Inspired by Clifford Peel about the potential of aviation for bringing medical assistance to the bush, the Rev Flynn began a campaign within the Presbyterian Church to find the money to buy an aircraft for the Australian Inland Mission (AIM). When H V McKay, founder of the Sunshine Harvester Company, left a large bequest to AIM for an ‘aerial experiment’, Flynn was determined to get his idea off the ground. His acquaintance with Hudson Fysh, a WWI fighter pilot who founded QANTAS, helped him to do just that..jpg)
The first flight, on 17 May 1928, from Cloncurry was made using a De Havilland named ‘Victory’ hired from the fledgling Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service (QANTAS) for two shillings per mile flown. The aircraft was a single engine, fabric covered, cabin bi-plane capable of carrying a pilot and four passengers at a cruising speed of just under 80 miles per hour. 'Victory', was greeted at the Julia Creek airstrip by more than 100 people. The distance travelled was 85 miles. 'Victory' went on to fly 110,000 miles in the service of the Flying Doctor until 1934 when it was replaced by QANTAS with a DH83 Fox Moth.
The first pilot, Arthur Affleck, had no navigational aids, no radio and only a compass. He navigated by landmarks such as fences, rivers, river beds, dirt roads or just wheel tracks and telegraph lines. He also flew in an open cockpit, fully exposed to the weather, behind the doctor's cabin. Airstrips were, at best, claypans or, at the worst, hastily cleared paddocks.
Flights were normally made during daylight hours although night flights were attempted in cases of extreme urgency. Fuel supplies were also carried on flights until fuel dumps were established at certain strategic outstations.
In the 1930s and 1940s aircraft used by the Sections were predominantly British, (DH-50, DH-83 Fox Moth, the DH-84 Dragon, the DH-104 Dove and the Australian built DHA (Marks I, II and III) Drover). Later, American aircraft predominated (Beechcraft Baron, Travelair, QueenAir and Duke, the Cessna 180, 182 and 421B, the Piper Cherokee, Chieftain and Navajo). Since the 1980s, the RFDS has been using Beechcraft King Air 200C's, B200C's and C90s, Conquest C425, Conquest II. The newest types of planes to be included in the RFDS fleet are Pilatus PC12s and Cessna Titan 404s.
Prior to the mid 1980s, RFDS aircraft were all piston engines. The introduction of the twin engined King Air B200Cs in the late 1980s and the Pilatus PC12s in the mid 1990s show the great benefits of turbo prop aircraft.
Speed, pressurisation, the ability to fly above turbulence and longer distances, larger cabins and integrated medical fit outs have greatly improved the level of patient care we can deliver as well as the comfort and safety of both patients and flight crews. Compared with the cramped interiors of the earlier models, the new aircraft have much more space for doctors, nurses and patients. They carry all the required medical equipment and are fitted out like a flying intensive care unit.
Until the 1960s, the Service rarely owned our own aircraft. We used contractors to provide aircraft, pilots and servicing. We progressively began to purchase our own aircraft and employ our own pilots and engineers. Today, we own a fleet of 48 fully instrumented aircraft with the very latest in navigation technology. Our 146 pilots annually fly the equivalent of 25 round trips to the moon and are responsible for the care of nearly 240,000 patients! We’ve come a long way from that first flight in 1928 which saw the Flying Doctor airborne at last.
Our aircraft today