It’s been a few months since the announcement of one of the biggest deals in recent Australian commercial aviation history: the purchase of 25 per cent of Virgin Australia by Qatar Airways, and with it, the return of Virgin international wide-body services through a wet-lease agreement for flights to Doha.

Approval for those services currently rests with the International Air Services Commission, a government body that will decide whether to award Virgin the necessary 28 flights per week to Qatar – and Virgin has said in a letter to the IASC that there is essentially no reason to block the proposal, which has received widespread support and is not being contested.

Adam and Jake revisit the politics at play and ask when the airlines – and punters – could see the new flights greenlit.

Plus, is the federal government on a path to nationalising Rex, and could we see the return of commercial supersonic travel sooner than we expected?

The Spitfire, the Hurricane, the Kittyhawk – when asked to name the fighter planes that won World War II, most people would place these legendary machines high on the list.

Yet largely absent from these lofty histories is the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation’s CA-13 Boomerang – Australia’s home-grown fighter plane, adapted from a training aircraft design and deployed in the Pacific theatre.

Though it was plagued with teething problems and never took down an enemy aircraft, the Boomerang carved out its own niche working with the Army in battlefields like the dense jungles of New Guinea.

In this week’s Australian Aviation Podcast, Jake Nelson talks to Don Williams, author of The CAC Boomerang: Australia's Own WWII Fighter, about the unique role played by the Boomerang in Australia’s aviation history – and how it can be better remembered.

In the wake of Bonza’s collapse and Rex’s administration last year, another prospective domestic carrier – Koala Airlines – was suddenly garnering media attention despite not yet having aircraft or a clear business plan.

While its website, filled with glossy renders of 737 MAX 8s, promised to “carve out a unique niche” in Australia’s aviation sector, a winding-up application filed against it in Victoria last week has raised questions about whether it would ever actually get off the ground.

Adam and Jake discuss whether Koala’s lofty ambitions of “creating a lasting impact on the industry” are over before they even began.

Plus, Perth Airport booms as it invests big in the future, transport links to Western Sydney Airport take shape, and how many podcast hosts does it take to assemble a model plane?