From Birthday Treat Flight to a Lifetime in Aviation

Our guest writer today is Bob Henderson, MNZM, AFC. He is a Retired Air Force Wing Commander and Air New Zealand Captain and Flight Examiner with 17,000 hours, 10,500 in jets and 700 in gliders.

With such a varied aviation career, he has plenty of stories to tell! Here, he gives us an overview and a story from when he flew Devons for the RNZAF.

Over to you, Bob.

Bob Henderson

I was introduced to flying when my father took me for a flight at the Wairarapa Ruahine Aero Club for my birthday. I was enchanted with the sense of freedom and of flight itself and then, not long after, discovered that the Air Force provided an entry pathway through their university scheme for pilots. I was in!

So, a few years later I find myself flying a DC3 around New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific as a brand new aircraft captain. That led to a number of roles, flying and instructing and managing within the RNZAF. VIP flights around New Zealand and the Pacific with members of the Royal Family, Governor’s General, Prime Ministers and senior Cabinet Ministers and Defence Chiefs prime amongst them.

A chance to set up my own unit (within the RNZAF) was a challenge I accepted when we established a VIP flight at Woodbourne - the first time pilots had lived and worked on Woodbourne for some 30 years.

To make the job really interesting, we made the role of VIP Captain contingent on the achievement of a single-pilot IFR status on the Cessna C421. Being the Air Force of course there were ground jobs; a sojourn for 12 months to the UK for a course at the RAF College of Air Warfare at Cranwell, and then two years working in Wellington on a number of projects.

Riyadh 1991, Captain of Crew #1

The crowning glory of my air force time was the final 3½ years as the commander of No. 40 Squadron flying the C130 to all the far corners of the globe, including 10 fascinating trips to Antarctica, topped off by being the detachment commander of the 40 Squadron deployment to Saudi Arabia during Gulf War 1.

After the RNZAF, I joined Air New Zealand, initially as a simulator instructor and then variously as First Officer on the B737 and A320 and then Captain and Flight Examiner on the B737 and A320.

The A320 had a total of 23 destinations on the network and so there was always plenty of variety to the flying.

Night operations into Queenstown, once the runway lights were installed was another high point for the A320 flying. I finished my time with Air New Zealand as the A320 Training Manager and have since reverted to my hobby of gliding. I took this up early in my career and have been privileged to have flown with and worked alongside some extraordinary sports pilots in New Zealand and internationally.

And all of these adventures stem from my father giving me a flight for my birthday. You never know what is in your future, and I have been very privileged with the opportunities I have had in my career.

RNZAF Devon - for flying VIPs where they needed to go.

One particular memory I have was my first diversion. I was flying the Devon at the RNZAF Navigation, Air Electronics, and Telecommunications Training Squadron (NATS) at the (now decommissioned) base at Wigram. As well as flying around over the ocean, often in the middle of the night - to allow the neophyte navigators to practice their art - we routinely flew Devons equipped with passenger seats.

These flights were often to carry senior officers to meetings and, particularly, the Air Commodore commanding what was then known as Support Group, to Woodbourne and Wellington. Support Group was responsible for initial training for everyone from pilots to chefs and the training facilities were primarily at Wigram and Woodbourne. 

A usual flight was a day trip to Woodbourne, returning to Wigram in the late afternoon. It was a very pleasant flight up the coast past Kaikoura on a fine day.

On this particular day the weather forecast was fair; with cloud inland and a front approaching the West Coast. A ‘Visual Flight Rules’ (VFR) trip up the coastline seemed the logical option. The passengers, including the Air Commodore, the Group Captain commanding Wigram Base and other various officers with lots of stripes on their sleeves, all climbed on board and we headed off to the north at 1,500ft following the coastline.

As we got closer to Kaikoura the cloud was visibility shelving down and we were quietly descending to start VFR. The weather started to look less favourable in front of us and so a quick check was done with Air Traffic to get the latest weather reports for Woodbourne and Wellington. They revealed that the weather system was moving on faster than forecast and that we were likely to be ending up having to go ‘Instrument Flight Rule’ (IFR) to reach Woodbourne.

Of course, being on a VFR plan meant we were carrying VFR fuel, so we had a couple of issues – the easier one being having to get a IFR clearance; the more difficult being the need to add some fuel to be able to continue IFR.

By now, the cloud had forced us down and we were closer to the sea than I wanted to be so, choosing my words carefully, I advised the Air Commodore that we were going to turn back to Wigram to file an IFR plan, refuel and then proceed IFR to Woodbourne.

I was expecting to be debriefed about lack of planning and foresight when we got to Wigram so it was a bit of a nervous trip back to the airfield!

However, when we had shut down, the Air Commodore commented that he thought it was a sensible decision that we turn back and not keep trying to push into deteriorating weather.

I have always been grateful to the Air Commodore, and the other senior officers on board, for reinforcing my decision. It was a defining moment for me and has meant that every decision to divert has, since then, been that much easier to make.  

Thanks Bob, looking forward to reading more of your stories!