#region: australia

[runwayrunway]

No. 46 - Royal Flying Doctor Service

In contravention of my normal operating procedures I've fast-tracked this request to the front of my queue because of how fantastically timed it is. It was requested the day my BermudAir post went up, and the moment I saw it I realized I was going to publish it as the next entry on this blog, because I want to highlight something really important and really positive about aviation. So thank you @alionessespride for the impetus to discuss why aviation is genuinely indispensable, regardless of what cynical things people might use it for.

My most recent post on BermudAir is definitely a major downer, and other posts I've done, like my David Neeleman special and various other assorted brief allusions, have been really distinctly pessimistic and jaded about the motivations of airlines. Which I don't regret or think is bad or wrong - these are very omnipresent specters in the airline industry, which is inherently more than a little predatory both due to its necessity for profit and its very heavy ties to the military-industrial complex, with airlines, governments, and manufacturers ending up in elaborate daisy chains of sweetheart deals and making money being sort of incompatible with anything I'd consider a virtue.

But I went on about this in my Neeleman post and sort of alluded to it with BermudAir as well - aviation isn't just that, and it's really hugely important. In addition to the sheer fact that people who live on islands or in remote places with poor infrastructure can easily access the rest of the world, aviation provides a lot of important services - weather research/surveillance, aerial firefighting, aerial inspection of things like power lines, agricultural work, greatly increasing the speed and thoroughness of search and rescue, and of course air medical services.

If you live in a major city you probably get a handful of ambient helicopters (I've been told a lot of people find them annoying because they tend to fly quite low), and if you've ever wondered what they are, they're probably medevac helicopters. There's a chance they're news, or private helicopters, or something else, but most of the time they're there to airlift people to hospitals if their condition is too dire to wait for the length of time an ambulance would take to get them to the trauma center, and a helicopter can easily land in a small, precise area and bring them there.

Which is all well and good, but that's for large cities. But most of the world actually isn't large cities. Case in point: most of Australia is borderline empty.

Most of Australia is on par with places like Alaska. While it's overall the fourth least dense country in the world, that density is wildly skewed and the best thing I can say for the dark green section is that it's still denser than Greenland, but not denser than Mongolia. Safe to say you aren't getting an ambulance if you live in there. So what if you have an acute medical problem which needs immediate attention to prevent your death?

The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) is probably the best-known aeromedical service. It was the first such organization, nearly 100 years old, established in 1928. They provide medical services, particularly in medical emergencies, to the parts of Australia where getting someone to a hospital would probably otherwise take days. They also provide telehealth services, transfer of patients between hospitals, and transport general practitioners to places which lack access to primary care, among other things.

The initial ask requesting them outlined a lot of this:

RFDS is an absolute lifeline in rural, regional, and remote Australia, staffed with flight doctors and nurses that fly out 24/7/365. Often they land on runways that are actually just roads or dirt strips, sometimes with the runway lit up for a night landing with rolls of toilet paper dipped in kerosene and lit on fire. They move patients that may be many many hours from any medical service, as first responders to an incident or as a medical evacuation service for small hospitals to big city hospitals.

It takes a special kind of skill to land a plane somewhere like this, and an even more special kind of skill to do paramedic work while someone is landing the plane you're in somewhere like this.

While initially RFDS just rented their airplanes and pilots from Qantas, these days they have their own fleet and pilots, and while it's hard to find exact numbers because of their several regional branches their planes number in the triple-digits and are mostly small-to-medium and capable of operation on very short, poorly-equipped airstrips (STOL). The most-used models are the Pilatus PC-12 turboprop, Pilatus PC-24 very light jet, and Beechcraft King Air 200 twin-turboprop.

They have a couple of different liveries, presumably varying by time and branch, so I'm going to stick with one I think is both more visibly distinct and more current.

Here's a fairly standard example of this livery. The 7NEWS sticker is, I believe, a sponsor - there are different ones on different planes. As you can see, the livery is primarily red, white, and blue, which I suppose is fair enough for a non-profit service in a country with a flag based on the Union Jack, though I still find it a bit of a pedestrian choice. That said, it's at least quite an ambulancey color scheme, though it's missing giant strobe lights and a siren. I think you could install those on a plane (I mean, strobe lights are actually mandatory, just not that type) but I feel like you also shouldn't, and this is better.

