[00:00:11] Speaker A: Welcome to the Sky Careers podcast, where we explore the fascinating world of aviation careers. I'm your host, Mark Hodgson, and today I have something special for you. Our first ever interview with an aviation couple. I'm delighted to be joined by Jenna and Daniel Bolton from Paspaley Aviation in Northern Australia. They have an extraordinary setup combining pearl farming operations with flying vintage aircraft. Their story is particularly inspiring because they're different paths into aviation. Jenna transitioned from primary school teaching to flying helicopters, while Daniel found his passion early through seaplanes. Today we'll hear about their work. Operating 1940s Grumman Mallard Seaplanes support pearl farming across Australia's remote northern coastline and what it's like to be partners in both life and aviation. So fasten your seatbelts as we take off with the Boltons exploring their fascinating careers in one of Australia's most beautiful and remote regions.
Today on the podcast, it's my absolute pleasure to for the first time run an interview with an aviation couple. And I'm delighted to be joined by Jenna and Dan Bolton who work for Paspaley Aviation up in the northern part of Australia. And I want I'll get them to tell their own stories because it's quite an amazing setup that they're working in part working sort of factory farming pearls and everything around that part, maintaining museum piece flying machines. And I know we'll touch on that. And also partly it's a lovely story because the different journeys that I know Jenna and Daniel had into aviation are different. And I think for our listeners they'll get lots of inspiration and ideas out of the fact there's lots and lots of ways to enter the aviation industry and you often end up in places that you didn't probably dream you thought you would. So welcome to the podcast, Jenna and Dan.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Thanks, Mark, for having us.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Awesome. So, Jen, so we've got a bit of a plan and the way we're going to run this, we're going to start with. Start with Jenna. So, Jenna, we always start with the same questions on the Sky Kris podcast. So tell us about the role and your title and where you actually work at Paspaley.
[00:02:45] Speaker C: Sure. I'm the business manager for Paspaley Aviation based in Darwin and that encompasses both the engineering division for the Grumman Mallard and the flying operation side.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Awesome. And where did you go to school? So you probably studied aviation and science, didn't you, somewhere.
[00:03:06] Speaker C: I didn't, no.
I actually left school and went to university to become a primary school teacher and did that overseas for about seven years. And then decided that I was desperate for a change and to return to Australia. So I, I was always interested in flying helicopters and I thought it was the perfect segue into something else. And so I came back to Australia and learned to fly helicopters on the Gold coast, which then earned me my commercial helicopter license. And then I was very fortunate to be given a base manager role on Hayman island as my first helicopter gig.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: What does that entail, helicopter on Hayman Island?
[00:03:53] Speaker C: Basically the management of just the day to day flights, guests bookings, invoices of a tourism operation. Basically, yeah. Based actually out of Hayman island itself.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Right. And so it sounds like you moved out of just inverted, just inverted commas, flying quite early in your career.
[00:04:16] Speaker C: Sorry, say that again.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: It sounds like you moved on from just piloting quite early on. Maybe that was down to your previous career as a teacher.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: It probably was. But when you start commercially flying, you aren't often given a flying job straight away. You have to kind of prove yourself on the ground before they let you loose with a helicopter. So I did 12 months on the ground proving myself and that involved check flights every three months with the general manager of the organisation and flying with the pilots as much as I possibly could. And after that 12 months, if I passed all of my tests every three months, then I was given a full time flying role. So after that year I was lucky enough to get promoted to a full time flying gig and. And then I moved to our secondary base which was on Hamilton island and flew there full time after that.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: And how long were you doing that before you ended up in your current role?
[00:05:23] Speaker C: I was probably flying on Hamilton island for two years before I stepped sideways into helicopter instructing. Because of my education background and my love of passing on knowledge, I decided that was probably the logical next step.
You know, it enhances your knowledge and understanding of what you're doing incredibly if you try and explain it to people. So I instructed for a couple of years before moving to Cairns. So all up I probably flew for about seven years before I started transitioning into more a commercial development management role and then subsequently the business management role where I am now.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: Beautiful. So that took you to Cairns and it sounds like a real fusion of your, I guess, two careers, your seven, eight years as a primary school teacher. That's right, yes.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: So primary school and aviation and now you've ended up blending both of those.
