avoid each other! It prompted me to ask a question: what the hell had those two pilots been doing for 50 seconds? As both VFR aircraft appeared to be in G or E airspace, Centre can't give them vectors to de-conflict; that is up to the pilots themselves. To do that, they first need to be switched on enough to cotton on that the call was directed to them. Co-incidentally, returning from Bendigo, I started a climb to clear expected rotors coming off the ridge NW of Kilmore. Almost immediately I heard Centre pass traffic to another aircraft in the same area as me on an unverified VFR paint climbing towards 4000 anticipating a conflict. I reckoned that was me. I called Centre, told them what I was doing and responded to a squawk ident request. I was indeed the paint in question. I stopped climbing. Deconfliction was established, and I got thanked for it. I don't know what became of the Avalon conflict, but I know for listening out and taking action, I arrived home much less stressed than if I'd been given a 10-second warning.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch
Comment from 2 weeks ago:
Dave Prossor14 days ago
Not so far back the Government sold of all the non-major secondary airpprts. The attitude was sink or swim. If they closed the Feds could not have cared.
Since that time the Government has slowly come to the realisation that country people are entitled to and should have access to all the things that the city people have and get. Medical assistance, emergency aid during flood or fire, air flights to the big smoke. Flying Doctor. And much more.
It has taken quite some time for the penny to drop that country people are entitled to all those things that city people take for granted. Our Feds have slowly realised that country people needs and should have airstrips that are fit for purpose. Many votes are involved?
Granting big dollars to support country airstrips, and there should be many more, is not a case of the Feds being good guys and doing this. It is something that the Feds should have been doing a long time back and must continue to do.
