Canberra Talk

To mark the 60th anniversary of Qantas starting jet operations with the Boeing 707 on July 29 1959, this story from the Australian Aviation archives comes from March 2007, when Jeff Watson wrote about the return to Australia of the airline’s first jet aircraft VH-EBA City of Canberra. Watson was on board the aircraft for the delivery flight. On December 16 2006, Qantas’s very first jet aircraft, Boeing 707-138B City of Canberra, landed at Sydney after a 14,000nm (25,950km) journey from England. It was the culmination of the most complex restoration project ever undertaken by Australians . . . most of them retired Qantas engineers in their 60s. Read more:  https://australianaviation.com.au/2019/08/from-the-archives-boeing-707-city-of-canberra-comes-home/

In December 2016 ACT Rebels vice-president Leigh Slater was riled and threatening revenge. The outlaw motorcycle gang boss had been sold low quality drugs and he had failed to remanufacture the methamphetamine to increase the purity. The 34-year-old had $60,000 on the line, so fired off a number of text messages on an encrypted network to vent his anger: It was a setback, but unbeknown to Slater, he had bigger problems on the horizon. Coded messages key to busting drug-dealing network The drug business had been thriving and lucrative for the hulking bikie. He was directing large drug deals in Sydney, remotely from Canberra, with the help of the Penrith chapter of the Rebels. The network, despite being encrypted, added an extra layer of protection via codenames for drugs and group members. Read more:  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-02/canberra-rebels-bikie-leigh-slater-jailed/11374918