Totally Tourism owner Mark Quickfall recently decided to call a new machine ‘HPS’ to honour his lead pilot for The Helicopter Line, Pete Saxton.
It’s a fitting honour as Pete’s flown almost 14,000 hours since gaining his commercial licence 42 years ago, and in his boss’s words, is "absolutely reliable, absolutely committed".
Now in his "mid-60s", Pete grew up in Wellington and left school when he was only about 15.
"I just couldn’t be bothered — I got one subject in school cert so that was pretty good, I thought."
He then did odd jobs for many years.
One he enjoyed was cleaning posh cars and getting to drive them — he loved waiting at a red traffic light then "letting rip" when it turned green.
He then got into a bit of trouble — "not bad, but enough to make you realise you need to do something more constructive with your life".
So he jumped in his car, with just $300 in his pocket, then crashed on his brother Dave who was living in Queenstown’s Dalefield area.
Dave was a respected venison recovery pilot, so Pete decided to join him, flying first in ’81 before gaining his commercial a year later.
Pete initially did some deer recovery flying before spreading his wings.
He and Dave each owned a Hughes 500 and owned Heliventures, together.
Just prior, Pete had his only crash with a heavy landing on Coronet Peak in a Hughes 300 caused by ‘power settling’ — "all of a sudden you’re running out of power on the blades, and she just drops".
He and his passengers were uninjured, while he had the chopper rebuilt.
In a later incident another chopper collided into his blade at the airport, a blade he now has in his trees.
He’d fly with a goat culler who’d jump on a goat from his skids and tie it up before both were lifted onboard, and he’d also take people to the Landsborough River to go rafting.
Aside from briefly holding a quarter share in another company, Pete’s flown for the past 30-plus years with The Helicopter Line.
Apart from scenic flights, he’s flown heliskiers with sister company Harris Mountains Heli-ski.
There’ve been medivacs and work for events like Southern Traverse and Eco Challenge.
And, till it was banned, he flew about 1000 heli-bungy trips.
Pete says he’d never bungy himself because, ironically, he’s afraid of heights.
He also enjoyed parking his chopper behind the former Arthurs Point pub to go for abeer.
While speaking at a recent staff reunion, he noted "in the early years, the rules were just a couple of pages long — in Chinese".
"These days you’ve got more than 200 pages, and you’ve just got to find a way to not break them but just interpret them and make them work for you."
He admits some rules were needed, however, as there used to be about six choppers at Queenstown Airport and now there’re about 26.
Pete has a beef, though, with Department of Conservation limiting or banning landings at designated spots in national parks so visitors can’t access our wilderness so easily.
DoC, he says, could make money charging for landings — "without threatening wildlife or things like that" — and also help their own staff get around.
Asked about Dave, who died last year, Pete says he and his brother were "close, but not close".
There was drama when Dave and his son Morgan were convicted of greenstone theft in South Westland and served prison time to the chagrin of their many supporters.
"I’m not going in to who’s right or wrong, the only thing I’d say is the Crown were happy with home detention but Ngai Tahu said ‘no, we want prison’," Pete says.
Sadly, after they were released pending an appeal, Morgan died in 2008 when his Robinson R22 crashed into Lake Wanaka following mast bumping.
Had the pair not gone to prison and lost income, Pete says his nephew would have flown a Hughes and not a cheaper and possibly less reliable Robinson.
However, despite some sad times, he reflects fondly on a fun career showing visitors spectacular scenery.
And next month he and his wife Kelly celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary — they have two children along with two from Pete’s first marriage.
His eldest son’s a pilot and a helicopter engineer and his youngest son’s keen on flying, too, so the Saxton name’s likely to continue flying high.
