Flying Doctor
An enduring friendship becomes a professional alliance
In Sydney in 1920, Paul McGinness and Hudson Fysh were buying the first Q.A.N.T.A.S. planes when they met Reverend John Flynn, Superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission. He was a missionary in the Outback at a time when just two doctors served an area of millions of square kilometres.
A mercy dash by the Q.A.N.T.A.S. air ambulance (Photo: QANTAS Historical Collection)
Flynn knew first-hand how vulnerable life out there could be, where isolation, poor communication and medical emergency could cost lives.
With extraordinary vision, Flynn saw aviation could help throw what he described as a mantle of safety over the inland. And who better than Q.A.N.T.A.S. to share his dream of bringing doctors to every isolated property, and every injured soul to hospital
Unfortunately, as McGinness and Fysh explained, aviation could not help yet. Passengers in flying machines were exposed to the weather and cramped at the best of times. A cockpit was no place for anyone who was ill and bulky stretchers were out of the question.
An enduring friendship began between Fysh and Flynn. Their paths crossed often, and they had many late-night discussions about making the dream real. Four vital ingredients had to intersect: medicine, communication, aeroplane design and finance.
Flynn knew the medical services he needed after years of experience in bush hospitals. He knew the injuries suffered by drovers as well as the imperatives of mothers-to-be. Also he knew the temperaments and attitudes of doctors and nurses required to thrive in the bush.
In 1920, when very few homesteads had telephones, Flynn wanted every isolated property to have a wireless to transmit and receive messages. But where would the electricity come from? And how the messages could be sent?
Slowly, technical difficulties were solved. Electricity to power a wireless could be generated by pedals, as easy as riding a bike.
The earliest radios sent messages in Morse Code. Then, with Traegers typewriter system, users could tap keyboards. Finally, microphone and voice replaced the keyboard.
What a wonderful moment for isolated families to pedal and pedal, then hear another human voice from over the horizon.
New plane design makes the service possible
Aeroplane design was next to be resolved. Doctor Hope Michod, a member of the first Q.A.N.T.A.S. Board, had always called upon Q.A.N.T.A.S. planes for the sick and injured when other transport was inadequate.
And on the engineering side, Arthur Baird had wrestled with how to fit patients into unsuitable cockpits even with the earliest Q.A.N.T.A.S. planes.
He converted a Bristol Fighter into an air ambulance of sorts. It could carry a stretcher and was even painted with red crosses. But it was not robust enough for what Fysh called rough bush work.
Then, in 1924, Q.A.N.T.A.S. purchased a DH50, and Fysh was able at last to tell Flynn that he had a plane which could do the job. It even had an enclosed cabin.
In 1927, inspired by Flynn's unwavering commitment, Hugh Victor McKay, founder of the Sunshine Harvester company, offered a crucial grant.
Fysh advised the Q.A.N.T.A.S. Board an agreement with the Australian Inland Mission for an aerial medical service was now viable. It would be based at Cloncurry. Q.A.N.T.A.S. would charge two shillings (40¢) per mile flown.
On 17 May 1928, the Australian Inland Mission hired the Q.A.N.T.A.S. pilot, Arthur Affleck, and an imported DH50A, which Flynn christened "Victory".
The first flying doctor was Dr St Vincent Welch who volunteered to give up his practice in New South Wales to take on the job. Welch of course knew as little about planes as the pilot knew about medicine. When the weather was bad, and an isolated patient was at risk, there were moments of tension between them when the crucial decision had to be taken as to whether the plane could take off.
In the first year, the service strongly justified its existence, flying twenty-eight thousand kilometres without a single accident. For the first seven years, Cloncurry was the only flying doctor base. Then a number of new bases opened at such scattered locations as Wyndham, Kalgoorlie, Broken Hill, Charleville and Normanton.
Outback flying experience a necessity
Affleck was not only a very able pilot, but became a paramedic in his own right, once diagnosing illness in one of the flying doctors. The doctor, clearly sick but unsure what was wrong, asked Arthur to look down his throat. The pilot saw a large silvery-grey patch on each tonsil.
"You've got diphtheria", Affleck said.
The diagnosis was soon confirmed by a local doctor. Affleck had read about the symptoms in a book.
The second Q.A.N.T.A.S. pilot to fly for Flynn was Eric Donaldson who encountered many colourful outback characters, including a shearers' cook who had tried to cut his throat. On another occasion, he helped the doctor to inoculate children at an Outback school.
The experience of the Q.A.N.T.A.S. pilots in Outback flying was invaluable. This was never more important than when they encountered Bedourie's massive dust storms when high winds whipped up thousands of tonnes of sand and dust, leaving a haze which could reduce visibility to less than one hundred metres.
Pilots always tried to avoid being caught on the ground in these storms, but if it was not possible, the plane had to be secured with tying-down pegs, the wheels chocked and the air let out of the tyres. But even then all hands might have to physically hold onto the wings to keep the plane being hurled away.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service comes into being
Without radios to use to call for assistance, pilots were sometimes forced to find their own methods of navigation. If he was unsure of his location, Eric would turn off his engine and fly low over locals to call out for directions which of course were always willingly, if surprisingly, given.
Q.A.N.T.A.S. successfully ran the aircraft side of the service until 1947, when it was handed over to Trans-Australia Airlines (TAA).
The name, Flying Doctor Service of Australia, was not introduced until 1942, and the service did not officially become the Royal Flying Doctor Service until 1955.
Flynn made a revealing comment in a letter to his successor, Fred McKay.
"A man does not start out ready-made. He is the product of countless emergencies, bravely met and overcome each of which leaves in his personality its own deposit of wisdom and power".
These remarks fit the great man himself, but apply with equal power to the founders of Q.A.N.T.A.S.
Flynn was dubbed "Flynn of the Inland" by the grateful people of the Outback.
He died on 5 May 1951. In 1953, a cairn was erected near Tennant Creek with these words:
"His vision encompassed the continent
He brought to lonely places a spiritual ministry
And spread a mantle of safety over them"
Fysh kept a piece of snow-white quartz from Flynn's grave, as a reminder of his friendship with this remarkable, dogged, deeply-compassionate man.
Pedal power
When you use a pedal radio, it is the action of pushing those pedals round and round which generates the electricity which makes the radio work. A simple but great solution to the problem once faced by isolated Outback families who didn't have electricity available at the flick of a switch.
Now neighbours hundreds of kilometres apart could get in touch to talk without leaving home. Special times were set up for business and socialising chat sessions long before the Internet was ever imagined.
Radio also provided a new way to deliver education, as otherwise isolated children became part of a new and still thriving community called School Of The Air.
Visit John Flynn Place at Cloncurry, and the Visitor Centres at Charleville, Mt Isa, and Cairns for more information about the Royal Flying Doctor Service and its history.
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