Welcome to
Squawk Ident

This Website had its beginnings in June 1991 when I published a modest little booklet entitled Significant Events at Brisbane Airport. When I say "modest", I am talking sixteen photocopied pages and a print run in the order of twenty, so don't be too surprised if you haven't got one in your library! This booklet listed various "firsts" and "lasts" which I had personally chronicled during the course of my work with Qantas at the 'drome. This booklet later evolved into a similarly modest, occasional newsletter which sought to record the daily comings and goings at Brisbane Airport. This newsletter bore the strange name of Squawk Ident.

That's A Funny Name.

For those readers not familiar with the term, "Squawk Ident" is Air Traffic Control talk for "use your transponder to identify yourself on radar". Therefore, it seemed to me to be an appropriate name for a publication which intended to identify specific aeroplanes for the historical record. Squawk Ident was soon displaced by Noel Oxlade's excellent Armchair Aviation which sadly, is no longer published. Similarly, its successor, AIR NEWS Queensland is also no longer available. More recently it has become increasingly apparent that my original "Significant Events" booklet was in dire need of a major update. Thus was born:

Squawk Ident - The Website!


While I expect that some may be disappointed that this material is not available in printed form, the flexibility and immediacy of the World Wide Web is an attractive alternative to the considerable expense of the print medium. In any case, readers of this Website are at liberty to print these pages and share them around. This after all, is the prime purpose of publishing in the first place - to record and to disseminate facts which might otherwise be lost.

Some readers might question the inclusion of flying boat operations from the Brisbane River and Redland Bay. The reason for this is that these stretches of water, in their time, constituted Brisbane Water Airport and their movements were controlled from Eagle Farm. Similarly, some readers might wonder why operations from Archerfield have been ignored entirely, even though Archerfield was Brisbane's main airport for many years. Principally because of a lack of information on this aerodrome I have had to make a conscious decision to deem it beyond the scope of this Website, even though Archerfield is a particularly historic aerodrome. For information on the history of Archerfield, please see Peter Dunn's Archerfield @ War.

Squawk Ident is not intended as a "Brisbane Airport Newsletter", for it will not record daily aircraft movements unless they fall into a "first" or "last" category or are otherwise significant. For the official word on Brisbane Airport, please visit the Brisbane Airport Corporation Website. It is my hope that Squawk Ident will provide a valuable resource for airlines, airport operators and the news media as well as for fellow historians and enthusiasts.

Mudmap

The layout of Squawk Ident should be fairly straightforward and easily navigable, but here are some pointers to assist:
  • Events are listed in chronological order.
  • The chronology is divided into two sections, 1928-1988 and 1988-2002. These periods relate to the old (Eagle Farm) Airport and the current Brisbane International Airport which opened in 1988.
  • Remember - "firsts" and "lasts" refer to Brisbane unless stated otherwise.
  • First = the first ever.
  • Last = the last ever. This can be difficult to define, particularly while HARS continue to operate! Its use is usually restricted to operators which have gone out of business or operators which have permanently withdrawn from service a particular type of aircraft or if an aircraft type is now extinct.
  • FRS = First Regular Scheduled. The airline or aircraft type referred to may have visited previously as a diversion or a charter. "Regular Scheduled" implies at least a weekly frequency over a period of several months.
  • LRS = Last Regular Scheduled. The airline or aircraft type referred to may visit again at some time in the future as the airline continues to operate the type in question.
  • Click on the little camera icon for related images - in most cases of the actual event described.
  • If you are unfamiliar with airport/city codes there is a listing under CODES. This is not intended as a comprehensive listing, as only codes used within these pages are included.
  • There is a comprehensive INDEX which should lead you to that elusive event. The dates in the index are linked to the relevant entry in the chronology.
  • Any corrections or additions will be listed under UPDATES.
  • Links to related sites can be found under SOURCES.

I hope you find Squawk Ident both useful and enjoyable.
Please email me with any additions, corrections or comments. I expect that some of the events recorded in these pages may have slipped through the net when I compiled the index. Please let me know if you find any such omissions. The FEEDBACK page lists alternative means of contacting me.

Regards

Ron Cuskelly