Here's a view from below, so you can see the clear and bright underside with RFDS emblazoned very visibly on it. Being easy to spot and identify is a broadly desirable trait in an emergency medical vehicle, and I love their specific choice in shade of fire-engine red. Note also the suspension on the landing gear and the weather radar on the wing facing towards the camera. The PC-12 is an incredibly designed aircraft which is popular for good reason, and is very well-suited to exactly what the RFDS is doing.

The white is used in a very interesting way, where the transition between it being a dividing line separating red from blue and the main body of the aircraft with the blue as just a swash is very very subtle, and the taper of the red is extremely well-executed. The red underside is excellent because it specifically prevents the blue and white from blending in with the sky, which wouldn't be ideal.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service and/or RFDS name is placed in three distinct places - the underside, the rudder, and above the windows. My gripe is that I wish they were a little bigger and more visible, I think. I'm not sure about the rudder, but I think a relatively easy fix would be to make the text above the windows bold and red - perhaps they just wanted to sequester the red fully to the bottom of the plane rather than having it on both sides of the blue, which I understand but don't think I fully endorse.

Another great view of how the red tapers, though, and the blue's termination just below the nose, far enough back that the end is still clearly visible behind the propeller. I've always felt like PC-12s (and similar single-prop aircraft but for some reason especially the PC-12) look like they have a moustache, and this adds a pair of whiskers. I enjoy that.

Admittedly, with the painted nacelles on the King Air something about it can begin to get a little...plastic-looking, I don't have any way to word it better. The blue in general isn't my favorite - unlike the saturated red's strikingness, it just sort of looks over-saturated in a way that I dislike. I'm not sure what would fix this. Maybe a darker blue?

Now, the RFDS's livery is by far the least worth-discussing thing about them. The service that they provide goes way beyond appearances, and because of that and because of the fact that designing liveries for smaller planes like this begins to get difficult I'm going to not be as harsh to them as I would other subjects. I'm just not really going to take into account the fact that this is a pretty generic scheme, because that's fine, there's no reason to care. My main takeaways are that the placement of the colors is quite well-executed, and that I wish the wordmark on the main fuselage body was more distinct. In photographs it's honestly downright illegible, and the text on the rudder doesn't exactly pop out either. The tailfin, in general, looks a little cluttered, like they didn't want to leave it empty but couldn't figure out what to do with it - the RFDS text doesn't even appear centered. But at the very least it's visible, which is crucial for an air ambulance service. Maybe I wish there was less white, but there's enough red and blue, and it's bright enough, so it's done its job.

That said, I'm giving them a C.

This is exactly what I expect of them. They've done a completely adequate job, and probably in a roundabout way it's good they've been spending their money on things that aren't genius graphic design. So if you have anything to take away from this post, don't have it be the grade, or even the fact that the Pilatus PC-12 is a really fantastic airplane - have it be the fact that aviation isn't just airline startups and massive conglomerates, and that it literally saves lives and provides services that we city-dwellers take for granted to people who would otherwise have to go without.

#tarmac fashion week #grade: c #region: oceania #region: australia #era: 2010s #era: 2020s #(earliest use of this livery I could find was 2013 but I'm sure it's older) #royal flying doctor service #non airline liveries #requests

[lorillee]

yada yada yada please rb for a wider sample size because i am actually VERY curious

#because apparently in australia they dont really use honorifics like at all . which is baffling to me #for us it was either first name or last name #and i thought that was standard until some guy got annoyed at our parents because my brother called him mr. [first name] #my dad grew up in the western part of the us and my mom in the south #but we've kind of moved around a fair bit so im not really sure where exactly id fall as far as region

[bethanythebogwitch]

Australian Pokemon - single stages

Another set of Fakemon for my Goorda region, based on a combination of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Previous posts: non-natives, regional standards, creepy lines, regional variants, birds, early-game standards, misc 2, misc 1, variant starters, starters

Wakaremai, the Transport Pokemon, water/dragon type. They have been used since ancient times as transportation, carrying humans between islands with the canoes growing from their backs. Some scientists believe ancient Goordan people created the species, but are not sure how. SOme legends say that people were first brought to Goorda on the back of a gigantic Wakaremai. While massive, Wakaremai are gentle giants who feed exclusively on plankton and are easily tamed by humans. Since the invention of motorboats, Wakaremai have become more common in the wild.

