Dan "Pirate" Elliott

actually paid for my ultralight licence, RAA, whatever they call it now.

So I got my first licence out of Dad.

But he never, like choppers back then were a bit forbidden nearly, like there were so many crashes back then and it was pretty dangerous, I guess, looking at it.

So Dad didn't really, Mum and Dad didn't really want me to go and do that, but I was going to do it, so...

Done me a plane licence when I was 16.

Fucking hell.

Yeah, sorry, 17.

And then done me a commercial job licence when I was 18, so got straight into it.

Left school in grade 8.

Just school wasn't for me, done it all on the radio, distance education and that, and...

I left school, but it goes to show if you want to do something, if you really want to do it, you can do it.

A lot of people struggle for their theory, and especially these days, I think it's getting harder to do your licence.

Well, actually, yeah, you would have just done it.

Pretty much, yeah.

The principal at the old school, I hope I don't get him in trouble, but he just said, well, if you can do grade 10 work and grade 8, you're not going to be a rocket scientist and you want to go master and do whatever you're going to do.

He said, if you can pass grade 10 and grade 8, well, I'll sign you out.

So he did.

yeah right um so yeah i only done eight years of school and sort of went into good like bloody day working and contract mastering a couple of camps my brother had his own camp going so to jump straight into that then um but yes it was all to get going yeah i love working cattle and one good thing with uh being a chopper pilot with cattle is you can work a lot of cattle by yourself yeah yeah that was always the angle i was going to go with it and yeah just done my license and

Got a start, as everyone does, and had a couple of companies in Queensland we flew through.

Worked my way through the territory on the way to WA, because I had a gig lined up there.