Ferry Flying

  There is no aircraft industry in Australia which caters to the General Aviation market. Almost all of the light aircraft used in Australia come from the United States.

The smallest two seat training aircraft are shipped from the States to Australia in ocean-going containers. Two people can take the wings off a Cessna 150 and pack it into a container in a day. A month later, when the container arrives in Australia, two people can put it back together again and you're on your way.

Larger aircraft don't disassemble so easily. It's cheaper and faster to fly them across the Pacific. That involves special preparation for the aircraft and a number of challenges for the pilot.

  Thus we have the ferry service:

fer-ry (fer'ee) n. pl. <-ries> v. <-ried, -ry-ing> n.
1. a service for transporting persons, automobiles, etc., across a comparatively small body of water.
2. a ferryboat.
3. a service for flying airplanes over a particular route, esp. the delivery of airplanes to an overseas destination.