Wakaremai is a combination basking shark and waka, Maori canoes. I based the design on this reconstruction waka. It fills the same niche as Lapras in being a transport focused water type and Lapras are either not native to Goorda or where never used for transport. Real life basking sharks are plankton-eating gentle giants just like Wakaremai. The story of Wakaremai bringing people to Goorda is based on Maori stories of how they first came to Aotearoa on canoes. I did make two boat sharks in the same region, but Wakaremai is a gentle giant and defensively oriented while Davalossam (in a previous post) is very hostile and offensively oriented. Wakaremai's name comes from "waka" and "reremai", the Maori word for basking shark.

Mimicrag, the Thin Pokemon, fairy/rock type. Their bodies are paper-thin, making them incredibly flexible, but they are so light that the wind will blow them away. They live inside cracks in rocks and only emerge on windless days. Mimicrag are intelligent and mischievous Pokemon that have been known to prank hikers, but they seem to mean no harm. Legends say that the Mimicrag taught the first humans in Goorda how to survive in their new homes.

Mimicrag is based on the mimi, mythical creatures from north Australia who had to live in cracks in rocks because their bodies were so thin wind could kill them. They were believed to have inhabited Australia before humanity and taught humans how to hunt and make rock art. Depictions of the mimi are found in a lot of petroglyphs, which inspired the rock typing. Mimicrag would be a very fast and lightweight, but defensively poor Pokemon, the opposite of most rock types. The name comes from "mimi" and "crag".

Windipet, the Carpet Shark Pokemon, flying type. These airborne Pokemon normally dwell high in the sky and eat clouds, but they occasionally come low enough to encounter humans. They are strong enough to carry a human, but need training as their normal flying style would quickly send the rider falling. Windipet are know to be playful and will spend hours playing with each other when they meet.

Windipet is a flying carpet that is a carpet shark. Specifically, it's a tasseled wobbegong and a tasseled carpet. Them living in the atmosphere and rarely coming down is a reference to atmospheric beasts, cryptids that allegedly live their entire lives in the sky. Windipet comes from "windy" and "carpet" and I tried to mimic the word wobbegong.

Didgeridoodlebug, the Noisy Pokemon, bug/normal type. It has eight horn-like organs on its back that it can move air through to create a very loud noise. Smaller, stick-like organs coating its back are banged together to make more noises. During mating season, Didgeridoodlebug create cacophonous symphonies to attract mates, much to the dismay of any nearby humans trying to sleep.

Didgeridoodlebug is based on two Australian musical instruments and Thopha saccata, a species of Australian cicada that is a contender for the loudest insect in the world. Much like real cicadas, their songs can be very frustrating for humans. The musical instruments are the didgeridoo and clapsticks, both of which are used by Aboriginal peoples. I made it part normal type both because we don't have a bug/normal yet and to give it STAB on moves like hyper voice and uproar. Its name comes from "didgeridoo" and "doodlebug". Cicadas aren't doodlebugs, but I just couldn't pass up on that pun.

#pokemon #original pokemon #fakemon #australia #new zealand #aotearoa #original pokemon region #maori canoe #waka #canoe #basking shark #mimi #australian mythology #petroglyphs #carpet shark #wobbegong #flying carpet #cicada #didgeridoo #clapsticks #pun

[lionofchaeronea]

Golden Willows, Julian Ashton, ca. 1907

#art #art history #Julian Ashton #landscape #landscape painting #landscape art #plein air #Impressionism #Impressionist art #Australian Impressionism #Heidelberg School #Australia #Australian art #20th century art #watercolor #New England Regional Museum of Art

[mapsontheweb]

An attempt at mapping Australia's regional areas.

by u/Mighty_Crow_Eater

#maps #Mighty_Crow_Eater #australia #regions

[hidekomoon]

watching married at first sight australia with no awareness of the regional clichés & idiosyncrasies of the country makes it very funny and confusing. like where is the gold coast & are people from there supposed to be annoying? bc that’s the vibe i’m getting

#the only reference i have for australian regional clichés is that tumblr post #the one that goes ‘someone from melbourne: i’m from melbourne’ #that’s it :| #mafsau #mafs australia #married at first sight

[huariqueje]

Monaro grasses (Gunningrah right, Kuringgai left)   -  Lucy Culliton , 2020.

