I knew Hugh very well when he leart to fly in Masteron NZ,a bit of lad he was,when he was a loader driver for Feildair I remember the story when he was loading the Ag DC3 down in the South Island with Mike Cronin and they had a company cheque book and one night at the local pub Hugh wrote a cheque for a million dollars and the pub owner got one back on them by presenting it at his bank the next morning I understand the pub owner and the bank manager were mates and the bank manager rang Hughs boss in Palmerston North,all hell broke out but they got away with it this time. Another thing Hugh did was climb out of the back (behind the hopper) of a FU24 Flectcher through the small rear door and climb up onto the wing and tap on the outside of the canopy Keith Turner the pilot got one hell of a fright seeing Hugh standing outside on the wing...this was in flight and Keith did his best approach and landing as he was worried Hugh might fall off.Following his CPL training he moved away and it was some years later we heard the bad news about the crash.