Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Trendsetters, the month of May is massive for the ABC with plenty of good stuff to look forward to. The hoodies and beanies go on sale Tuesday the 19th, 6pm. Alphablokes.com.au, limited stock. The NT Vlogs will be hitting the Patreon flats throughout this month. And last but not least, Alphafest, the mateship muster. Sandstone Point, May 30th. You don't want to miss that one.
And before we get to Yarnin', as always, we've got some legends to thank. Better beer. God's nectar, they call it. Drop into any decent bottle shop and stock up.
CTC, you already know, they're the best hats in the land, so make sure you get on today and cop one. SB Tools, for all your tinkering needs. Papa Macro's, the proof is in the pudding. I'm now medium shitty, and it's all thanks to Papa Macro's.
Port West, workwear that is built to last, just like this community.
And Ned's, the only bookie that we have a punt with here at Alpha Blokes. Stay Nedley. I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody.
The double champ does what the fuck he wants.
I need a shit, man.
Die, boy.
Sneaky little rascal. Safety first. Stay focused. Keep pinging the cup.
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Chapter 2: When did Dan 'Pirate' Elliott first get his helicopter license?
Anyway, but I can't take my hat off enough to you for that and keep it coming. What you guys are doing with the podcast, everyone I speak to talks about the podcast and all that and I listen to it as much as I can, but I'm a long way behind. You're a change in the country. You really are. It's a credit to you both.
Yeah.
I appreciate that, mate. That's fucking great. Make Australia great again.
You know what? I was hung over for it before you said that. Now I'm not. And I should quickly mention too that fucking there's no beers left. We drank them all. So there's no beers on set today. But if you were having a beer. Make sure you have a better beer. Yeah, exactly. Drop that in there. Mate, I appreciate you fucking saying that.
Sorry, didn't answer your question, but that's sort of where I'd like to go with that. Yeah, yeah. That's what yous are up to.
Oh, fucking oh, thank you, mate.
Um, but now look, the, uh, flying side of things, I guess, uh, come from dad. Um, my dad was a pilot and, um, just a plane pilot and, uh, grew up in a cattle station with family there and back in Queensland and, um, always just loved flying. So he knew I was going to get into it somewhere or another. And dad, um, 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.
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Chapter 3: What led to the establishment of Finniss River Helicopters?
That one's no good now, the tide's gone. Mix it up. I would say to anyone, just do a half day and then come back out, go to a waterfall or a pub. Yeah, yeah. If you do a half day, we'll always put you on the best tide.
yeah for sure and like we sort of spoke about pirate as well mate like someone can come up with you say they're here for three or four days if they want to literally go hardcore barra fishing for a day you've got those connections with like the barra de blue exactly exactly you can go hey i'll fly around show you everything drop in on a couple of spots and then they can go in the boat if they're really hardcore want to smash it right well
I've even been working with Lincoln on that. It's where we do like a half and half. So we pick them up from the bank. The boat goes home empty, but they've gone out and hit the best tide. We pick them up in a chopper from the bank where they've been fishing halfway to our fishing grounds where we go in helicopters and then do a fish. The boat goes home, sorts itself out for the day.
They get the best of both that way.
And like we said before, mate, you're just figuring this out on the fly as well, right? So you're figuring out these situations where it's like, all right, that'll work in suite, and that's the best thing about you being established here, mate, and having these connections with other people in the tourism industry that you just determine inwards.
I don't know how it works, but we're working it out.
Yeah. Yeah. Mate, I suppose I want to talk about Crocs for a bit, right, because we're from CQ. We're lucky enough to be... south enough that we don't really have to see them all the time. So it's one of those things you come up here and it's on the forefront of your mind. Have you had any wild situations over the years with anyone fucking having a run-in with Crocs men?
Because obviously they're a big thing here.
Thankfully, no, like, close calls as far as that goes because we're so alert of it, though. And you can tell the group of people, like our guy, a pilot, obviously know where crocodiles rock up. It's amazing where they can rock up. So you're always sort of prepared for that. Yeah. But as far as groups of people go, you can sort of tell if they're croc-wise or not. No, obviously...
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Pirate face during the floods in WA?
Like, what's going on? It's like, get away from the water. Yeah, yeah. It's not for us. They just get excited, hey, like in that moment and forget about the croc thing. You do, you do. And everyone's probably guilty of it, but, yeah, it's a real ā It's a real risk. Just think about them all the time. And they're getting craftier. They're getting more. The numbers are getting up.
They watch us do what we do. You might see them for days, but they know we're there. They watch us all the time.
And I suppose that's the thing, right, is it's so fun up here because of the danger factor, man. Like when things are more dangerous, normally they're cooler and more fun. But there is that fucking danger factor. Like even those animals, man, when we went and booked in with the team at Tipperary and did the safari, Dennis talking about ā
those buffalo even going oh you're gonna shoot one but fuck we've had to drop one five meters away as it runs at you like it's a dangerous spot in the world and that's why for you guys like you're bringing these people on to these tours they're having the time of their lives but at the same time you've you've proper got to stick by the book and make sure they're safe right
Yeah, right. And that's where, like I say, if your briefs come into place, you've got to listen to us. We're not doing it because we have to. You guys need to hear it. So, yeah, just listen to us.
