They confiscated my licence but I refused to accept it.
But their rules are inflexible and designed for the most inept people. They give no consideration to the fact that in some situations, with highly skilled pilots, the rules can be bent a little without danger to anyone.
Dick Nell may have been a good bloke, good pilot and so on, but these kind of quotes are egotistical big-noting.
I just climbed up Mt Emerald this morning, where VH-ANQ speared in - lots of aeroplane pieces still scattered around 22 years later. I vaguely knew the story but, having just been to the crash site, looked up the BASI report. The pilot was last cleared to hold over Mareeba at 10000 ft due crossing traffic, but subsequently punched into the hillside (around 3500 AMSL) without further clearance in a controlled descent, killing the pilot and his 10 pax.
Given information about previous peculiarities of the aircraft's GPS system (errors reference the VOR) and the crash site reference the reported VOR radial from Biboohra, it sounds to me (although of course I can't be sure) that he was carrying out some kind of unpublished GPS descent to get into Mareeba - one of these 'highly skilled pilots bending the rules slightly'.
I'm not saying I never bent or broke a rule, but people who openly flout them worry me.