[00:06:27] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, 10 to this day I still draw on a lot of those educational fundamental philosophies and outlooks and approaches in every aspect of what we do now, whether it's one on one review process with pilots or engineers or whether it's project management or running safety meetings. I still draw on all of that background and education on a daily basis.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: That's amazing. Well, I better bring in your other half before we do the. Before we talk a little bit more about what you're doing currently in your roles.
So Dan, tell us about. So where did you go to school?
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Grew up in Geelong. I went to high school down there, Oberon High School, just a public school just around the corner from our house and I, I had a. Yeah, good. I enjoyed school. I did a lot of the maths and physics subjects there that I really, really enjoyed. English wasn't one of my favourite topics but I'm realising as I'm getting older how important English is and especially as you get more into senior roles of an organisation how important English plays. But wish I had paid more attention back then, but so be it then. Pretty much got into flying straight out of school for me.
We were lucky that the Geelong airport was just down the road and did my flight training down there. My dad was operating a seaplane at the time as a commercial pilot himself. He was mainly in the police force for most of his career but had kind of left that to start a seaplane business. So it was never lined up. But it just worked out that he needed someone end up for the summer and took me on and that got me my start in working as a pilot and then in seaplanes as well.
Did a year and a half there and then moved up to the Whitsundays, did some seaplane flying for company in the Whitsundays there, which was amazing. I've spent four and a half years there flying guests out to the Great Barrier Reef, running snorkeling tours and serving champagne on Whitehaven Beach. No complaints there. And that's actually where Jenna and I met in the Whitsundays, which I'm sure we'll get to probably later on but. And then yeah, as Jenna mentioned, we had kind of moved together, progressed our careers up to Cairns a little bit. I went down the IFR path for a little bit. Jenna was flying some bigger helicopters there and I eventually then went back into seaplanes and IFRs. Continue with IFR flying in Vietnam, flying with a company over there on an IFR Cessna Caravan.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: IFR just for the non technical listeners.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: What's that? So instrument flying rules. So kind of.
Most seaplane operators are what you call vfr. So visual flight Rules where you have to be able to see where you're going, basically.
Whereas when we upgrade to instrument flying, or ifr, we allow it to fly through the clouds and base all of our flying on instruments. So there's not a lot of. Well, I think there's only one operator in Australia other than private, maybe privately owned seaplanes that operate a C plane iPhone. That is us. On with the grammar Mallard. So, yeah, there's not a lot of seaplane operators that do that and mainly because generally you go flying on seaplane, you want to see what. What's going on outside.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Losing the name.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Right, yeah, seaplane, yeah. Anyway, so then, yeah, we, we. Then I got offered an opportunity to come up here and fly on the Mallard, which, you know, ticked a lot of boxes. Multi crew, multi engine in instrument flying, but also a seaplane.
And yeah, been here now for the last nearly eight years. Coming up on eight years, I think next month. And absolutely loving it. I'm now the head of training and checking here and currently in the process of getting my flight examiner rating, which is a very exciting time in my career. And, yeah, absolutely loving it.
It's an amazing job flying the mallards out to the, you know, out to the pearl farms at the Kimberley and also the top of Darwin. And it's also. It's an amazing group of people, mainly led by Jenna, who we run a great maintenance team and there's just. Everyone is happy to be at the workplace and everyone puts in a really good effort. And a lot of that comes down to the way Jenna runs the business as a. As a business manager.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Awesome. We'll unpack a little bit of that. I mean, just so going back, fundamentally, you found your aviation groove pretty early on, by the sounds of it.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So I, I don't think I grew up thinking that I wanted to be a pilot.
Didn't really know what I wanted to be. I was playing a lot of sport, but kind of when it came to year 11, year 12, and, you know, loving the maths and physics side of things, I thought that, you know, with the exposure I had from my dad flying, that that might be a career option. And, you know, after year 12 was finished and I did pretty good at, got some reasonably good results, which ended up meaning nothing because I didn't need to go to uni to get my qualification.
I, you know, did my commercial license and, you know, that took me where I am today. And I think, you know, I've obviously been in the industry now for around about 15, 16 years. And the more I've spent in it is the more I'm lacking and realising that I don't think an airline career would be something that I would enjoy.
