Page 8 - Volume 11 Number 5

“One night I had cause to evacuate a young girl who was working for me after she had fallen off her motorbike and gone into seizures,” he said. “She had suspected head and spinal injuries and our closest hospital was 900 km (560 miles) away. We had to load her onto the back of an SUV and drive her 40 km (25 miles) over bumpy dirt roads just to get to the homestead. That alone took a couple of hours. The RFDS King Air was organized as the medivac and it arrived at about 10 p.m. We lit the airstrip with cars and kerosene flares. It was like the hand of God coming to rescue this girl. What an amazing resource to have at our disposal. That was probably the first time I really understood the capabilities of the King Air.
“This aircraft came 450 nm in under two hours, landed on my little dirt strip that I operated my 172 from and in the middle of the night took my seriously injured worker back to a hospital without detour. They saved a life that night.”
Ticking all the boxes
McQuie said Goldfields chose the King Air B200 because the model satisfied all of his mining company client’s performance and safety requirements. Other factors they considered: King Airs are still in production and supported by Beechcraft, there is a simulator in Australia for advanced training, and he could lease a King Air to continue providing transportation for Anglo Australians without huge start-up costs.
“Originally we were able to lease one King Air B200, BB-529, from Formula Aviation in Perth,” McQuie said. “She was an oldie but with fresh paint and interior, looked like a million dollars. This aircraft very quickly became the cornerstone of our business with clients booking it
6 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
Five of Goldfields Air Services’ pilots: back row (left to right) – Chris Hurst, operations manager, and John Boag, line pilot and flight school instructor; front row (left to right) – Dougal McQuie, managing director and chief pilot; James Lucas, flight school head of operations; Claire Drinkwater,
line pilot and flight school instructor.
Dougal McQuie spent much of his youth in the right seat of a Cherokee 180 or a Cessna 172 while his dad performed aerial mustering on large cattle farms in Australia. McQuie earned his pilot’s license the day he turned 16 and today is the managing director and chief pilot of Goldfields Air Services
in Western Australia.
further and further ahead of time so they wouldn’t miss out on it. One King Air soon turned into three.”
Leasing helped GAS make the transition to twin- engine, turbine aircraft with minimal capital expenses but flying the King Airs 1,000 hours a year called for ownership.
In 2014, Goldfields purchased a 10-year-old King Air B200 (BB-1862) with Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics from a similar charter company in the northern part of Western Australia. GAS had the original engines (with 5,000 hours) overhauled, then put the airplane into service in January 2015.
“It was the biggest investment the company had ever made and a serious investment into the long-term future of the company,” McQuie said.
Soon after, they purchased a 1981 Beechcraft B200C (BL-30) to handle overflow from BB-1862. The factory cargo door has given Goldfields versatility to also use the aircraft for fire and flood relief, urgent freight collections, as well as search and rescue operations.
MAY 2017