The photo above shows the author on his early form of transport, at the age of 20 months, in 1938, at Hermannsburg Mission, Central Australia.

Chapter 1 - 1944

White families at the Mission had a choice of free beef and so tongue, brains, heart, liver, kidney, as well as the normal fillets, were staple fare at our table.  The disadvantage – there was beef or more beef unless an expensive tin was opened or one of Mother’s chickens lost its head.  Sometimes a goat from the Mission herd was butchered.  I remember one occasion when several visiting church leaders dined at our table.

`Delicious meal Mrs Latz, lovely lamb,’ commented one and the others agreed.

`Sorry, but there are no sheep in the Territory,’ my mother said innocently.  `That was goat you ate tonight.  It’s a treat for us, after months of beef.’

On hearing this, the guests rushed outside and vomited.  We could not begin to understand such people.When the men branded and castrated calves in the nearby stockyard we joined them unless constrained by schoolwork.  The `rocky mountain oysters’, bulls balls were thrown over the rails, caught and cooked in the fire used to heat branding irons.  They were a delicacy that my aboriginal friends and I greatly enjoyed.

For people and the Mission to survive, every blade of grass and each gallon of water was precious.  When possible, any animals we saw that were not our cows or working horses were shot.  Kangaroos, emus, turkeys and any other edible game ended up on someone’s table.  Old or disabled stock horses, having worked all their lives, were not put out to pasture, they were shot as well.  I won’t attempt to explore the morality of this; it was just considered normal at the time.

Chapter 9 - 1966

One Saturday afternoon I flew Santa to a Christmas party on Sydney's North Shore (NSW, Australia), in a small `bubble type' Bell helicopter.  During the flight I sensed tension in the Tower’s radio communications.  It seemed something had upset the operators.  After landing back at our office and hanger complex at 11^th Street, Mascot International Airport, having completed my task, a

lot of people rushed outside.  One of the engineers ran up to me and said, `You’re dead, didn’t you know!’

`Well, I didn’t think I looked that bad’.  I wondered what all the fuss was about.

Fred explained why they were not expecting me to return.  The only other, far smaller, helicopter operator in Sydney at that time was flying a film crew around the harbour when the tail rotor assembly separated from the tail boom.  The loss of weight and lack of thrust from the rear caused the machine to enter an uncontrollably steep spinning dive.  The cameraman continued to film until hitting the roof of Goldfields House in Circular Quay.  All three people on board perished.I had flown past the area just before this happened.  Our Company was the best known helicopter operator and a popular radio station incorrectly broadcast that our machine had crashed, killing all aboard.  Hence the peculiar reception when I returned from the dead as the switchboard had been jammed with calls.  This was my first time to be reported dead by the media.  Funnily enough, it would happen again.

Chapter 10 - 1971

The gold exploration company I serviced weekly in the rough, jungle covered mountains behind Suva, Fiji, gradually spread its area of operation.  Some days I visited numerous helipads on their lease.  The camp dog, a friendly imported creature, often followed the workers.One day I dropped in to an outstation helipad to collect a geologist and both he and the dog got in.

`Don’t worry, I’ll hold Taffy’s collar.’

After takeoff I turned my head and saw Taffy sitting quietly on the floor behind me, unrestrained.  I’m sure he attempted a smile to reassure me that he would behave.  After that flight Taffy often traveled with me, sometimes the only passenger, using the helicopter as his personal transport.  He often waited for me at outstation pads and when I opened the door, jumped in and behaved like a perfect mute passenger.  Sometimes he politely declined to get off for several stops before leaving me to pursue his doggy interests.  He never put a paw wrong, unlike some humans I have known.

One day I collected a sling load of roofing leaves and flew them to a new camp.  The load of dry leaves hanging on the cargo hook was not heavy but completely filled a large net.  During the flight it began raining and the leaves collected moisture like a sponge.  This load had to be delivered some distance up into the hills.  I struggled to climb as it became heavier and heavier.  It was touch and go as to whether I’d make it or be forced to dump the carefully gathered building materials into the jungle.  Just clearing the last ridge, I thumped the soggy leaves into the prescribed clearing.  It was the first and only time I carried a load that must have more than doubled its weight in flight.  I've had them decrease in weight when bits dropped off,  fortunatly over uninhabited jungle.

Chapter 14 - 2nd November,  1984

Soon after Singapore's Changi Airport opened they asked our Company to take promotional, aerial shots of their new showpiece gateway. The photo shoot was a fun trip for me.  The experienced photographer knew where he wanted to be so we flitted around like a dragonfly between airline arrivals and departures.  I kept my twin engines chopper out of their way and during a busy period, a controller asked me where I was.

‘Look outside, I’m parked ten metres away from your windows on the north side of the tower.  ’I saw a controller swivel his head and seeing us hovering just outside his air-conditioned console, he smiled and waved.  No one was going to hit us without demolishing the control tower in the process. Shortly after, a jumbo began its approach to land.  I’d heard that that airline's pilots were among the highest paid in the world.

‘Can we get some close-ups of him landing?’

‘Standby, I’ll ask the tower for permission.’  Clearance was given; the Singaporeans wanted the best photos possible, although it agitated the captain of the airliner.  That skipper did not want a pesky little helicopter anywhere near him during the serious business of gently achieving one of his six or eight landings for that month.  He voiced his displeasure in a very superior tone - the controller took no notice.  Unless their safety was compromised, which it wasn’t, the captain could not overrule the controller’s clearance and tell me to go away.  As the Jumbo descended I curved in toward it on a parallel flight path, on his left side so the captain could easily see us.

Just before touchdown I couldn’t resist broadcasting ‘Smile, you’re on candid camera.’  The Jumbo landed heavily and bounced – it was a rough arrival in Singapore for those visitors.  When the pilot called to notify switching to the ground control frequency, his voice was laced with tension.  We had not made his day but ours was terrific, the film was in the can and it was great fun exposing it.

Chapter 15

My job was rarely boring.  Apart from my Chief Pilot duties, during the next few weeks I flew six different helicopter types and used the company Cessna 182 as personal transport.  Not having flown many hours recently in stiff wings, I was rather concerned about having to land at the, by Papua New Guinea standards, easy one-way strip at Ambunti.  Practising a few landings at  Mt Hagen's 5,350 ft (1,630 M) elevation airport, to ensure I could get it right, left me feeling a little better.

My stomach was tight as I turned onto a long final approach at Ambunti.  I tried to ignore the steep hill filling the windscreen at the end of the short, upsloping grass landing strip and the vertical bank dropping into the wide Sepik River just before the touchdown area.  Pilots who flew into here every week could do this with one eye and one arm, I reminded myself while lowering the flaps.