And so taking on the role that I've got now and flying in an organisation like what we're doing here at Paspaley is one that ticks a lot of boxes. You can still have the, you know, the multi crew and the really good professionalism of two crew and instrument flying but you get the fun aspect of being on the water and you know, every day I'm flying out there and looking out the window and enjoying the views of the Kimberley. It doesn't, you know, eight years has gone past and I still love looking down.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: I know as people listen to this Dan, there's gonna be waves of jealousy wafting your way. And I wanted to. Now when we talk about seaplanes, I think most people have seen seaplanes. They probably think of the relatively small ones you see in Sydney Harbour, in other harbours around the world with the two pontoons. But I know.
So first, first of all tell us about the, the mallard that you operate at Paspaley and also perhaps if you, perhaps Jenny, you can fill us in on. Tell us about Pas Bailey pearls because yeah, I've lived in Australia now for 25 years. I actually I know about Paspaley but I know a lot of our listeners would not. So tell us at first you might maybe tell us about what Pas Bailey pearls do and then why in turn you need the certain type of seaplane that you do and then tell us about it because we will attach pictures because the images that you guys come have of the mallard which I know you're going to talk about are just stunning. So I know there's about four questions there but shoot if you will Jenna, please.
[00:13:37] Speaker C: So Paspali is primarily a pearling company based in the top end of Australia. So our main head office is based in Darwin and we have pearl farms to the east of Darwin in the Coburg peninsula and then all the way through the Kimberley, all the way across to Broome.
So in all of the little inlets and bays we have pearl farms. Some of our pearl farms are live aboard vessels. So the vessel stays out there and we have crew out there living upon the vessel to service the farms. Some of them are land based. So we have camp set up in the Coburg in Koori Bay where the workers live on camp and then they go out onto the water every day and, and make sure the shell is serviced. So in all of Those bays we have panels of shells that are growing the pearls. And what we primarily do is that the workers out at the farms go out and clean those. And every shell must be cleaned once every two weeks. So every shell is taken out of the water, each is hand cleaned and then pressure washed, put back in and then left for the next two weeks. So it's a huge operation with a large amount of shell in the water. So we have hundreds of workers out every day and that's their main role. And so most of those workers work on a two week, on one week off basis. And so these pearl farms are so incredibly remote that you can't drive there, there's no airstrips, so you can't land a normal plane. And so in comes the use of a flying boat.
Because of the distance of where they are and the amount of personnel and freight and supplies that we have to take, nothing on the market is able to do what the Grumman Mallard can, and that's take as much weight as far and as fast as it does.
And so we have obviously beautiful aircraft that were originally built in the 1940s of which are incredibly maintained, overhauled, rebuilt continuously, but they, it's the lifeblood of the pearling operation really. So our role is to make sure that they have the longevity we need out of them to service where we operate on a daily basis.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: That's extraordinary. So, Dan, if my maths are right, I've just done some maths there. So you are operating commercially, not for an antique sort of warbird flight. You are commercially operating aircraft that are up to 80 plus years old, is that correct?
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So 1947 was when they were all built. And so, yeah, we're approaching the 80 year mark in a few years, which is pretty exciting.
It's.
Yeah, we could operate completely private operations, but we do have an air operator certificate and we actually operate under the same regulations basically as what Qantas or Jetstar or Virgin operate, which is part 121.
And that allows us to do commercial work, as you kind of mentioned. And we do do some external commercial work like flights to fishing charters, fishing charter vessels, for example.
One of the, as Jenna mentioned there, that the top end of Australia is so remote even for not just pearl farms, but for coastal camps or for fishing charter, you know, operators, that the logistics of getting their guests in and out of these remote regions can be very hard. So the flying boat with, as Jenna mentioned there, with its good payload and speed allows us to also bring some passengers in and out of those areas if we have the aircraft resources available.
So and coming back to your previous question about the aircraft itself. So as you mentioned, most seaplanes that people think of are what's called a float plane. Broken down to an aircraft that could be predominantly made as a land based airplane, but underneath it attached two floats. Yeah. Whereas the Grumman Mallard is a flying boat. So it's or a floating hull aircraft. So the actual landing surface, the hull of the aircraft is built into the fuselage and makes one point of contact with the water rather than two with the float. So we have two external floats, wingtip floats that help with the balance of the aircraft when it actually slows down into the water. So it is, it is also one of the great things about this job is that it's not only is it different being the IFR and the multi crew, which you don't normally get in a seaplane operation, it's also the flying boat aspect as well.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: Amazing. And how many aircraft do you have?
