While agreeing wholeheartedly with Michael Shoebridge's well considered expose of the Lake Burley Griffin floatplane misadventure (Letters, December 29), I suspect the rapid demise of this dumb venture will be determined by business economics, rather than the massive inconvenience (and worse) to the Canberra community.
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The latter has already been unconcernedly deemed irrelevant by the decision-makers.
Those who have tracked the development of the floatplane folly will recall that the proof-of-concept flight earlier this year was an abject failure. Instead of taking off from Rose Bay, as planned, adverse weather conditions there required the aircraft to depart from the general aviation airfield at Bankstown. Imagine the dismay for well-heeled would-be floatplane passengers when having to make last-minute surface travel movements to accommodate such changes, to say nothing of not getting the aquatic take-off and landing experience for which they had paid and were expecting to receive.
Meanwhile, questions need to be asked about who gains from this latest random idea and who carries the liability should the unthinkable occur.
Ian Pearson, Barton
Caught and bowled
Well done Australia; just too good. But surely, the match referee should thoroughly check both teams and tell us why he allows the Australian world-class, left arm very fast bowler to wear a huge golden "ring of confidence" when bowling?
Does the bowler wear the ring when batting?
P R Temple, Macquarie
Crunching the numbers
Steve Evans' balanced analysis "A year of Heroes" (canberratimes.com.au, December 29) provided COVID statistics in a form which enabled quick comparison of the wildly different circumstances in different jurisdictions. However, such statistics should be accompanied with a similar table with figures adjusted on a per-capita basis (eg per million of population).
Also, the two current variants of COVID (Delta and Omicron) are so different (the first being very dangerous, and the second being far more contagious) that they need to be recorded as separate viruses rather than being recorded as a single one.
It seems that some jurisdictions (especially irresponsible NSW) have given up on contact tracing both Omicron and Delta, but certainly should still be contact tracing Delta. Just before Omicron arrived, Queensland had hardly any cases of Delta, and Victoria had many. Is this still the case? Is the relaxation of rules caused by the great increase in the relatively harmless Omicron also now causing a relaxation of protection against the very dangerous Delta?
Bob Salmond, Melba
Not over the hill
Rohan Goyne (Letters, December 29) said England needed to find a "bowling attack which does not rely on bowlers whose best days are behind them".
I assume he is referring to Jimmy Anderson. Anderson bowled beautifully, beat the bat countless times, and took four wickets including both openers and Smith.
As for the other English bowlers Wood was 5km/h faster than any Australian and was a constant threat.
Robinson took 2-64 from 19.2 overs, and Australia's batting lineup mustered only 267 runs.
These figures do not suggest an attack which is over the hill.
Chris Hunter, Farrer
ACT electricity is renewable
Re Felix MacNeill's critique of M Flint (Letters, December 29 and 24, respectively), Mr Flint was right about Canberra's light rail being "a financial disaster for ACT taxpayers", but wrong about the source of the ACT's electricity supply. The ACT achieved 100 per cent renewable energy in 2020.
Renewable sources within the ACT include the Mugga Lane Solar Park, the Royalla and Williamsdale Solar Farms, and 30,000+ rooftop solar panel installations. The remainder of the ACT's renewable energy is via large-scale solar and wind energy "reverse auctions" from 11 solar and wind farms near the ACT, elsewhere in NSW, and in South Australia and Victoria.
