I spent most of my working life in the Aussie bush. It is a way of life most Australians would struggle to understand.
Picture this. You’re on a cattle station the size of a small European country. The nearest hospital is many hundreds of kilometres away, the roads are red dust tracks, and someone in the family has taken a bad turn. No phone, no ambulance, no chance of a doctor riding up on horseback.
Then - a sound overhead. A single-engine plane rattles in from the horizon, wheels kicking up dust as it lands in a paddock. Out climbs a doctor, medical bag in hand. For us blokes out bush, that wasn’t just a plane. That was hope.
That’s the story of the early Royal Flying Doctor Service - or as most people know it, simply “the Flying Doctor.”
John Flynn and a ‘Mantle of Safety’
The idea began with Reverend John Flynn, a Presbyterian minister who spent years wandering the inland, listening to the worries of station folk, miners, drovers, and camel drivers. He saw a problem: isolation. A snakebite, a burst appendix, a complicated birth - they were too often a death sentence.
Flynn’s dream was what he called a “mantle of safety” for the outback. He wanted every family, no matter how remote, to know that help was possible.
But a vision alone wasn’t enough. Flynn knew the bush was unforgiving, and outback folk were skeptical. How do you convince someone that a doctor could arrive from the sky? That’s where ingenuity and a little help from friends came in.
Enter Qantas – The Wings of the Dream
Now, Flynn had the vision, but he needed wings. And who else but a scrappy little airline born in western Queensland - Qantas.
Qantas in the 1920s wasn’t the international carrier we think of today. Qantas literally meant Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service, It was a handful of bush pilots, based in places like Longreach and Cloncurry, flying small planes across rough country. They were practical, tough, and mad enough to try just about anything.
So when Flynn asked for help, Qantas provided the very first aircraft - a de Havilland DH.50 - plus the pilot. On 17 May 1928, the very first Flying Doctor flight took off from Cloncurry, Queensland. What had seemed a crazy dream was suddenly a working reality.
No Qantas, no Flying Doctor. It’s as simple as that.
Did you know? The first medical kit wasn’t exactly what you’d find in a modern hospital. It included strychnine, brandy, and a rather good supply of morphine. Bush medicine, 1920s-style.
The Pedal Radio and the People
Of course, an aeroplane isn’t much use if you can’t call it. Enter Alfred Traeger, a radio genius who invented the famous pedal-powered radio. Outback families could sit on a bike-like contraption, pedal away, and send a message across the airwaves. Suddenly, people weren’t alone anymore.
And once the call went through, you never knew what story might follow. There’s the yarn of the first Flying Doctor baby - born after the service raced a doctor to a remote station, the parents so grateful they named the child after Flynn himself. Or the countless pilots who turned paddocks and even cricket pitches into makeshift runways to bring help where it was needed.
By the 1950’s hundreds of Traeger sets were in use. Betty Marchant, from Eromanga, remembers using one and she says they were monumentally beneficial in helping with the isolation that came with living in the outback. “All around they had what they’d call the Galah Sessions and every morning people would come on and have a yack and people would share stories or news. What your kids were up to and if there was rain or if somebody had gotten lost or anything, it was just a general gossip session!”
One nurse told of treating a stockman who’d been gored by a bull. The “hospital” was the back of a truck under a gum tree, with half the station family holding torches for light. Another pilot recalled landing on a patch of dirt marked only by flour bags tied to fence posts - and somehow managing to take off again without anyone turning into pig food.
I remember a story of a bloke calling up the Flying Doctor one night when he was on a cart full of grog and tucker heading back to camp. One of his mates fell off the back of the cart and was covered in blood. He summoned the plane. Only to find the stupid bloke had broken a bottle of raspberry cordial - he never lived that one down.
Growing Through Hard Times
Through the Depression, the War, and the lean years after, the Flying Doctor grew - slowly,but always with the support of bush people who knew its value. By 1942, it had become the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
Pilots tell of dodging storms, kangaroos, and the occasional wandering bull on landing strips. Doctors tell of sewing up wounds mid-flight, performing emergency procedures in cramped cabins, and reassuring terrified patients that yes, they would survive this - because the Flying Doctor was on its way.
The RFDS survived budget cuts, skeptical politicians, and the sheer vastness of Australia. And through it all, the service became more than a lifeline; it became a symbol of mateship. Hell, and don't we need that spirit today.
Did you know? In the early days, some families paid for the service with what they had: a few sheep, a bag of wheat, or even pumpkins. Money wasn’t the point - survival was.
Today – A National Icon
These days the RFDS runs a fleet of high-tech aircraft fitted out like flying hospitals. They cover millions of square kilometres, from the Top End to Tasmania, with satellite communications, telehealth links, and modern medical equipment on board.
But ask anyone out bush, and they’ll tell you: the heart of it hasn’t changed. It’s still about that simple promise - that no matter how far away you live, you’re not forgotten. And that's why the fund raiser in Longreach tonight is so important.
Pilots still speak with reverence of landing on tiny strips in the red dust at dawn, doctors still remember the first time they helped a frightened child or delivered a baby hundreds of kilometres from the nearest hospital, and communities still see the service as a guardian in the sky. I know I have seen that plane in the sky more than once and thanked God and Reverend Flynn for his amazing vision.
The Spirit of the Service
The Flying Doctor isn’t just a medical service. It’s part of the Australian story. It’s proof that a good idea, a bit of bush ingenuity, and a partnership between a dreamer like Flynn and a young airline like Qantas could change the country forever.
It’s mateship with wings.
It’s families naming children after the pilots who saved them, nurses telling stories around campfires of emergency surgeries in the back of trucks, and communities trusting that if they call, someone - somewhere above the red dirt and the scrub – will answer.
And that, at the heart of it, is why the Flying Doctor endures. It’s not just an aeroplane in the sky; it’s hope made tangible.
Did you know? The RFDS now treats over 300,000 patients every year. And still, some pilots and nurses say their favourite memories are the simplest ones: landing on a dirt paddock, seeing a relieved family, and knowing they’ve made a difference.
I guess my point is this. Why can't we get back to doing things for the local communities? Surely the millions sent to Gaza or Ukraine would be better used serving our mates in the Aussie Outback? I guess the problem is that too many Aussies have never been west of the Great Divide and wouldn't have a bloody clue what I am talking about. We have millions to fund a rugby team in Papua New Guinea. to the tune of $600 million and check out the money sent to Ukraine.
Well, I know where I would prefer to see Australian taxpayer dollars spent.
I hope you enjoyed my tale about the Flying Doctor. I dunno about you, but I would prefer to see planes delivering babies and life saving care to Aussies than planes delivering bombs and weapons of war in a foreign land. Or footie players in PNG.
Bushie
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