[00:18:39] Speaker B: So originally Grumman only built 59 of these aircraft back in the late 40s and early 50s. And we've got three of them now. And as Jenna mentioned before, the original, the original Mallard was a piston engine with a little bit less horsepower than we have now. In the 60s there was a turbine conversion created by an American company which did about 12 airframes to turbines. And when Paspali first got their aircraft, there was two radial engine and one of those turbine conversions. However, in the years since, we've all converted all three of them to what we call the AT Mallard or Australian turbine. So they are completely unique to all other Mallards. And one of the advantages of that is, as Jenna mentioned, it allows us to operate in these, you know, different regulations now being such old aircraft and up to a lot higher standards. And currently we're actually, we've actually got one of them in for a very big rebuild, which is something that hasn't happened since, for over 30 years in this company, completely rebuilding the center section. And yeah, the effort that goes to maintaining these aircraft to make sure that we have them serviceable for the pearling operations is incredible.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I can imagine. And where do you get the spare parts from? Of the other 59, the other 56, have you got half of them in containers, in bits out the back?
[00:20:11] Speaker C: Unfortunately, no. Most of our spare parts we have to manufacture and yeah, so some of them we have to take off reverse engineer to be able to uplift the drawings to today's standards and then manufacture them. From scratch.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: It's fascinating. Okay, well, moving on a little bit. Tell me, I guess, what's it like being an aviation couple?
[00:20:39] Speaker C: Let you answer that.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: It probably has its ups and downs in some areas, I think. You know, before, as I mentioned before, we kind of both met in the Whitsundays and we were both in a. In a point of our career where I guess we were starting out, probably Jenna more so obviously she just got a. I think when we met she just kind of started actual first job flying. I was probably a few years ahead in that respect, but still I was. You know, there's a lot of new things that I was learning as well. So it was very exciting, I guess, at that point, you know, because we're, we're progressing our careers a lot more. I think now as we've matured a bit more and you know, also having a family, we look at our aviation careers, I guess more from a family life lifestyle point and not so much of the aviation achievements as such. They're probably more just work achievements or that, you know, we both acknowledge and are both proud of each other in those areas.
But, you know, back then as well, we weren't working at the same company. So whereas a bit different now, whereas Jenna. Jenna's the boss at work and sometimes at home, depending on how you.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: There are incredible positives in the fact that you do have a much deeper understanding of the roles and responsibilities and commitments to the job, to the career, probably than if one of us was in a different career. We make a real effort to be incredibly professional at work. So we leave home at home and we're essentially very different people at work, very clinical, very responsibility, job driven. And that goes both ways, though. We try very much to be engaged at home. So we try to leave work at the gate and then come through the door and be parents to our children or invested in our relationship and our home and our life.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: Just tell us about your kids quickly. How many kids you got?
[00:22:49] Speaker C: We have three. A two year old and a four year old and a five year old. So we have an incredibly busy home life.
But they're fabulous. They bring so much joy and energy into everything that we do, you know, from the moment they woke up, wake up in the morning to going to bed at night. They certainly bring a lot of energy into every aspect of our lives.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: That's very.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: And, and their mum and dad have got pretty cool jobs, right?
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we haven't exposed them a lot. When we got, I think, two of them out before we had our Third child, we were able to take them on a trip in the Mallard, which was pretty special during time, but we haven't really exposed them a lot to aviation. They do come into work every now and again and, you know, there might be times where the juggle is a bit harder than it should be and we have to bring them in to help with that juggle and they get to see the airplanes. And you know, it is funny though because the kids talk a lot about how Jenna flies helicopters and she hasn't really flown them. I think the last flight she did was she was six months pregnant with our second child and, you know, so she hasn't really exposed them to her flying, but they certainly are well aware of it. And yeah, they know that I fly.
[00:24:09] Speaker C: But I don't know, they're very excited and passionate about it as well. But they're, you know, kids, you can make them excited and passionate about every tiny little aspect that you bring to the table. So I think they're proud and excited for us, but equally they're happy, robust kids who will be excitable about anything.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: I did, we did do a little, a little one of those boards for the start of the school year, for a photo of the start of the school year this year. And unfortunately our two oldest kids did say they wanted to be a pilot.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: So ask a couple of questions around this sort of, I guess more broadly. And as you know, Jenna, the, the genesis of sky careers is we've got a particular, I guess, affection for and purpose for helping the great participation of women in the aviation industry and offsetting, I guess, the real or perceived idea that it's a very male dominated industry and potentially can be quite low key. And I'm interested in what challenges you've faced as a woman working in the aviation industry.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: Look there it is no secret, that is definitely a male dominated industry.
