Thanks for the info Floody. That makes sense now. Never heard of the NTAMS prior to your post, so I'm glad to learn that there are even more aeromedical organisations in addition to the RFDS, Careflight, Westpac rescue, and the state air ambulance a/c.
Although I suppose the Tennant Creek (Central Division) and Derby (Western Division) a/c can always be used if required to help out in the top end if the NTAMS a/c are all tied up.
So if both Western ops and Central ops are using the PC-12s, is this possibly a sign that the RFDS plans to eventually move to an all PC-12 fleet in the near future?
Trent, thanks for the info. I'm completely lost when it comes to SIDs and instrument arrivals. To be honest, the only thing I do understand on the instrument side of flying is the basic ILS (just following the needle and the glideslope).
I think you could be right about the RIVET9 arrival, although we were flying parrallel with the Wollongong coast (I could see the lights of Wollongong and spotted Port Kembla out the left side of the plane) for quite a while. So perhaps if there's some arrival that brings you in from further south than RIVET9 prior to ATC providing vectors to finals, then that could be a more likely candidate.
But I'm a bit interested now about these instrument arrivals. Might check out some of the charts at ASA for arrivals into Sydney
Cheers