Born To Fly Read online

  I read that article over and over again, replacing his name with mine and dreaming of achieving what he had just done. If he could do it, there was no reason why I couldn’t.

  Now I knew what was possible, I wanted answers. I started to research the finer details, the questions of where, when and how. It wasn’t easy, but I kept at it. I have the kind of personality – ask Mum and Dad – where once I get hooked into something I’ll just go with it. We were never spoiled kids, we were told to work for what we wanted, but if I had my mind set on something I just wouldn’t let go.

  CHAPTER

  2

  A passion and a goal

  At about this time my dad had taken a huge step towards becoming a pilot himself. He had started flight training through Merimbula Air Services where Andy, his brother, had a flying instructor on hand, and after a lifetime of wishing he could fly he was now a few lessons closer to his dream. When he came home after every session I would grab him and ask him dozens of questions about what he was doing. Soon I was tagging along.

  Merimbula airport was only minutes from our house. It is the base for my Uncle Andy’s scenic flight business, Merimbula Air Services, but it was not somewhere I had spent a lot of time. It was housed in a large green building opposite the small regional airport terminal and faced onto the security fence that divided the general public from the hive of aviation activity. Scattered around the building were light aircraft of all colours, shapes and sizes.

  The chief flying instructor was Alan Lindsay, a long-time family friend. Known as ‘Big Al’, he stood well over six feet tall and I couldn’t imagine how he squeezed into any small plane. I would sit and listen as Alan explained the day’s lesson to Dad, where they would go and what he would teach Dad to do. I would place myself on the viewing deck, radio in hand, and just watch.

  After one lesson Dad and Alan taxied off the runway and parked only metres from the fence. Dad looked up through the bubble canopy and beckoned me to come over. Alan wanted to take me up for a quick flight, even though he was in a hurry. He was busy apologising for his time constraints; I was just thrilled to be flying at all.

  I climbed up and into the little Evektor Sportstar, sat in the pilot’s seat on the left and buckled in. It felt like being in a racing car. Alan’s hands darted back and forth flicking switches while at the same time he talked to me, giving me basic information about how to fly a plane, what bit makes it go up and which bit makes it go down. Before I knew it the aircraft was alive and we were taxiing out to the runway with Alan still apologising for being so rushed. Over the microphone he gave some kind of pilot code for ‘We are going to take off now’. The radio calls alone were exciting.

  We zoomed down the runway and into the air. My eyes kept flicking between the aerial view of my hometown and the switches and levers inside the aircraft. I watched as Al turned the plane to the right and before long pushed the nose down to level. And then he let me take control. I rocked the wings to the left and right before pointing the nose to the sky and back to line up with the horizon. Apologetically Alan took back over, flicked more switches and sent code throughout the airwaves for all the other pilots out there. We turned and lined up with the runway and I watched as it grew larger. Then, with the throttle at idle, Al brought us back to earth. I had permanent smile, stretching from ear to ear.

  As I said goodbye and left the airport, I knew more than ever that this was where I belonged. And so I immediately started thinking about how to afford flying lessons.

  Months before, I had started working at the local supermarket in the nearby town of Pambula. It was small, with a handful of employees governed by our boss, Daryl. I would clamber off the bus at 4:10 after school and scoot up the street, change uniforms and head into my first duty of the afternoon. This was stacking the milk fridge. (Always remember to rotate the milk!) Working in the supermarket was a great job and Darryl looked after us well. I was there until 6pm three afternoons a week and was always paid for two hours’ work even though I arrived slightly late. At $7.65 an hour the money added up, and my first goal – to buy a new guitar, paying it off on lay-by – was achieved in no time. Now my money was accumulating in the bank just waiting for me to find something new to spend it on.

  With my heart set on that second flying lesson, I cast around for other ways to make money. Washing a truck on the weekend helped out and within a fortnight I had enough for an hour in the air. I booked in with Alan and counted down the days.

  Al was more relaxed this time, and took the lesson more slowly. I was perched in the left seat of a Grumman Tiger, a low-wing four-seater, and we took off, heading north along the coastline. We zoomed up and swished down and around the clouds, and I tried to improve my co-ordination as I worked out the throttle. Everything seemed so complicated, yet I could see that there was a logic to it, and I was sure I could learn.

  After we landed we had a chat about what we had done that day. I jotted the details down in my new pilot’s logbook, just given to me by Uncle Andy, a logbook that would eventually carry details about every flight I made. I created a job list of the equipment to buy and forms to fill out. It was the beginning of my new life. I aimed at having a flying lesson once a fortnight so I wouldn’t forget the skills I had already learned. I went to work and school with my mind set on the weekend, hoping for a still, blue-sky day.

  One Sunday afternoon shortly after I started learning to fly I went with Dad to the local aero club. This wasn’t at Merimbula but about ten nautical miles northwest at an airport called Frogs Hollow. We pulled up alongside the clubhouse which was halfway down the grass airstrip to see a small group of people surrounded by hangars. Some doors were closed, some were cracked open and others had an aircraft sitting out the front just ready to go flying. From time to time a plane would take off or land – no security fences or sealed runway. To the north the airstrip dipped down and back up again while to the south it lay flat. The clubhouse was well placed for spectators to sit back and admire the aircraft touching down. The history of the airfield hung on its walls for all to see.

