By Brenton Davis 

Helicopters and boats. You would be hard pressed to find two more expensive items to combine for tourists. Put the two together though, use them to unwrap the mysteries of the remote Australian coastline in five star style, and you have yourself an award winning success story. It’s definitely worth a closer look.

For 20 years True North has plied the waters of our magnificent coastline accessing the remote and hidden jewels in an otherwise harsh environment. Since the year 2000 True North Helicopters have worked hand in hand with North Star Cruises to bring tourists unparalleled access to the very best our landscape has to offer. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard a lot about them, the tours offer a fairly exclusive level of comfort and charge accordingly. Clients who frequent these types of holidays rely heavily on word of mouth and True North is no exception. Many guests return for second and third tours and almost everyone on board is there as a result of a personal referral. Having said that, exposure is critical to any business and key advertising, both here and abroad, highlights the very intimate level of service and does not hold back when it comes to applauding their exceptional list of awards.

Rainor Marshall is one of three lucky pilots who gets to see and do things on a daily basis that, generally speaking, only True North’s paying guests will ever get to enjoy. At five and a half thousand hours helicopter time, 15 years flying and eight years Kimberly experience, he is the newest member of the team and probably the lowest time pilot of the trio. Having joined the company more than four years ago, it gives you some idea of the very low staff turnover, and extremely high entry level. This work environment brings more variety and spectacle in each year than most people could hope to enjoy in a lifetime.

True North is a 50m long ship of some 750 tonnes, specially designed for shallow water cruising. It travels with a permanent crew of 18 and services a maximum of 36 guests. Powered by twin 1000 h.p. Cat Diesels it will cruise at around 14 kts between stops, gently sipping away at the 40,000 litres of diesel fuel onboard. It creates its own fresh water and can store 36,000 litres so none of the guests are forced to have short showers! Six smaller tenders travel with the ship and are vigourously employed in ferrying guests back and forth between a myriad of shore stops.

The rear helipad is home to the ships’ resident Bell 407, Rainor’s office for half the year. The 407 was chosen for it’s proven reliability, great visibility through the generous windows and ample power when needed. The ship holds 9000 litres of Jet A1 and runs it through an automated bowser plumbed through to the helideck. The ship’s crew act as helideck officers when needed for the loading of guests and equipment but, apart from that involvement, the pilot is it. No aircraft engineer accompanies the ship and all scheduled maintenance is completed in NSW. Accordingly, daily upkeep is a large part of the job. With a heavy salt air environment to deal with, compressor washes are a daily occurrence. All of the critical aircraft parts are treated daily with Inox and general airframe washing is constant chore. The helo seats six guests in air-conditioned comfort and with a state of the art sound system delivering all the relevant information, whisks them away on a variety of tempting day trips.

Though the helicopter tours are an additional fee on top of the cruise ticket, rarely do guests miss an opportunity to see what the pilots have in store for them. Fishing excursions to untouched waters, unbelievable gourmet picnics and bbq’s, and rock art explorations are the most popular choices. There is even one popular tour to Kalumbaru Mission for a cultural look into the local Aboriginal activity and the very significant influence of the Benedictine Monks. Landings at un-named waterfalls, besides secluded swim holes and nestling into restricted bushy hike-sites are all part of the daily flying duties. And whilst some places are tried and tested favourites, the versatility of helicopter travel allows the pilots to explore new and diverse locations as they regularly seem to present themselves in such a massive expanse of wilderness.

The GPS is packed with ‘secret’ locations but each of the pilots has his own cluster of additional special places tucked away in their head as well. Trying to pry the ‘lats and longs’ from them though, is like trying to pull teeth. These ‘secret spots’ are pivotal in providing an absolutely unique experience, and are understandably, appropriately guarded. And when the arduous chores of flying are done for the day, the pilots are then encouraged to interact with the guests as much as possible. The helicopter trips are an integral part of the whole experience so, naturally, guests are keen to find out as much as they can about the men who deliver such memorable experiences. Drinks over dinner, sunsets on a sandbar or sharing that fresh Barramundi over a bush campfire, it’s all just part of the daily grind for the poor pilot.

Travelling on the True North is the ultimate in style, however it is the combination of this luxury with the endlessly abundant pure serenity, which probably makes the trips so famous. Their signature tour is a 14 day excursion running from Broome to Wyndham. You don’t need a wonderful grasp of geography to realize that that is a fairly remote piece of coastline. Peace and quiet abounds, and unwinding is just an unwritten part of the itinerary. Only the occasional other boat is ever seen and traffic in the air is just unheard of. Needless to say, sunsets are rarely wasted and the helicopter is employed righteously to deliver guests to any number of spectacular cliff-top cocktail opportunities and riverside dinning locales. Hidden waterfalls, narrow winding gorges and all of the splendour of The Kimberley is delicately unwrapped for the guests by a gracious and talented crew.

Once you have successfully combined helicopters with coastline cruising, the options, it seems, are endless. Due to Australia’s extreme temperatures in the north, the ship only completes its Broome to Wyndham and return runs in the most suitable months. From there, the schedule changes, new passengers embark and it’s off through the Torres Straits to round the tip of PNG and explore the islands of New Ireland and New Britton. With the same basic recipe of ship and helicopter to fall back on, new tours such as these with dramatically different landscapes and cultures, help the company immensely when it comes to repeat business. And when the favourable weather conditions change and these tours are complete, the ship heads south for yet another flavor on the menu; Sydney and Adelaide cruises. Eventually True North returns to Perth, and once in Fremantle, it comes out of the water for a solid schedule of annual maintenance. Husbandry complete and crew rested, it’s not long before the crew and ship gear up once again to head north and do it all over again.

Rainor and his pilot associates don’t stay with the ship for all of the tours though. Their lot is one of a more varied nature. Having flown happy tourists around the most spectacular parts of country for half the year, they slip out of their shorts and baseball caps and into Nomex flying suits for their next assignment. The summer months are fire months and True North Helicopters have the aircraft and crew to capitalize on the opportunity. With their maintenance base and head office at Rosewood near Tumut in NSW, they saw a gap in the market and purposely bought a machine which they knew would fit the needs of the local Fire Authorities. A twin engine EC145 was purchased and fitted out with a winch and Bambi Bucket. The summer months see both aircraft repositioned all over NSW responding to the fire threats as they develop. The 145 has been particularly well utilized in winching in the Remote Area Fire Teams (RAFT), then redeploying with the bucket onto suppression operations. When the fire season is over the 145 is then mainly utilized in corporate charter and servicing the owners’ personal transport needs.

The ‘fires’ provide great work place variety and challenges for the pilots. And no doubt this dramatic shift from one type of flying to another is at least partially responsible for good staff retention and satisfaction. For, as we know, even the best job in the world can become routine and dull if it is the same thing day in, day out. For Rainor, having done an extensive amount of belly-tank fire-fighting work with an AS350B3, the shift to Bambi-Bucket and long-line slinging provides plenty of new skill development opportunity. Most challenging, he says is the required accuracy in long-line water drops; most enjoyable is the crew winching. And as for the least enjoyable, like so many other helicopter pilots out there, is the time away from home.

There are lots of great helicopter jobs out there. Most of the time you don’t hear much about them because the lucky ones who have them don’t tend to move on and they are content just enjoying their job and getting on with life. The job of a True North pilot takes you literally all over the country seeking out the very best places to show your happy guests. Then just when they need some variety, the fires beckon and the adrenalin pilot gets to put on his shirt and helmet. It certainly looks like one of the most enjoyable employments available. However, I would suggest that you hold off on polishing up that resume, because it doesn’t look like these guys are going anywhere in a hurry!