The Outback Wrangler

by Matt Wright

  ‘Okay, I want you to line up that post directly ahead,’ said Graeme. ‘Keep us pointed towards the post.’

  ‘Righto,’ I said.

  ‘The pedals are yours,’ Graeme said.

  The moment Graeme handed me control, the post that he had told me to line up disappeared from view as we spun left. I hit the left pedal and the tail boom lurched round to the right. I’d massively overcompensated. The pedals were spongy and took a few critical moments to take effect when pressed. It was like I was constantly playing catch-up, the machine moving a beat before me. It took me a while, but I eventually had the post lined up reasonably steady.

  ‘Not bad,’ said Graeme. ‘I’m going to take control of the pedals.’

  And with that, the chopper instantly steadied.

  ‘Now it’s time for the collective,’ he said.

  The collective is located on the left-hand side of the pilot and is shaped a little like an enlarged handbrake in a car. The effect of pulling up the collective stick is to increase the intensity or pitch of the main rotor blades collectively, which in turn increases altitude. Lowering the collective stick drops the pitch and the machine descends. It’s simple enough in theory. In practice, it’s a different story.

  ‘All right, I want you to take hold of the collective while I handle the other controls. Try and keep us twenty feet off the ground.’

  The moment Graeme handed me over the control of the collective, the machine jumped 10 feet. I pushed down hard on the stick, bringing us to within a couple of feet from the ground. Graeme was anticipating this response because he grabbed hold of the collective a split second from disaster and brought us back to a controlled hover.

  ‘Let’s try that again,’ he said.

  We bounced up and down like this for the next few minutes. Imagine learning how to drive manual and bunny hopping down the street. Well, this was 100 times harder. As with the pedals, the secret was to make the smallest possible adjustments. After about five minutes, I held her 20 feet above the ground.

  ‘Okay,’ said Graeme. ‘I’ll take control.’

  Graeme reminded me not to forget the twist grip at the end of the collective. The twist grip controls throttle and needs to be coordinated with the up-and-down motion of the collective stick.

  ‘Pulling up the collective increases pitch, which, in turn, requires more throttle or else you might stall,’ he said.

  Lastly, we came to the cyclic. The cyclic is similar to a joystick. It is called the cyclic because it changes the pitch of the main rotor blades cyclically. So, if I were to move the cyclic stick left or right, the main rotor blades would increase their pitch on one side of the cycle and feather on the other side. The result is to lower the spinning disk towards the feathering side of the cycle and therefore provide thrust in that direction. The same applies to the vertical plane – push the cyclic forward, the disc tilts forward and the aircraft moves forward; push it back, the disc tilts back and the machine goes backwards.

  ‘Take hold of the cyclic,’ Graeme said. I did as instructed, feeling every vibration of the helicopter pass through my hand and up my arm. Graeme watched out of the corner of his eye, all the while keeping his hand on the dual cyclic.

  ‘Don’t choke it,’ he said, observing my white-knuckled grip. ‘This is how you do it.’

  I looked over at Graeme. He was gently clasping the cyclic in between his fingers. I mimicked my instructor’s technique. When he was satisfied, he handed me the cyclic. Instantly, we started to drift to the left. After my experience with the other instruments, I was careful not to overcompensate. I gently moved the cyclic right. Nothing happened. I moved it further to the right. The machine was still drifting.

  ‘Hold her steady, please,’ Graeme said.

  I pushed the cyclic hard over to the right. We keeled over like a ship in a strong wind. Graeme took hold of the cyclic as the chopper continued moving to the right and quickly brought us back to an even plane.

  ‘Try again,’ he said.

  The cyclic gave me a horrible time. It seemed to me that of all the controls, the chopper responded most sluggishly to the cyclic. It took me forever to stop the drift.

  ‘Right,’ Graeme said after my shambolic attempt to master the cyclic. ‘Now that you know what each instrument is designed to do, I’m going to hand over control of the whole package.’

  This is the reason Graeme Gillies is one of the best instructors going. Clearly, I wasn’t ready to fly a helicopter. But Graeme believed in throwing his students in the deep end. It’s only through trial and error that a person can learn how to fly a chopper. I completely understand why most instructors are reluctant to surrender control of the machine before they are certain the student is ready. Things can go badly wrong very quickly. But it means the whole process takes longer than necessary. Graeme had the confidence in his abilities to be able to regain control of a chopper, no matter the situation.

  Graeme increased our altitude, most likely to increase the margin for error.

  ‘The moment I think you’re losing her,’ he said, ‘I’ll take over.’

  ‘Understood,’ I said, with hands and feet at the ready.

  ‘The controls are yours.’

  In a flash, we were plunging towards the ground. Graeme took control immediately, returning us to altitude.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ he shouted. ‘Small corrections.’

  Once again Graeme handed me the controls and once again, I lost it. This time I overcompensated on the cyclic when I felt us drifting backwards and pitched our nose directly towards a building. Graeme guided us away without trouble.