  Soon after introducing ourselves we were asked whether we would like to go for a fly. That was an easy question. I clambered into a Victa Aircruiser, the only four-seat Victa in the world. Our pilot Des flew us around the valley in the little low-wing aircraft, asking questions and cracking jokes as he went. It was a prime example of the Frogs Hollow Aero Club spirit.

  We left full of cake and biscuits with another flight under our belt and a bunch of new friends. It was a fantastic experience and the next Sunday could not come soon enough.

  Every time I took flight I learned something new, not only about flying itself but about my abilities as a person. At fourteen I was still two years away from learning to drive a car and even then I would only have a learner’s licence. I’ve always been very conscious of doing things early – maybe that comes from being the youngest of three brothers and always being in a race to catch up – and I was determined to be like that local kid in the paper and fly solo at fifteen, not just at that age but on my fifteenth birthday. I just had to keep on with my flying lessons and juggling the paperwork and other bits and pieces so I would be ready in time. It was both a goal and a passion.

  Only days before my fifteenth birthday we drove up to Moruya, another small coastal town an hour or two north of Merimbula. Because I was so young I could only fly solo in a smaller and lighter aircraft than the one I had completed my flight training in. There was such an aircraft in Moruya and a few familiarisation flying hours later I was comfortable and as ready as I could be.

  As my birthday edged closer I kept working away and when an issue popped up I would do my best to find a way around it. I remember being told that the paperwork I required to fly solo could not be processed until I was fifteen, so we fixed that by finding a helpful person who faxed it through on my birthday morning.

  On the day I turned fifteen I woke up and ran outside. The sky was blue and the trees stood still. As a surprise
my uncle had an aircraft ready and we flew from Merimbula to Moruya instead of driving; a long drive had become a quick flight. Once there I prepared the aircraft and got ready to fly with my new instructor, Mark.

  That morning I took off and landed three times before taxiing back to the aero club and celebrating. It was the first time in my life I had achieved something so significant. The hard work had paid off and with a little help from the early morning weather everything had gone to plan. I was now the youngest solo pilot in Australia.

  The smile never really faded following my solo flight. The next week an article popped up in our local newspaper with the same headline that had made me determined to do what I had just achieved: ‘Young pilot takes to the skies at 15’. This time there was no need to replace the young flyer’s name with mine.

  I returned to school and work, aiming to make a flight every fortnight. Being back in the slightly larger aircraft I had learned on, all my flying was done with Alan until I turned sixteen. We concentrated on navigation, so we usually flew a fair way from Moruya and Merimbula. With maps spread across the cockpit I carefully compared the outside world to where I should have been. I am proud to say I only found myself geographically disorientated once.

  On my sixteenth birthday I set off solo in the Grumman Tiger. It was the second solo flight of my life. With more experience than last time I was slightly less nervous, although the excitement and rush from being up there alone were just as strong as before.

  Before long I had completed the training that allowed me to take passengers within a measurable distance from Merimbula, almost as if I was on a leash. The months afterwards became some of the most enjoyable of my life to that point; I would gather the eager and daring passengers and proceed to share the magic of flight. (That is, if they drove me to the airport.) In between flying friends and family around the local area I continued to learn the art of navigation from Alan. Each flight brought something new, something exciting and unforgettable. This was especially true of my first solo navigation flight. I had the takeoff and landing parts worked out; the challenge now lay in flying away from Merimbula and then finding it again later. As I sat in a small Cessna 152 and prepared for that I was extremely nervous. The whole flight was nerve-racking, but I managed to get down, not just in one piece, but in the right place.

  As well as dealing with flight training, school and work, I had become a regular at the Frogs Hollow Aero Club. One Sunday afternoon Bob, a flying member of the club, suggested that I should apply for a scholarship funded by the Aircraft Owners’ and Pilots’ Association or AOPA, which offered $6000 towards flight training. It seemed like a good idea, but other things crowded in and I forgot to complete the application. With another reminder months later I sat down and wrote the required essay, which I sent off to the AOPA together with a copy of my logbook and the newspaper article describing my first solo flight.

  Each day I hopped on the AOPA website trying to see how I had gone. I didn’t think I would win but the sooner I knew who had, the sooner I could relax. And then, while I was visiting my brother Chris in Townsville, I had a call from AOPA. I had won the scholarship! It was amazing, I couldn’t believe it. I stood in the middle of a Westpac bank telling the person on the other end of the phone just how much I loved them.

  With my eyes now set on my private pilot’s licence, the magic PPL, I used the AOPA funds to pay for my navigation flights. I had recently left the Pambula supermarket and upgraded my line of work, washing dishes at the local RSL club. It was a dirty job, but it paid very well. Having learned that aeroplanes use not just airspeed to fly but also money, earning as much as I could seemed like a good decision. Shortly after my seventeenth birthday I passed my PPL flight test and became a private pilot. Now I could fly where, when and with whomever I wanted. It was an exciting way to begin my final year of high school.

