Bruce Stewart

Many hundreds of people gathered the other day at the Epsom/Huntly showgrounds on the outskirts of Bendigo in anticipation of a visit from the Roulettes - the Royal Australian Air Force’s formation aerobatic display team. Our patience was rewarded as right on schedule I spied six rapidly moving black dots coming in from the north east. The black dots soon materialised into Pilatus PC-21 aircraft which are currently operated by the Roulettes. The cruising speed of the P-21 aircraft powered by a Pratt and Whitney turboprop engine generating 1,600 shaft horse power is 600 kilometres per hour, so they soon were buzzing right overhead in tight formation.    

For the next 15 minutes we were given flying demonstrations equal to the be