  For the rest of the lesson, Graeme handed me the controls for short periods. I’d generally be able to keep the chopper in a hover for about two seconds before the tail boom would suddenly drop down, or we’d yaw dangerously to the side, or we’d start spinning wildly on our axis. It was incredibly frustrating. I’d been accustomed to picking up the operation of machinery quickly. But this was entirely different.

  To maintain the machine’s centre of gravity, every action on one instrument required two simultaneous actions on two other instruments. It was like being the conductor of an orchestra, only you had to play every instrument yourself. Play one instrument too hard or another too soft and the machine would go out of harmony. It was a game of finesse, not force. And it was going to take a long time to get right.

  ‘That’s enough for today,’ said Graeme. He took the controls and the chopper snapped into a stable position. He landed the helicopter and powered down. I sat quietly, waiting for an absolute bollocking.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t too terrible,’ he said. ‘Let’s do the same thing tomorrow.’

  * * *

  It was a long process. Everything clicks one day; the chopper seems to be responding to every command and you fool yourself into thinking that you’ve got the whole thing under control. The next day rolls around and that magic touch has abandoned you, and the chopper is plunging, spinning and dipping out of control like on your first day at the controls.

  Everyone wants to be an expert on the first go. Learning to fly a chopper isn’t like that. There are no naturals. Flying a chopper is completely foreign. It takes hard work and dedication. The goal is to lay a foundation of understanding and build on it slowly. But not too slowly . . .

  The initial down payment for the course covered me for 105 hours training. After racking up that many hours, I was eligible to go for a flying test to get my commercial licence. But there’d be no way Graeme would allow that to happen, not until I was completely proficient. The flying was tough, no doubt about it. But after four gruelling months I got it under control.

  The theory component of my training was an altogether different headache. I’d never been much good at study. I was too restless to spend long stretches with my head in the books. I preferred the outdoors. I’d limped through my final school exams without spending a minute at home at the desk. This was going to be different. I’d staked my future and
my fortune on being a helicopter pilot. Failure wasn’t an option.

  It took every ounce of concentration and discipline to keep me at the desk. Preparing for the seven exams was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It wasn’t just a matter of learning the complexities of helicopter operations. I had to get across navigation, meteorology, air law and physics. I applied myself to the task like nothing before. I had no money so there was no drinking or partying anyway – distractions were minimal. I’d like to tell you that I passed those exams with flying colours. In fact, it was the opposite.

  The major problem was that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) had contracted a New Zealand company to administer the exams. Not only were we all being prepared for a different model of examination, the tests were now conducted on computers. To make the whole thing ‘more efficient’, they crammed the exams into a short period of time. In the past it was one exam of three and a half hours; now we were doing seven exams in three days.

  Everyone failed. Complaints were made but CASA wouldn’t budge. We all had to retake the subjects from scratch. Another three months were lost. It was the worst possible outcome.I had no money to keep me flying with an instructor. I was absolutely livid. Instead of complaining, though, I directed all my energy into the books. I studied as if my life depended on it, because it did.

  I remember walking back into the exam room for the first of my seven exams, almost shaking with nerves. If I didn’t pass, I was going to have to consider bringing down the curtain on my dreams of flying. I couldn’t afford to take another three months without work. Because the exam questions were multiple choice and taken on computer, the results were instantaneous. One by one, I finished off each exam through the week and blitzed every single one of them.

  I remember celebrating with a couple of blokes at the end of that week. I couldn’t wait to polish up my CV and start applying for work. That was until another chopper pilot and a great friend of mine, Michael Tweeds, gave me some advice.

  ‘Matty, you want to get your ATPL,’ he said, ATPL meaning Airline Transport Pilot Licence.

  At the time I had gained a commercial helicopter licence, which was sufficient enough to do what I wanted. However, the ATPL would enable me to fly to oil rigs offshore with a larger number of passengers. It is a good retirement job but now was the time to do the theory behind it.

  So I did. My grandmother agreed to stump up a few more thousand dollars to tide me over while I returned to the books and increased my flying time. It was a punishing three months, but by the end of it all I’d nailed my exams. On Graeme Gillies’ recommendation, I applied for a job at North Australia Helicopters. I interviewed with chief pilot John Logan and he hired me on the spot. He was sending me to Moroak Cattle Station as a trainee mustering pilot. I’ve never been so excited. This was going to be the greatest experience of my life.

  Before starting up at Moroak, I went home to see family and friends. I made sure to drop in on my schoolmate Phil Dickson, who was now learning how to fly choppers like his old man, Dave. Dave was thrilled for me when I told him that I was a qualified pilot. Several months earlier, Dave had finished building his experimental helicopter. He invited me to take it up for a spin. I jumped at the opportunity.

  The design of Dave’s helicopter was modelled on the old Bell series and included the distinctive bubble canopy. But Dave’s chopper handled very differently. Not only were the controls sluggish, the whole machine vibrated and rattled in a worrying fashion. At that point, I had only piloted three different models of helicopter. I put my anxiety down to inexperience. After all, Dave’s chopper was experimental. It was always going to feel different.

