Where are we today? Fitzroy, where's Fitzroy?
I think that helicopter mustering generally will attract a live wire.
Someone's that got a lot of energy.
That they like to see a big result in something they do.
It's not something that just any pilot can pick up.
The mustering side of it requires
a stockman to be at the controls basically.
Probably some of the first times you take off
first thing in the morning and head out to a job,
it's sort of like a butterfly feeling.
It's a great feeling probably of power.
You rely on a machine to do its job.
And the machine relies on you to not push it past its limit
and what its capable of and so it will stay in the air.
If you are in the wrong spot in a helicopter
you can send the cattle in 20 different directions.
We can also fix it very quickly as well.
The helicopters that we use for mustering are very agile and nimble.
Cattle don't look where we are, they listen to us.
The wind will change where your noise lands on the ground.
You've got to be able to put your noise
where you want to be on the ground, basically.
Aerial mustering is definitely a lot of fun. The most fun.
If you can run amok on the ground, you can run a bigger mok in the air.
As a helicopter mustering pilot
We're working cattle from the sky.
We're stockmen in the sky.
Those pilots are the modern cowboy, really. Like the modern ringer.
If the choppers were to stop right here and now,
this industry wouldn't move.
That's how dependent on helicopters
we have become in the north.
Before helicopters you went out with a team of 12 men
plus two horse tailers and sometimes up to 75 horses
would be hobbled out and belled and the old style stockman
is nearly a dead art, yeah.
Which is sad to me, it's a sad way to look at it cos I'm the old style.
You can't shift the numbers of cattle and perform
without the helicopter in the sky doing the hard yards
and those big distances.
That's the fact of the matter.
Knowing that people have died doing it
and also probably friends and family that have been killed doing it,
probably makes you a better pilot if anything.
This memorial and this occasion is dedicated
to the helicopter mustering pilots who have lost their lives
in the course of doing a job.
The essence of the memorial service today
really is a memorial to the lost pilots who've been tragically lost
over a number of years flying choppers.
But it also is a memorial to this era of the helicopter.
May it remind us to be the arms of support
and show care that is real and from the heart.
To those that our pilot may have loved the most...
My son Peter was a chopper pilot.
He died in a mustering accident when he was 23.
That's five years ago now.
You hear a helicopter and you think it might be him.
But the hardest thing probably is
just knowing that he's never gonna come back.
That it's a life wasted.
But in saying that I'm glad that if he had to go when he did...
that he did what he loved doing.
And he was being sensible.
Most of us still stand mesmerised and in awe of a pilot and his machine
as one working cattle out of the most difficult situations.
He loved helicopters.
He turned into a pretty good pilot.
Cos he'd done so much work on the ground
he got a pretty good reputation pretty quick.
I think it was three, four years he was flying for.
Before he crashed.
When he told me he said "Mum, Peter crashed his helicopter today."
And I said "Michael, don't be stupid."
Memories keep coming back, like you see things,
like his motor car's always there,
you see that and it brings memories back but, like, you get by.
And he started crying and I knew straight away then
when Michael cried that this was true.
He was a pretty good bloke.
Yeah... he used to pick on me all the time but that's pretty normal.
Despite the official report coming back, after all these years,
we really, I really don't know what caused the accident.
Helicopter muster pilots are treated sort of like gods
cos they do such bloody vast areas in rough country
and they got to do a lot of work.
I wouldn't mind being a helicopter pilot
but I'm not allowed now, Mum won't let me.
I might end up in the sky one day.
I know of nine or 10 people that have been killed in chopper accidents.
There's Merv and Stumpy and Angus, Johnny...
and of course Pete.
And it just goes on, yes.
I made a decision to myself to stop counting when I could tally up
11 people that I personally knew who'd been killed.
It's just not good enough I don't reckon.
This bull had jumped the fence.
I was trying to get him to jump back where he came from.
Kept trying to bend him and couldn't bend him and...
hit this bloody tree, and it kept inverted and rotating
and I was just going like that too as well as going like that.
I guess people do silly things, they make mistakes.
They think they're bulletproof. Each pilot is his own worst enemy.
I really believe that the culture around mustering has to change a little.
It's very much the hero, the hero in the sky.
I suppose, cowboys in the sky.
Well, I don't know what you can change.
And I don't really think that you really can change.
I'd like to think you could.
There's a lot on your mind so you can easily make a mistake during the day.
Yeah, I have known a few people to have been killed in a helicopter accident.
There's a level of safety standard obviously in every company.
I don't believe that we haven't put in enough safety measures
to prevent them at the end of the day.
As within anything, you have to take responsibility
for your job and your actions and what happens.
It is a dangerous job.
Yep, there are definitely risks that are involved.
Yes, I've lost lots of friends and yeah I've known
quite a few people that have been killed, yeah.
This spot here, just a billabong, basically.
It's a really isolated spot you can only get people by helicopter.
We do really get to see a lot of spectacular sights
that are inaccessible by road, basically.
It's a pretty tickly feeling to think that no one else has probably ever
walked on the same part of ground that you just landed on, yeah.
Every now and then you'll be flying by yourself
and no one else is around you, can hear you and talk to you,
and every now and then you'll drift off into your own little world
that you're sort of the only one there.
It's a great feeling you sometimes take for granted
that what you're seeing is something no one else can see.
But leaving the hangar and not coming back's something we don't think about.
There's a very fine line between getting cattle to the yard and being safe.
But the only thing that matters to the company
is that everyone gets home safe every day.
There's no other job that I'd rather do.