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My world opened up with my first flight Excerpt from unfinished autobiography, “Hovering Matilda”, by Rosemary Arnold. ©2007   Above: Captain P.G. Taylor. Right: Rosemary Arnold with a vintage Hughes 300 helicopter. “Can I go up and see the cockpit?” I spontaneously asked the Captain, as he came walking through the cabin, smiling warm welcome aboard greetings to his passengers.
He was tall and handsome, and so impressive in his uniform and jaunty cap. I can’t believe I dared ask for such a favour. I was a rather shy fifteen year old, depressed at being forced to leave school that week, rather than fulfil my five-year dream to become a veterinary surgeon. My parents did not believe girls should be educated, even though I had won a five-year scholarship to a private school.
It was December 1949, and for an urgent family reason my parents and I were flying to Sydney from Grafton. The Sunderland flyingboat taxied out from the jetty on the wide Clarence River. It was very exciting, until the engines roared deafeningly into full throttle. Water sprayed up over the portholes so nothing but a wall of water could be seen pushing full force a short distance from my face. I imagined we were sinking, as I sat anxiously in my window seat, on the port side.
I didn’t know the captain was the world-famous, record breaking aviator P.G. Taylor. He leaned towards me with a brilliant smile that made me feel ‘all his’, and said “of course.” I leapt to my feet, scrambled across my mum and dad, and followed him to the circular staircase up front. I can remember what I was wearing. White bobby socks, tan and white moccasins, a white sheer dress, full skirted. When Captain Taylor reached the staircase he stood aside and with an outstretched hand indicated I should climb the steps ahead of him. The noise was still ear-splitting with the roaring engines still on climb-out. Up the spiral stairs I climbed and the great rush of wind blew my flimsy skirt way up over my head. It is my most embarrassing moment ever experienced, to date, fifty-some years later.
At the top of the stairs Captain Taylor offered me his left-hand seat. I buckled my seatbelt and sat in wonderment, looking out over the vast ocean. I could see for miles. I wish I could remember the first officer, who was flying, and the flight engineer busy with his maps, but I was reeling at my good fortune, and of course I was in love. I was in love with the Captain and now with flying. I smile and wonder, to this day, how many damsels had climbed those stairs before, and after me. How many star-struck girls had felt the love-at-first-sight like I felt, looking at this handsome prince charming. I am still amazed at my good fortune to have my first taste of flying with Sir Gordon (Bill) Taylor. What destiny.
Grafton to Rose Bay in Sydney was a long two-hour flight, and I sat in that left-hand seat, glued to the scenery and absorbing the moment until the Sydney Harbour Bridge came into sight. Captain Taylor said, “stay here for the landing; just sit in the jump-seat behind me.” All my new dreams were happening. I sat up there till the engines had shut-down, post-flight checks were complete, flight bags were packed then down the spiral steps I floated. There before me was a completely empty cabin. I just kept walking towards to the tail of the plane, not knowing how to find an exit. My anxious parents, already onshire, were worried. Had they been able to look into the future they would have had good reason.
A wonderful surprise happened of recent years when I met Captain Bryan Monkton, who owned the airline Trans Continental Airways which flew from Grafton to Sydney in the late 40’s, on which I had my first flight. He and Bill Taylor were best mates. Bryan Monkton’s book on his flying-boat days has recently been published, and is a great read, “The Boats I Flew”, obtainable at the Australian Aviation Museum, Bankstown Airport.
My love for float planes has continued, especially flying-boats, since that magical day in December 1949.
My young life leading up to that first flight was very sheltered, with very strict parents and a restricted lifestyle. I had a great family of twenty-four beautiful dolls, bestowed on me by a doting relatives, as I was the only grand-daughter. However, my first business venture at age eight was selling those twenty-four dolls. Every Saturday morning I would go on the weekly adventure of walking down the main street in Armidale with my mother, in hat and gloves, on a shopping excursion. It seemed to be a social ritual in country towns, when friends greeted friends. During those war years dolls were so hard to buy, so I had found this great market. Week by week, I sold off my dolls at the local toy shop, and in exchange I bought a balsa wood model aeroplane kit. During the week I would carve it with my small pearl-handled pocket-knife, gluing the bits together with Tarzan’s Grip.
I don’t know of another eight year-old girl who had such a passion for building aeroplanes. This squadron of twenty-four model aeroplanes were hung, one more added each week, on cotton threads with a bent pin hooked into the ceiling of my bedroom. I can see them clearly in my memory.
This was the start of my life in the flying world, and no-one would have believed what was to happen in the following years. I married at 18, had four children by age 26, found the urge to fly so made my first solo at Bankstown Airport on my 28th birthday, in a Cessna 172. A passion for aerobatics followed, in the Chipmunk at the Royal Aero Club of NSW. Then in September 1965 I took my first flight in a 2seater Hughes 269A helicopter, and after three weeks I completed the required 40hrs training and became Australia’s first woman helicopter pilot, the 99th Whirlygirl in the world and the first in the Southern Hemisphere. My life would never be the same again. "Flying Celebrant" Rosemary Arnold (Helicopter Weddings) is Australia's first woman helicopter pilot.
©2007 Rosemary Arnold
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