I was 19 years old, working as the ganger on a small rail crew in the middle of the desert. Lots of aircraft stopped where I was stationed for fuel. I needed to get to town in a hurry once, and bummed a lift with a couple of blokes passing through in an old aztec. the idea of covering in one hour, the same distance it took me six hours of bone jarring driving planted the seed.
then one of the employees of the met department across the road shows up with a mooney, and he and a couple of blokes disappeared to Alice springs for the weekend.......unheard of. I was keen as mustard. I asked the bloke with the licence, what was involved in getting a licence, and was told a) I couldn't afford it and b) your not clever enough. I believed this ****** for several years, and although still keen, I was convinced it was beyond me, and did nothing about it.
several years later, I was mustering camels out in the desert. We hired a bloke in a helicopter to help us out. He was a Bonza bloke, and as patiant and helpfull as ever with all my questions. I told this bloke about my desire to pilot an aircraft, and my disappointment at not being clever enough over a few beers and a camp fire in the desert, after work. to my surprise, he declared the "all knowing pilot" that told me all that crap, a ******.Get up early tommorrow and I'll give you a bit of a lesson, Its not rocket science and you'll be right mate he said. So next morning I was up a sparrow fart, all keen and jumpy, ready for my first lesson.
For nearly an hour we battled that little hughes 300 around, gliding through the canyon of Carrawine george and chasing ducks and crows around the desert, wheeling cattle and camels through the spinifex and dropping over the edge of three hundred foot platues to roll nearly inverted and race around foot of the tall breakaway country, all in the still morning air. absolutelly fantastic stuff. he gave me about half an hour instruction on hovering and then we landed. I was so exstatic, the rest of the usually hard day just breezed by. I dreamed of wheeling and gliding around the desert for days after that.
I took meself off to a flight school a few years later and enquired as to the cost of it all, and informed them I had very little schooling so I would require intensive and extensive tutoring. I soloed in a C152 four days later and breezed through the PPL(A) it seems I was a natural and required little help at all, and after battling for money and hours, passed my CPL(A). I managed to scrounge up all sorts of work and eventually I went back to the bush and started my own mustering company. I went and got all the ratings and endorsments you could imagine and eventually got my CPL(H).
A few years back I heard that this bloke that had inspired my future, had caught a wire in Tazzie whilst crop spaying, and died in the ensuing crash.
This morning, I was rolling off a climbing turn and letting the nose of the aircraft fall through, and lining myself up on a mob of goats. The sun was just comming over the horizon and the air was dead still.The aircraft was flying like a homesick angel and the engine was purring sweet. it was one of those mornings when you just yelled, I LOVE MY JOB, to no one in particular and smile like an idiot. on days like these, I cast a quick thought back to that morning in the desert, and shed a little tear of thanks to the memory of a great man, who inspired me to do what I love doing.