Royal Flying Doctor Service

林浅浅UID: 147674

Reverend John Flynn was ordained in January 1911, and developed a growing interest in missionary work in remote areas of Australia. He moved from other postings in Victoria and South Australia to a mission at Beltana, in South Australia's outback. After preparing a report on life in the Northern Territory, he was appointed head of the new Australian Inland Mission (AIM).
John Flynn strove to improve service and support to people in the Australian outback. He had the foresight, at a time when Australia's involvement in aviation was only small, to look on aircraft as a means of bringing medical care to remote locations.
A young medical student from Victoria, Clifford Peel, heard of Flynn's ideas. He, too, was interested in aviation and had his own thoughts, developed over the preceding few years, to share with Flynn. Peel, having joined the Australian Flying Corps, was en route to the war in France aboard the troopship Nestor, to fly with 3 Sqn AFC in November 1917 when he wrote to Flynn, saying that he saw aircraft reducing the remoteness of people in the outback. Particularly, he foresaw the role of a "missionary doctor". He provided some practical thoughts on speeds, distances, costs, and operational support for aircraft serving the immense empty spaces of Australia's northern reaches. His proposal was for four aircraft, one each at Darwin, Cloncurry and Hergot and one for a doctor working between the bases. He estimated the capital outlay at AUS £11,800 including aircraft and hangars, and a running cost of eightpence per mile.
Flynn, impressed, published Peel's thoughts in a 1917 issue of the mission's magazine. Peel would not see his dream come to fruition. He died over German lines in France on 19 September, 1918.

Flynn worked tirelessly to raise funds, or promises of funds. He lobbied politicians, sought expert opinions on technical matters, and endlessly publicised his plan. He told audiences of lives lost, where the nearest help was at the end of hundreds of miles of telegraph line, and days or even weeks away. His case was helped not only by the tragedies, but by occasional successes which reached the public ear, when doctors used existing air services to visit patients. In 1928, the Aerial Medical Service was set up on an experimental basis.
On 15th May, 1928, a De Havilland DH.50 aircraft named Victory took off from Longreach to its new Cloncurry, Qld. base. Two days later it flew its first service, to Julia Creek. The single engined DH.50 was capable of carrying the pilot, a doctor, and a stretcher patient. It was, for a time, the only aircraft operating the service. Under contract, local bush air service QANTAS provided both a pilot - Arthur Affleck - and the DH.50, which it also serviced. Sydney, NSW, surgeon Dr. Kenyon St Vincent Welch became the first of the flying doctors. This gave the doctor no right of private practice, and a lower income than he might have had if he had not volunteered. The service operated initially without any radio communications.

In its first trial year, the service was a success; but Arthur Affleck, in his memoirs, realised that the distances involved in reaching a phone or post office meant that the service was not called as often as it might have been; yet, on the other hand they answered some less urgent calls which might have been otherwise handled with effective communications.


The development of a radio system for the service relied on the abilities of an Adelaide, South Australia engineer, Alf Traeger. Traeger was employed as a radio expert and electrician by the Mission from the mid-1920s. A Morse code based radio network was soon extended by Flynn and Traeger across their small section of outback.
Traeger's next challenge was the problem of power generation for wireless transceivers. Hand-cranked generators needed an operator for the generator, and another for the radio itself, not always possible to achieve in an outback emergency, and operating a hand generator whilst using a Morse key was almost impossible. Traeger developed the pedal operated generator for the station radios.
The wives and daughters on outback stations learned to work the radios and to send and read Morse Code. A keyboard was introduced which sent the appropriate Morse signal when a key was depressed. In the mid 1930s voice communication and adaption of the radios to run from car batteries made communications even easier.

By 1932 the Mission had a small network of outback hospitals, but contributions were falling as a result of the depression. This, and an understanding that the service really answered a national need, led to the church authorising the AIM, in 1933, to assist in the creation of a national organisation. Various Australian states agreed to support a scheme which took the form of organisation into state sections containing medical stations. Over the years, a handful of other regional air ambulance services became incorporated into the Flying Doctor network. In 1934 the Aerial Medical Service of Australia was created.

In 1942 it became the Flying Doctor Service of Australia. In that year, medical chests were available for outback stations at a cost of AUS £12/0/0 (AUS $24.00). Each chest was identical and contained numbered contents, enabling doctors at a distance to send instructions about treatment, referring to a coded list in the lid. From 1951, diagnosis was assisted by a body chart, still in use, originally drawn up by Sister Lucy Garlick of Broome, Western Australia. It was in 1951 that the De Havilland Australia Drover entered service. The tri-motor cousin of the D.H. Dove was delivered to TAA and ferried to Charleville, Qld. in 1951 to begin service to rough outback airstrips, cleared claypans and open paddocks. It served, with upgrades, for nearly 20 years. One, VH-FDR, refitted with Lycoming engines in place of the original Gipsy Majors, was named in honour of John Flynn.

The "Royal" prefix was bestowed in 1955, and the service became the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

In time, the predominantly British makes of aircraft were replaced by a variety of types from the U.S.A. and elsewhere, such as various Beech twins, Cessna 180 and 182 singles and the Cessna 421B, and Piper singles and twins. From the 1960s, the RFDS began purchasing its own equipment, rather than operating primarily through contractors. Since the 1980s the RFDS has tended towards the Beechcraft 200's and C90s, Cessna Conquests and Titans, and Pilatus PC12s. In 2002, the Adelaide based Central Section has been using PC-12 aircraft for seven years; in 2000, one of them had flown over 5000 hrs., then a world record for the type. Twins are in general used for ambulance work, with the single-turboprop Pilatus being used for clinic runs.

Today, only a small number of calls for help come to the RFDS by radio, thanks to improvement in telecommunications. Aircraft now have advanced navigational systems. Airstrips may still be lit by kerosene lamps or vehicle headlights, and are tested before each landing by running a car along them.

The service today is funded mainly by federal and state governments. Further financing comes from contract work for various hospitals. Capital expenditure, such as purchase of new equipment, relies significantly on fundraising and donations.

林浅浅UID: 147674

An RFDS Pilatus PC-12 about to land at Cairns, Qld. on its flight in from Switzerland, having already landed in Darwin, NT the night before, on Dec 12, 2001. Three were purchased together by Queensland Section of the RFDS; all were flown in from Switzerland together, to operate out of Mt Isa, Charleville and Cairns. (P. Schuller)

林浅浅UID: 147674

Beech Model 200 Super King Air

Beech 200 VH-FDF (c/n BB-1696) outside the Royal Flying Doctor Service hangar, Cairns, Qld. on 9 Oct. 2001. It was introduced to service with the RFDS Queensland Section in January 2001 as a new aircraft.

teafortwoUID: 108585

cool !!