  As I approached my Higher School Certificate as a fairly non-motivated student, life became a bit more serious. I concentrated on passing in the kinds of subjects that would allow me to have a career in the airlines. I gave up a subject or two that I thoroughly enjoyed to focus on mathematics and physics, two subjects that I was never really good at and found irritating, to say the least. With maths and physics I studied English and geography; I also worked towards a certificate in tourism and events. My aim was to pass my commercial pilot’s licence exams and flight test before the middle of the year after I finished school, allowing me to begin work as a paid pilot. I kept on working and graduated from high school in early November 2011, with my required passes in maths and physics in hand. That was a relief, and I could now look towards the future.

  After I had done my final exams I decided against schoolies – celebrating the end of school life with my mates – and headed down south to Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. I spent the next three days learning to fly upside down, a cheaper and more exciting schoolies experience than the usual, I thought.

  In mid January 2012 I turned eighteen and was officially old. I celebrated in the backyard with my family and friends, but not too much because I had a long drive ahead of me. The next morning I set off for Redcliffe, a northern suburb of Brisbane, for two months of training and exams with Bob Tait, who was renowned for his classes in commercial pilots’ licence theory.

  The best thing about Bob’s course was meeting other pilots, mostly around my age or a little older, who were also getting ready to take on a career in aviation. We met and chatted after classes and during lunch and morning tea, finding out where we had learned to fly and where we wanted to be in a few years’ time. We studied in class through the week, where I was staying in Redcliffe just north of Brisbane on the weekends, and then took on the exam the following Monday. It was a relaxing and fun atmosphere; study was intertwined with catch-ups here and there, along with the freedom of my little beachside unit and the lack of requirement to make my bed. With much relief I knocked over the exams one by one and knew I stood very close to my goal.

  In late February I repacked my car and headed home with seven commercial pilot’s licence exam passes under my belt. Eager to start work as a pilot I jumped straight into the final phase of training, which involved a check flight or two and a flight test. I brushed up on my study once more, signed the last form and booked the testing officer.

  I hired an aircraft from my uncle, filled it with fuel and cleaned the windscreen. Setting off early from Merimbula I tracked north up the magnificent coastline to Moruya where I would pick up my testing officer. After checking the belts were neatly folded and the mats were shaken I scooted into the aero club.

  A handshake and hello later Ben, my testing officer, and I got down to business. I was given a limited time frame to plan a flight to a number of destinations I had just been told about. Once completed I would take off and fly the route, treating my testing officer as a passenger. The flight was to take us to Canberra and then south through a number of locations before finally tracking north along the coast to Moruya. All the while Ben would watch closely to ensure I was meeting all the requirements and standards needed to be a commercial pilot.

  We ventured into the air with what I thought was a meticulously prepared flight plan. I had a folder with a small essay of notes and flight details sitting on my knee; there was no way I was leaving anything to chance. But there was one factor I hadn’t planned for. Before long the weather deteriorated well below what we had expected and we had to divert to a different airfield, landing north of the planned route. With the testing officer nearby I set about planning a new route clear of the bad weather. Straddling the landing gear and leaning awkwardly onto the seat of the aircraft, I put together a new flight plan and new notes. Finally we took off once again, this time towards a blue sky.

  Late that afternoon we touched back down at Moruya airport. A smile and another handshake later I heard the words anyone in a test situation wants to hear – pass. I was now a commercial pilot.

  In our household there was a standard way of letting you know yo
u had been in the shower too long. Sometimes it was a light ‘don’t run the hot water out’ tap on the wall. If you had been in for much longer, you were likely to hear the kind of regular thumping noise that could have been mistaken for a small car driving through the house. I got the second sort all the time. I blame this entirely on daydreaming. The shower is a fantastic place to let your mind wander, and you can always trace a few detailed technical drawings on the shower screen. I had many different ideas and thoughts over the years, some of these thoughts came and went, but some stuck around. And the one that was most persistent was this.

  I wanted to fly an aeroplane around the world.

  I had wanted to do this during most of my flight training. I was totally engrossed in aviation, not just the practicalities but the different types of planes, the eras and events that have shaped the history of man-made flight. I knew the names: Lindbergh. Hughes. Hargrave. Kingsford Smith. Batten. Hawker. Sopwith. Wilkins. Hinkler. Wright. Dumont. Earhart. Barnes. Bach. Curtiss. Lilienthal. Ader. Blériot. Houdini. All living at a time when the general public was consumed by something new and magical. Pilots breaking records and setting new standards. I knew that behind the security fences, past the paperwork and beyond the bureaucracy, the magic of flying, the sheer adventure of it, was still there.

  For me freedom was the single biggest gift of flight. The ability to go somewhere, or even nowhere, but to enjoy the ride. And for me the greatest sense of freedom meant flying around the world by myself. All the way – taking off from an airport in a light aircraft, staying low and pointing east. Tracking over the same oceans that Kingsford Smith and all the others, the great and iconic names of aviation, had flown over. Passing over countries, so many that you would need a list to keep track. Seeing four seasons pass by, the desert, snow, ice and vast green fields as far as you can see. I wanted to do that.