A welcome, if at first glance unlikely, addition to the Bush Pilot Champs this year was local aviation legend Bill Reid in his immaculate Avro Anson Mk I.
When you own your own aeroplane you can do to it what you like—within limits of airworthiness—pick your paint scheme and your own colours. Even pick a suitable call sign. Some decorate the outside, and Vanessa has pretty pink fairies on her Savannah.
The Bulls Flying Doctor has his own style, also with various things painted on the outside. He’s a keen F-4 Phantom fan and has that as his logo. He partnered in starting up the Healthy Bastards Bush Pilot Champs, which has now done seven years and is still very popular.
Healthy Bastard Champs is pictured with a scruffy, podgy beer-swilling geezer who looks very unhealthy. The comic book Phantom is pictured on the tail by mistake—it’s F-4s that Dave likes, not skull-slugging ghosts who walk.
On the tail, with the name Really Jolly Good explaining the ZK-RJG registration, is a NASA sticker—hoping for a higher promotion, perhaps. Even the colour scheme has meaning, a combination of the favourites from his mother Olive, son Marc and himself. Then along the topside are bright stripes for easy spotting should one make an unscheduled landing in the bush or other place where a bit of colour will assist in visibility.
But it doesn’t stop there. Inside is really more interesting. Doctor Dave has had the Cessna 172 for 20 years. It is literally his office for several hours every week as he is often out to remote places around New Zealand to see his clients, meeting pilots on their own turf for their medicals—which is what this Flying Doctor is all about.
He has custombuilt drawers for holding his medical equipment, but that isn’t all. Along the top of the instrument panel are several rocks, taken from places of special memory around the country and further afield, including one all the way from the Middle East. Hope you redid your weight and balance, Doctor.
Beneath the rocks is a line of wings—his flying doctor wings, air force wings, Mt Cook badge and a godwit (NZNAC) badge among others. Other mementos include a stolen track marker from the Dingleburn, some lavender, a Star of David and a couple of beads.
On the ceiling is pinned a few of his favourite cartoons, something to laugh at when the flight is boring. An ejection seat warning—for the pilot only. Pictures of his mother, who taught him to love the great outdoors; and his son, whom he taught to love the great outdoors. They were the gang of three on many hunting trips.
Although Olive has passed on and Marc not long after, they still are the gang of three because he carries them with him where ever he goes. There is the service from his son’s funeral next to his favourite aircraft–the F-4 Phantom. Certainly always something to look at in this aeroplane.
The Flying Doctor aeroplane tells the story of his life. Goes to show what a little—make that big—imagination can do.
- Report by John King, photography by John King and Cathleen Heslan.