Australian,b.1966  -

Oil on board ,   60.0 x 60.0 cm.

#Lucy Culliton #australian artist #Monaro region #protected grasslands #Monaro Grasslands #New South Wales #Australia

[janeway-lover]

about to get into the most nonsense argument with my stepdad about whether or not Australia is a continent or not

#i say it is. cause that's how its classified #he says it's not cause that classification is only from the 50s #at which point i responded that he is NOT that old #he says australia is part of oceania. which is what used to be the thing #but it's not anymore. now oceania is defined as a region not a continent

[micewithknives]

Hello, I saw your last post and just wanted to say, as a history student, the Mughals were not colonisers. Although they hailed from a Timurid backdrop, the empire they built in Indian subcontinent was not colonial in nature. If you'd like to read more about them, you could refer to them in Blackwell series, 'The People of the World' (Harbans Mukhia, The Mughals of India, 2004) or Douglas Streusand's Emergence of the Mughal Empire (particularly the Introduction part). It is not only anachronistic to call the Mughals as colonisers but also has been used as propaganda by some rightwing parties in India (most of whom are also incidentally fascists). Thank you and warm regards <3

.

#not an empire i know anything about #(or originally my post) #my knowledge is only related to the colonisation and history of the Australia/Australasia region #which was the focus of my tags #but this seems to be reasonable information regarding a group mentioned in the last post if anyone is interested #mughal #colonialism #ask

[hussyknee]

Not entirely sure how I'm expected to respond when I point out something is white as fuck and the person I'm criticizing goes "I'm literally PoC!!" Okay? Good for you? Get well soon??

I literally live in South Asia, a place still nursing the world's worst colonial hangover. That's like one billion brown people desperately in need of joining Bootlickers Anonymous. If I had to respect the rancid takes of every yahoo that lives here I'd have to drown myself in the sea.

Living in white countries does something odd to diaspora brains. If you call yourself BIPOC in your own head long enough you end up forgetting you're just a garden variety idiot mainlining white supremacy like everyone else.

#essay: why I hate the term BIPOC #1) it's North American as fuck #seriously the word has little meaning for Black and brown people in Europe. We're all just darkies over there bc the whites dgaf #also there's two systems of race over there. the global colour system that's a result of european colonization of the other continents #and the older system unique to the region where white Indo-Europeans hates the fuck out of everybody else #so you have to be very specific about the fact that you're coloured of skin #i mean black people in australia are aboriginals. 'black' even in the US used to be a political identity not only a racial one #2) i'm not fucking BIPOC in my own country. I just live here. #I am the default. it's whites that are alien and specified #considering we're literally the global majority‚ it would be very funny if we just called ourselves 'people' and only singled whites out #it's them that invented race after all. just so they could proclaim that white people were the master race #i know it wouldn't work bc then they'd all be like 'how DARE you call us white' like Zionists. but it would be funny #i just think that this whole BIPOC thing makes whites out to be default and makes us hyperaware of ourselves as political entities first #and fuels neoliberal identity politics that culminates in fighting over twitter hashtags and 'Diversity Equity Inclusion' bs #where they make Black and brown people mouthpieces and cops of white supremacy and imperialism #and calls it 'representation' #racism #white supremacy #colonialism #colonization #knee of huss

[runwayrunway]

No. 39 - Qantas

...huh. Well, today I learned Qantas is actually an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services. The more you know!

Qantas, the flag carrier of Australia, is the biggest fish I've covered so far. Yes, bigger than Lufthansa. Qantas is one of the airlines. They're the second-oldest continuously operating airline in the world, they're often mistakenly claimed to have had no fatal crashes (they have never lost a plane or a passenger in the crash of a jet, but had several fatal crashes prior to 1951), and they have a dinosaur named after them.

They didn't make a commemorative livery for the Qantassaurus. I just don't understand that.

