"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
1. The Great Ocean Road and 12 Apostles National Park.
2. Outback Australia. - Broken Hill - Bridsville - Alice Springs -
Ayers
Rock - Oodnadatta - Coober Pedy - Leigh Creek - Wilpena Pound.
3. South- West Tasmania
4. Sydney Harbour
5. Queenstown to Milford Sound.

Flying "Down Under" sounds awesome! I know a couple of American
pilots who were able to take the "outback tours" before the Aussie
gummint shut them down, and they said they were absolutely fantastic.

Any word on whether those tours will be allowed again? I can't
remember the circumstances of their discontinuation, but it was
something to do with security, right?
--
Jay,
They certainly havent been shut down, but since 9/11 the gummint did do a
few things that supposedly increased security ( or more correctly made the
ignorant masses think they had done something to increase security). I am
not sure exactly what the new requirements are regarding foreign pilots
coming in to do these tours but I am more than happy to assist anyone who is
seriously interested ( if you promise me you are not a terrorist and are not
going to crash your Cesssna 150 into the Sydney Harbour Bridge - you might
scratch it!)
I do recall there are 2 different sets of hoops you have to jump through
depending on how long you wanted to fly here.I dont recall them being too
onerous for a short stay. The biggest problem we had over here was that
they brought in all these new rules before they had all the bureacrats to
enforce them. Like they required student pilots to have a security check
before they flew solo. We then had all these student pilots ready for solo
and having to wait months for the checks.
There is a company called Stawell Air Services ( run by Graham Boatman) who
have been operating these tours for many years.You will find a descripton of
their tours on the web. They are typically about 12 days long, with maybe 2
to 4 flying hours per day , and accomodation , meals and tours all looked
after. I have heard some fantastic reports on them and I am hoping to go on
one myself in the next couple of years.
terry