Big Sky: An Outback Adventure

‘Aviation is not a career, it’s a condition, harder to cure than the common cold, as intractable as a drug habit’

Thus begins Big Sky, a chronicle of the author’s long, eventful journey, from labourer to lab technician, and an ill-fated tilt at pilot training in the Royal Australian Air Force.
Helicopter flying is a dream that will not die. After finally graduating as a commercial helicopter pilot, the future seems bright, until a chance encounter with an overhanging branch leaves a fledgling career in tatters.

That’s where the adventure really begins. With no other options available, the author finds himself in the Outback of Australia’s Northern Territory, with high hopes and zero experience, chasing a career as a helicopter mustering pilot.

Set against the backdrop of a pristine, sweeping wilderness, Big Sky describes the Outback in its heyday, before foreign ownership, mining and development changed the face of the Top End forever. It’s a story of battlers and villains, larger than life and twice as colourful, of hardship and cruelty, mateship and fun. Most of all it’s a story about flying, and the most amazing of machines, the helicopter.