Photos from Fantastic Friday at Rockhampton Airport! Two Army Blackhawks Plus Government Aircraft and More!

It was another fantastic day of plane spotting action at Rockhampton Airport on Friday 22 August with local plane spotter 'IAD' in the thick of the action, and again capturing some great photos of some of the great visitors to the beef capital.

Perhaps the highlight on Friday was the arrival of another pair of Australian Army Sikorsky S-70A-9 Blackhawk helicopters while on a ferry flight from Townsville to Amberley.

As mentioned below, the Army's Townsville-based Blackhawks flown by 5th Aviation Regiment are moving to a new posting with the 6th Aviation Regiment in ­Sydney, and have been ferrying South over the last couple of days.  On Friday 22 August, A25-213 and A25-106 called in to Rockhampton Airport.

A25-213 - flying as "Warhorse 213" - initially landed at Mackay and was to overfly Rocky and land at Bundaberg.  However, the decision was made to land at Rocky and re-fuel, before it did eventually continue on to Bundaberg.

A25-106 - flying as "Warhorse 106" - landed at Rockhampton and had some technical difficulties, but did eventually depart Southbound.  I'm told that it later landed at Maryborough where it may have stayed overnight.

As mentioned below, the Queensland Government Airwing (State of Queensland) Raytheon Hawker 850XP bizjet VH-SGY arrived on Thursday 21 August and stayed overnight.

It was joined on the Southern end of the Rockhampton Airport apron by fellow Queensland Government aircraft, Raytheon B300 Super King Air VH-SGQ.

VH-SGQ eventually departed to Townsville, while VH-SGY departed to Brisbane.

Another couple of other interesting General Aviation (GA) aircraft to be spotted by 'IAD' on Friday 22 August included Vanderfield Pilatus PC-12/47 VH-WPH which arrived from, and later departed back to, its Toowoomba base.

Also, locally-based R-Mach Aviation's recently registered Lancair 4 VH-XVP (ex N43D) was spotted by 'IAD' as it departed to Archerfield.

Finally, one notable commercial movement on Friday 22 August was Virgin Australia Boeing B737-800 VH-VUX which operated the scheduled VOZ1235/1238 service from and back to Brisbane.

VH-VUX is now one of only a handful of aircraft in the Virgin fleet that still wears the old red livery of Virgin Blue - albeit with a white nose cone!

Sincere thanks to 'IAD' for his fantastic coverage of a great couple of days of plane spotting action at Rockhampton Airport!  Your continued support of the CQ Plane Spotting Blog is greatly appreciated!

All photos taken by 'IAD'  ©