While not a true helicopter tale of the mid 1960’s, although at the time I was trying to muster cattle in a Brantley in the North West of Oz.
This was about our cattle station manger who being a diabetic was rejected in obtaining a student pilots license.
Being the chap that he was, this small fact did not put him off his intent to fly, so an aircraft was purchased and delivered to the station.
He taught himself to fly (that’s another story) and was soon flying around the station and navigating himself around the north West.
This act rather upset the Authority at the time and various plans were put in place to bring him to justice. To achieve this process the authority had to catch the chap in the act of flying and one of these plans was to wait at various airfields for him to land.
It goes without saying that the only effective way of getting anywhere in the North of Oz at that time was to fly and the authority were no different. They were quite mobile and operated a few types but all painted the same Commonwealth colours.
It can been seen the plan never worked as the Authorities aircraft could be seen from a safe height, so if spotted the chap just flew over and landed elsewhere.
On this particular day the authority were waiting at his local county airfield when he flew over. The chap spotted the Authorities aircraft and went to his standard plan B which was to fly over the town to alert a mate and then proceed about four miles out of town and land in the bush where he would be picked up and driven into town.
The Authorities crew observed what was happening and leapt into their aircraft to follow in the hope of a result. They were flying in a near new twin Aero Commander which during the take off suffered an engine failure. The result was a rejected take off which put the aircraft through the fence and ended up very close to the main road.
The chap driving in with his mate were totally unaware of this occurrence until they came around a corner and saw the Authorities aircraft looking a bit worse for wear.
It certainly did not help with their on going relationship when the chap rolled down the window and said “G’day Bob do you want a lift into town?
He was never effectively stopped and finally retired from aviation with an excess of 9,000 hours.