Yeah, fucking nice. Mate, so the last few years things have obviously changed. You've found a bit of a pattern there. You're starting to tailor these trips based off the MAD units that are coming and wanting to do them. Mate, where do you see the sort of next few years going with what you're doing and what are your sort of goals that you want to try and achieve?
It's really what we're doing. We've sort of exceeded what we expected now. But, I mean, we're not done growing. Jamie and I, we're not finished yet, if that makes sense. So we're still keen to move forward. We've got a few things in the pipeline I won't talk about as far as next level things, like as far as your hunting and all that sort of stuff. We've got plenty of ideas there.
And as soon as an idea comes to light, we'll chase it. And if it's going to work, we'll do it. Yeah. You guys are going to be the first to know about it because you can try it.
Yeah, Joe. If we have to, Pirate, what do you think, Brett?
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Chapter 5: What unique helicopter tours does Finniss River Helicopters offer?
It is. And now they're back, like my aim is we'll get rid of all, we've still got about maybe 14 or 15 22s. Yeah. But my aim is as soon as we get... two more 300s in, we sell two 22s. Yeah, so slowly start sort of changing there. Well, I can only afford two at a time. And as our finance goes, going across the ocean with money, it's really hard doing a trade facility.
So as two come, we start again and start again. But I think that's the way to go. Otherwise, yeah, we're going backwards really.
Yeah.
Well, mate, that's the other thing I wanted to touch on as well, right, is that you lads are fucking legends and ladies as well. There's lads and ladies here, Finish River, and they've been absolutely phenomenal to sort of work with the whole time. But the other thing is too, even though we're good mates, man, you and your crew are very particular with the machines. They're looked after properly.
Everything is fucking clean, maintained, and I think getting in choppers like that at the start of every day, even though we're hungover fucking idiots. Knowing that you're safe. I think that's the thing. We get to do some cool shit in the air with you guys, but it's all by the book and you feel safe the whole time.
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Chapter 6: How does Pirate customize helicopter tours for guests?
Is that something that you work pretty hard on with your crew? Massively, mate.
Yeah, massively. So you judge on your appearance straight up, so your helicopter's got to look beautiful. We over-clean them all the time. We've got our own in-house maintenance, so we over-maintain as well. You can't do too much of that sort of thing. Because at the end of the day, it's dangerous if you allow it to be. So you've got to be in front of it all the time.
But yeah, we always drill into our piles. We do a lot of check and training all the time. We just finished it before you guys got here. But yeah, the maintenance is tenfold. It's important.
Well, I suppose it's not like your car breaks down and you just roll to the side of the road, do you, Joe?
That's right.
You're fucking up in the air. But I just mean that's a big thing for us, coming here, knowing you're safe with you guys. So that's been fucking excellent.
You can tell. Just look at your machine. Yeah, man. Beautiful machine. Knuckles can tell. Just look after them. Senior pilots, mate. We just tell them.
While we're on the subject of senior pilots... How many hours do you have? Because you've got a lot of hours.
I don't know, maybe 25 or 6,000 roundabouts an hour. 25,000 hours sitting in a chopper. Yeah, but when you're mastering, you gain those hours quite quickly. Yeah. What we're doing now, we're lucky to do two hours a day if we're doing like what we've been doing. So, yeah, when you're mastering, no, you're often 10, 12 hours a day. So, yeah, I don't know, roundabouts then.
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Chapter 7: How does the helicopter pub crawl work?
You shouldn't have done that.
And would you, you would have known a fair few people, I suppose, mutual friends or even mates that have passed or in chopper crashes over the years, man, would be pretty wild thing to go through being a pilot yourself.
Yeah, it's bad. Yeah, I found my best mate. Yeah, my best mate got killed in a machine. I was supposed to be with him, so I found him the next morning. Jesus, mate. Yeah, like, that's real. I still dream about that very often. I can imagine. And a few other close mates, too, that have gone similar ways. So, yeah, but that's the reality of it.
It reminds you to be safe and think about everybody else that you leave behind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it happens.
Fucking oath, man. And I suppose it just goes back, we've spoken about it a couple of times, but that's why you are like you are with your machines, right? And with your workers and shit, because you've fucking literally seen firsthand how it can be dangerous.
It is. And you've got to build off of it, I guess, too. That knocked me around. I found my best mate like that was before I owned helicopters. We were just flying together and But I actually use that against our younger guys too. So this is what I felt when I went through this. And I'll even show them where the crash happens sometimes if they're not listening properly.
So this is what can happen. And I think it's good for them younger piles to see the reality of it because they're going to go through it someday. They're going to lose one of their mates one day. Unfortunately, it shouldn't, but they will. So if we can explain how important it is and dangerous it can be.
They can sort of feel the realism of it before they have to feel that sort of thing. Ideally.
Yeah. Ideally, yeah. Nothing sounds terrible, but, yeah, find your best mate. Like, that's a bad thing to go through and the reality of it and the reasons of it. So if you can kind of pass it on to the next person not to do it.
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