Guest Vicki Portway is Head of Web & New Media for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. We talk about the Museum’s online outreach, the fantastic Become a Pilot Day in June, and the Space Shuttle Discovery target arrival of April 17 at Dulles Airport and transfer to the Udvar-Hazy Center April 19, replacing the Enterprise, which goes to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City.

You can find the National Air and Space Museum on Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter. Vicki is on Twitter as sluggernova.

The week’s aviation news:

• Budget Cuts Could Spell End of FAA Contract Towers
• Commercial Drones That Controllers Can’t See Challenge U.S. Air Safety
• TSA Agent at JFK airport stole $5,000 cash from passenger
• AMR wants to cut 13,000 jobs, pensions

David’s Aircraft of the Week is the Supermarine Attacker.

In this week’s Australia Desk report, Steve is back from vacation, Rob Fyfe announces his pending retirement as CEO of Air New Zealand, Qantas announces Carbon Tax related fare rises (Steve vents about the Carbon Tax), Qantas credit rating downgrade, and Grant tries the mood detecting music machine one last time.

Find more from Grant and Steve at the Plane Crazy Down Under podcast, and follow the show on Twitter at @pcdu. Steve’s at @stevevisscher and Grant at @falcon124.

On Across The Pond this week, Pieter talks to Dave Lees, Managing Director of Southampton Airport in the UK. Dave explains to us how he will make Southampton already one of the UK’s highest performing regional airports, even better.

You can find Southampton Airport on Twitter at @SOU_Airport and at www.southamptonairport.com. Pieter can be found on Twitter as @Nascothornet or XTP Media’s Facebook Page.

Mentioned in the episode:

• U.S. Contract Tower Association
• Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI)
• Aviation Geek Fest 2012
• British airways key to US merger mania
• Jetwhine Tries to Out-Cranky the Cranky Flier

Follow the @AirplaneGeeks on Twitter and on Facebook, send us email at thegeeks@airplanegeeks.com, or leave a message on our listener line: (361) GEEKS01.

Opening and closing music is provided by Brother Love from the Album Of The Year CD. You can find his great music at http://www.brotherloverocks.com/.