Fiji Flyers

The Victa Airtourer taxied to a stop on the apron opposite the control tower at Nausori airport, the engine revved once, then the propeller fluttered to a stop. The canopy slid back with a clatter and out onto the wing stepped Charles Stinson, OBE, Fiji’s Minister for Communcations, Works and Tourism.

After several hours of dual flying, he had just completed his first solo circuit of the airfield, and it was his birthday.

The Victa Airtourer, its stubby yellow and white fuselage now a familiar sight in Fiji skies, is owned by the colony’s newest air service, Air Pacific Ltd., and is chartered by the Fiji Flying Club.

This club is the result of the foresight and hard work of a number of flying enthusiasts in Fiji who have, some of them for a number of years, been trying to get a flying club “off the ground”. The main difficulties are the large initial cost of an aircraft and the lack of a qualified instructor. Hearing of the difficulties, and seeing the possibilities of expanding the new company, Air Pacific’s Suva boss, Pat Macassey, offered to supply the Victa. The offer was not long in being accepted.

A bunch of eager flyers, headed by a figure long familiar in Fiji flying, Tom French, and another experienced flyer with many hours to his credit, Tom King, of the Bank of New South Wales, promptly formed the Fiji Flying Club. They were joined by would-be pilots with stacks of enthusiasm but little or no practical experience—men such as "Steve” Stevenson, a man familiar with those interested in competitive motoring events in Fiji, and long time citizen Jock Baker.

The club’s 50 flying members are forming the nucleus of a strong band of enthusiasts who will probably supply the colony with many pilots of commercial standard.

The club is based in Suva, where there are currently over 30 members receiving flying training, and it has a branch in Lautoka, where some 20 north-west members are now receiving regular training at Nadi International Airport.

There are a further 40-odd potential flyers who have recently joined the club and many of these will be taking up flying training in the near future.

Amazing

The enthusiasm with which the club was met by local citizens when it was formed was amazing.

Among its flying members are Vijay R. Singh, the Minister for Social Services, Adi Samanunu Cakobau, daughter of Ratu George Cakobau, the paramount chief of Fiji, and several members of the Ragg family, of Northern Hotels, including David junior, who has also recently completed his first solo.

When the club was formed and the aircraft arrived, there was still one problem to be surmounted—there was no instructor. Air Pacific was still trying to find a suitable professional to act as a full-time instructor when Tom King stepped in and offered his services gratis to the club. Tom has over a thousand hours as an instructor, and his experience dates back to the war years when he helped train RAAF pilots.

Tom worked like a Trojan until Air Pacific found a full-time instructor in Clive Plane, a man with several thousand hours of flying experience.

Though the club is only three months old, the members have already clocked up 150 hours of flying time, and the hours are now being stacked up at a rate of more than 25 per week. Six locally-trained pilots are now flying solo, and this requires an average of six to eight hours per pupil. Many others will go solo in the near future.

The object of most of the fledgling flyers is to obtain the little folder now familiarly known to them as the PPL—the Private Pilot’s Licence.

Quite a handful

To qualify for the licence a pilot must have at least 40 hours air experience (with almost half of them solo), high passes in examinations in the principles of flight, air navigation, aero engines and airframes, meteorology and, since the Victa is equipped with a VHF radio receiver and transmitter, a practical and written examination in radiotelephony. This is quite a handful, but the Fiji's Minister for Communications, Works and Tourism, Mr. Charles Stinson (in cockpit), is congratulated after his first solo flight by his instructor, Mr. Clive Plane.