The RFDS began as the dream of the Rev John Flynn, a minister with the Presbyterian Church. He witnessed the daily struggle of pioneers living in remote areas where just two doctors provided the only medical care for an area of almost 2 million square kilometres. Flynn’s vision was to provide a ‘mantle of safety’ for these people and by 1928, his dream had become a reality with the opening of the Aerial Medical Service (later renamed the Royal Flying Doctor Service) in Cloncurry.
Over the next few years, the RFDS began to expand across the country. In 1936, the NSW Section was opened at Broken Hill.
By the 1950s, the RFDS was acknowledged by former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies as “perhaps the single greatest contribution to the effective settlement of the far distant country that we have witnessed in our time.”
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 47 fully instrumented aircraft with the very latest in navigation technology. We operate 21 bases across Australia. Our pilots annually fly the equivalent of 25 round trips to the moon and our doctors and flight nurses 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.