Virgin Australia B737-800 VH-VOY - Plus A Few Lighties In and Out of Rockhampton Airport on Friday

Recently re-registered Virgin Australia Boeing B737-800 VH-VOY (ex ZK-PBD) operated its first flight into Rockhampton on Friday 20 March since it re-entered service in Australia, operating the scheduled VOZ1245/1248 service from and back to Brisbane.

VH-VOY at Adelaide recently  (Photo taken by Tony Haynes  ©)

Meanwhile, there were also quite a bit of light General Aviation (GA) movements in and out of Rocky on Friday 20 March that included Brisbane-based Vanguard Aviation Cessna 340 VH-DRA calling in from Mackay.  It later departed to Caloundra.

Piper PA-28-140 Cherokee VH-RVB called in from Charters Towers, while Raytheon B300 Super King Air VH-JEA flew North from Toowoomba and looked to conduct navigation aid (NAVAID) calibration airwork nearby to Rocky before returning to Toowoomba.  VH-JEA is operated by Austrek Aviation and calls Toowoomba Airport 'home'.

File photo taken by 'IAD'  ©

Locally-based Mooneys - M20K VH-MYV and M20TN VH-JEU - both departed Rocky for Moree and Dubbo.  Also locally-based Cessna 210 VH-EKW - which is utilised by the Rockhampton Aero Club - operated a flight from Rocky to Gladstone and back.  At Gladstone, it was noted performing a practice ILS approach on to Runway 10.

The Queensland Government (State of Queensland) Raytheon B300 Super King Air VH-SGQ called into Rockhampton during a busy day of flying in which it also called into Bundaberg, Townsville (twice), Cairns and Maryborough.  I suspect that VH-SGQ may be being utilised to ferry prisoners around Queensland in place of the usual Queensland Police Service (Airwing) Raytheon B1900D VH-PSK.

Finally, Dubbo-based Beech 58 Baron VH-YXA was an interesting visitor to Rockhampton on Thursday 19 March,  After arriving around dawn, it departed after dark.  Its flight track for the day was Dubbo-Lake Cargelligo-Roma-Rockhampton-Roma-Lake Cargelligo-Dubbo.