Now, they do have a handful of special liveries that I will cover in the future, because they're very interesting. They also have some significantly less interesting older liveries. But today I'm only here to talk about their default livery, the one they're using today.

I'm honestly exhausted.

So the first thing that I need to mention is that this is Lufthansa-shaped. Lufthansesque. This isn't even that long-looking of a plane but already the detachedness of the tail is really noticeable. In its defense, Lufthansa was ripping Qantas off and not the other way around - this livery was introduced all the way back in 1984, making it truly ahead of its time. Unfortunately, it was a massive downgrade from the earlier quite cromulent 707 liveries.

The tail isn't exactly consistent. Some have no trim at all, some have a very thin grey line, and some have this decent-looking layered grey shading, and it seems completely inconsistent across models and times. Not that it would have improved my opinion tangibly, but I can't even actually count it.

You know what's strange? I have to hand it to Qantas - their logo, the silhouette of the kangaroo, is well-designed, recognizable, and I would go so far as to say iconic. But look at that graceful bit of grey shading on it. It's on the newer airplanes, but it's so subtle you might easily miss it (I actually did) - they clearly know how to use shadow, so what's with the unadorned white fuselage?

As for the font, it's definitely balanced a lot better than Lufthansa and looks very nice, but it doesn't solve the issue. Not even close. It reminds me a bit of WestJet's livery.

They even ripped off the 'Spirit of Australia' thing. I know you weren't involved in this, but I still blame you, David.

There just isn't much to say about Qantas, unfortunately. I think I like the little cut-ins on the engines. I like the logo. I just think they should have got around to designing an actual livery at some point. Such a storied airline owes it to themself, and they owe it to me even more.

Final grade: D+.

#tarmac fashion week #era: 1980s #era: 1990s #era: 2000s #era: 2010s #era: 2020s #grade: d+ #region: oceania #region: australia #qantas #flag carriers #lufthansa line

[on-this-day-mcr]

On this day, April 13

In 2011: My Chemical Romance released “SING It for Japan”, a re-worked version of “SING”, as part of the #SINGItForJapan project led by Ray Toro. All proceeds were donated towards those affected by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami through the Red Cross. (🖤)

Stream “Sing It for Japan” here and watch the music video here or below the cut!

#2011 #single release #alternate version release #danger days era #april 13 #the spotify link doesnt work for australia bc its region locked and they hate us i guess #but the yt video is :') #this is pretty much it for the rest of april and may until foundations release lol see youse all in a month

[corpsequartet]

dry ass country

#mine #australian gothic #rural gothic #regional gothic #australia #western australia

[andrexi1]

Australian Outback Gothic

- You see the same eastern brown snake on the trail, it only hisses you. You hide under the jacaranda tree. The hisses from the trail are still heard. One day the hissing stops, only the long grass remains. The eastern brown snake is gone. You do not go into the long grass.

- No one knew how they landed on the frontier, the men screamed with “rage”. The flame trees blazed across the bush. A black bird cries death.

You gone walkabout through the northern territory. There is a man who says he’s not from around here. He tells you he grew up here. You wonder if he is a dust eater. No one is from the down under anymore.

- You stop a cabbie. “take me to Queensland” you say. He drives you around in circles. You arrive in Queensland. It doesn’t look like Queensland. You left the banana land long ago. The driver fronts up in Queensland. It’s not the same one you know.

- “Have you ever left the down under?” the man asks. “I was born here I never left.” “Have you ever left the down under?” He asks again. He keeps asking. You realise you are not even in the down under.

- One premier falls on her own sword. The lies were revealed. She wasn’t fair dinkum. They replace her with another. There’s plenty of swords to go about.

#australian gothic #australia #regional gothic #rural gothic #gothic #booksarelife #politics #victoria #00’s #locative gothic #straya #regonial gothic

[astronicht]

Watching the birds and trees in F1 this weekend like yes… maybe Australia…. And then whapping myself with a proverbial newspaper. No! Go home!

#where is home we don’t knooow #would love to do a few months tho #in winter #duckduckgo rainiest region in Australia

[lichtschimmer]

Australia, Eastern Victoria Region - webcam 

#Australia #Eastern Victoria Region #night #light