  We landed without trouble and had a couple of beers together at Dave’s place. With night falling, I headed back to Mum’s place for dinner. It was the last time I saw Dave and Phil alive.

  A month later, Dave took Phil up for a joyride in his helicopter. Witnesses to the accident described seeing bits of the machine falling apart before it fell out of the sky. The chopper speared into a shed and exploded on impact. Father and son were killed instantly. The coroner blamed the accident on a series of catastrophic mechanical failures. Dave left behind a wife and two daughters.

  It was a terrible time. Dave’s family lived in McLaren Vale and the whole community was in mourning. The accident shook me up, too. The instructors had drummed into us the dangers involved in flying helicopters and, as already mentioned, had been quick to point out that the majority of accidents are a result of pilot error. Dave and Phil’s crash was a reminder that, when it comes to flying choppers, sometimes things just go horribly wrong.

  Learning to fly a chopper was hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever done. (Martin Vivian Pearse)

  Mum and me with my Robinson R22.

  (Martin Vivian Pearse)

  Dave and Phil Dickson standing alongside Dave’s experimental chopper, shortly before the accident. Dave and Phil’s death rocked the McLaren Vale community.

  10

  Not a Job for the Faint-Hearted

  I hadn’t met Milton Jones before I got to Moroak Station. I only knew him by reputation. Milton is a cult figure of the Northern Territory. He belongs to the old breed of station owner – those tough sons of bitches who are as rugged and hard as the land they work. He’s a legendary cattleman, a highly successful businessman and one hell of mustering pilot.

  Channel 10 made a show about him called Keeping Up with the Joneses. The show gave a glimpse of life on a cattle station and featured plenty of footage of helicopters mustering cattle and water buffalo. For extra drama, the producers decided to include a few scenes of Milton having some fun. Some scenes included Milton using his helicopter to tow his son across a lake on a wakeboard, circling a watercourse while trying to bait a bull shark and hovering above a billabong while trying to snare a croc. CASA didn’t like it one bit. Charges were laid and Milton was grounded until the matter was brought before court. This was the guy who was going to teach me how to become a mustering pilot!

  Milton didn’t even know my name for the first six months, or perhaps he did and he chose not to use it. He called me a lot of things but Matt wasn’t one of them. I thought getting my licence was tough but working for Milton was hellish.

  ‘Hey, you!’ he’d bellow. ‘Get over here!’

  ‘Yes, Milton?’

  ‘Go clean the shithouse.’

  Off I’d go. It wasn’t just cleaning toilets. Milton had me shoeing horses and mending fences like any old ringer. It was tough to be back on the menial jobs that I’d been doing on stations for years, but this is how it is for every mustering pilot. Nobody is put straight up in the chopper on day one. There were other things we had to master on Milton’s station that were completely separate from learning how to become a mustering pilot. Top of the list was collecting crocodile eggs.

  They say that fishing in the Bering Sea is the world’s most hazardous occupation. The stats certainly back this claim. For every 100 000 crab-fishermen who brave those monstrous swells off the Alaskan coast, over 300 will drown or freeze to death. Nobody has died collecting crocodile eggs. The thing is, collecting croc eggs is a job beyond statistical comparison, because there are only about 15 people in the whole of Australia who do it. It’s definitely not a job for everyone.

  Here’s some background on how egg collecting started. Between 1945 and 1971, an uncontrolled trade in saltwater crocodile skins depleted the wild population to the point of extinction. In 1971, the Territory government took action and enforced full protection of the species. By 1980, the base population had risen from 5000 to 30 000, which was an improvement but still nowhere near their original numbers, which is thought to have been around 100 000. Unfortunately, in the early 1980s, a string of crocodile attacks occurred, which threatened the conservation program. Many people were opposed to the further protection of the species. The public attitude towards crocs – an attitude that still persists in some sections of the community – was that
these animals were monsters that should be culled.

  This social upheaval led the Territory government to introduce a new strategy aimed at informing the public of the environmental and economic benefits of crocodile conservation. A key part of this strategy was egg collecting, which was and still is considered the safest way to encourage sustainable use and reward land­owners for tolerating crocodiles on their properties. In 1987, Territory crocodile farms began exporting the skins produced from the harvested eggs they bought from landowners.

  This incentive-driven wildlife practice has become the best conservation program in the world. Saltwater crocodiles are no longer a threatened species in the Territory, with over 140 000 in the wild. Frustratingly, there is still a lot of ignorance about egg collecting. People regularly lampoon egg collectors as greedy without understanding that it’s part of a broader conservation strategy.

  Now, onto how the egg collecting is done. Let me set the scene. You get slung into a swamp dangling from a chopper with sweat dripping from your forehead and clouding your vision. You land into what looks like a scene from Jurassic Park. It’s 90 per cent humidity, 40-degree heat and there are spiders as big as your hands crawling up your trousers, leeches clinging to your arms, bull ants stinging your skin, deadly snakes slithering around your ankles and you can barely breathe through your gritted teeth as mosquitos fog the air.