Dubbo, Australia - Australia's booming mining sector means doctors and pilots prepared to work in the Outback are paid very well. The 80-year-old Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) doesn't pay big money but it's good at enticing professionals with the promise of a starring role in the real-life version of a television series they watched when they were young.
"There are times when the sights are so spectacular that it takes your breath away," says Otto Peeters, who flies Beechcraft turboprops from the RFDS base at Broken Hill, 500 kilometres north of Adelaide. "Some people pay thousands to see what I see and experience out here, and it's hard to believe I'm paid to do it."
Another thrilled with his part in the daily drama of medical emergencies and derring-do aviation is German-born Ingo Stormer, the chief medical officer at the base in Dubbo, 400 kilometres north of Sydney.
Dubbo, which has one plane, is the town that answers calls from more remote places like Burke, Walgett and the opal mining community at Lightning Ridge another 400 kilometres to the north.
There's something very bracing about being on board a plane approaching an 800-metre airstrip at 200 kilometres an hour and seeing the red earth between the flares dotted with that may or may not hop away kangaroos.
"Our doctors are imports from places like Germany and Zimbabwe," says Dubbo RFDS manager Roger Petheram. "A lot of people in Germany say their childhood memories of the flying doctor service in the television series inspired them to join."
Last year, the lone Beechcraft aircraft at Dubbo flew 499,507 kilometres to help 2,227 patients. Around half the flights were for emergency work like accidents and maternity. Flying medical specialists like eye surgeons and dentists to the remoter townships made up the other half.
Evelyn Fields, 77, lives in Goodooga near Lightning Ridge. She said she would not have bothered having the cataracts on her eyes removed if treatment had meant the long journey to Dubbo.
"I probably would have gone blind instead," Fields admitted.
The RFDS has 47 planes that last year clocked up more than 21 million kilometres and were used in 35,000 evacuations. Most of the money for all that work is raised by volunteers.
Many of the donors were also entranced by the flying doctor television series they saw when they were young. Those helped, often give a donation in recompense. Others in receipt of treatment raise money for the RFDS by anything from baking cakes to organizing charity cycle rides.
"People can be extraordinarily generous," says Petheram. He points to a German computer company boss who this year promised a percentage of his firm's turnover for the RFDS.
Among the biggest donors is British airline mogul Sir Michael Bishop, who this year paid half the cost of the expansion of the Broken Hill base.
