Part 2: The Story of Barossa Helicopters – Through Goose's Eyes

Flashback to 1969

My Dad used the plane often and like to take his mates flying to different places together. On one occasion in 1969 they decided to fly over to Orange in New South Wales to the Australian National Field Day, where the highlight of their trip was a display of aerial spraying by helicopter. During their return flight they discussed that there was an ideal opportunity to showcase the Barossa Valley from the air, in their words it would be in the nature of an answer to the tourist Prayer. 

Read the article published in the Barossa Herald in 1969 >

On to the Helicopter side of the story

During my teenage years, I used to watch the Channel Nine news, and almost every night, right up until 30 April 1975 there were images of helicopters operating in the Vietnam War. 

My thinking at the time was that whenever there was a war or civil unrest somewhere in the world, there always seemed to be helicopters involved. I imagined that if my family and I were ever caught in one of those situations and there happened to be a helicopter nearby it may be our only chance of survival.

Helicopters in the Vietnam War

In my mind, if our lives depended on escaping by helicopter, I wanted to know how to fly one. I understood that the basic principles of helicopters were similar from one type to another and I figured if you hit enough buttons and switches the blades would eventually start and we could fly to safety. At this point, the damage that could be caused if incorrectly started would not have been my problem unless it hadn’t started at all. It was the desire to be prepared in an extreme survival situation that first sparked my interest in learning to fly helicopters. 

In late 1979 Peter Lehmann had organized a plane to use our airstrip to take parachuters over to his winery for a function followed by the Channel Nine helicopter to pick them up, so they could drop again. I got to talk to the pilot Clive Lipscombe as he was preparing to head back to Peter Lehmann Wines. I asked if I could hitch a ride with him and as a sweetener I offered him a carton of wine, one of the perks of having our own winery. and the deal was done. I sat in the back right-hand seat and was absolutely amazed at how the helicopter took off. I made a mental note of what I watched the pilot do and I later learned that the collective was what made the helicopter lift among other things. The pilot, Clive, simply lifted the collective, and away we went. The one thing that really stood out for me on that short flight was that there were no wings, just a single rotating mast holding the rotor blades above us. I decided it was probably best not to think too much about that!

Enstrom F-28A

In January 1980, Sandra and I went to Melbourne for a weekend and going to Essendon Airport for an introductory flight in an Enstrom helicopter with Ray Cronin.

At the time, Ray had recently obtained his helicopter instructor's license. Ray had his Enstrom helicopter parked just inside the airport, there fence was an old sheep fence that had seen better days, so we simply parked on the side of the road and hopped over the fence and met Ray.

We took off on my first helicopter flight with my hands on the controls. The flight took us over the city of Melbourne, an experience I will never forget.

Ray and his wife Elanor later established Kestrel Aviation, a company responsible for supplying large helicopters for firefighting operations throughout Australia and is the first company to initiate nighttime aerial firefighting in Australia.

Ray and I are still friends today and his advice has been invaluable to me over the years. 

Tune into part 3, for more stories and how Barossa Helicopters came to life!

– Goose