I have always approached it in a manner that if you are the best you can possibly be in your knowledge and your understanding and your ability, then you should be judged on what you bring to the table rather than any other aspect. And there have definitely been times where I've been treated differently or not welcome or where people have refused to fly with me in multiple different settings. But you know, I never like to dwell on those experiences. The, the amazing people throughout my career at every stage, the mentors, the senior pilots, the pilots that flew with me on a daily basis, they easily outweigh any of the negativity associated with it. So while there have been setbacks, they certainly don't add any value or take up any space in my aviation career, that's for sure.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: That's great. I think the one thing, you know, I'm sort of an outsider from the aviation industry. I think I shared with you both. My brother's a, he's a captain with Virgin Atlantic. So Daniel, he, he sits in a bit more air conditioned comfort than you do, typically at 36,000ft. But I do do a lot of work in leadership.
And one thing that really strikes me about aviation, it's about team.
And there's a lovely image and we'll attach this in the notes of the podcast. One of the lovely images I think you've got of your team up there in Cairn standing in front of one of the Maillards. And you can just see it from mechanics to pilots to ground crew to everyone. And it just looks like a whole lot of people of completely different skills and backgrounds coming together with a combined purpose that really shines through, it seems to me, across aviation.
[00:27:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Thank you. We try incredibly hard within our team to make sure we have a really strong, positive, happy workplace where people do champion each other and, you know, lift each other up and absolutely go out of their way to make it an enjoyable, more critically aware, but primarily an enjoyable place to work. You know, you spend so much of your life at work that it has to be positive and supportive and a challenge for sure, but it has to be supportive and positive.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Yes, that sounds good. And is that your experience too, Dan.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: With the company or the women?
[00:28:32] Speaker A: Question generally?
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Generally, certainly what Jenna's saying about our company is certainly true. And I think kind of what Jenna was saying with regards to some of the negativity she had especially more early on in her career, I think looking at those individuals or those people who may have been acting or behaving that way in the end, now, looking back at it, they haven't really gone anywhere in the industry. And I think as you progress throughout the industry, you realise that the further up you go, the more respect you get. And there it's those people higher up that will actually treat you better and that actually count, if you know what I mean.
But yeah, everyone at our company certainly, absolutely loves the way the company values team. And it doesn't matter if you're an engineer, a pilot or someone working in the office, everyone gets along just like they're all equals. Which, like I said before, has a lot to do with the way Jenna has, you know, built up this team over the last kind of five, six years as the Business manager.
[00:29:47] Speaker A: Fantastic. So as we draw the podcast end, there's a couple of questions I've got for you. Now the first one is asking you to share your most memorable experience and paint a picture if you will, of kind of what. I don't know if it's a typical day or your best day. I'm imagining it's flying out to a pearl farm, but it's paint for us. Probably your most magical day you can think of in aviation at Paspaley Aviation, I think.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: A couple that come to mind with me and probably to stick with the topic of this podcast of us being an aviation couple was probably the flight that we did with the kids on board.
Basically we had done a charter out of Kununura that was empty both ways from Darwin. And so we decided it was over a weekend as well. So we decided to kind of take out some people on that empty leg over to Kununura and we had a night there. And after the charter was done the next day we were, we were kind of scoping out a location for some of our.
We were doing these Mallard safari flights. They were going from Darwin all the way through to, to Broome and back over five days. You have one group that goes one way over five days and then you'd swap over and have another group that comes back. And we were looking at some locations around Lake Argyle and Kununurra for a kind of picnic on a beach with the plane and we took out the kids and some other friends and Jenna was there as well. And we reversed the plane up onto this island beach in the middle of Lake Argyle and you know, we'd organized some picnic stuff from, from the bakery at Kununurra there and you know, shut the plane down and we all hopped out and just kind of sat on the beach there for a little bit. And yeah, I think that was probably one of the, one of the cool highlights as a family and with Jenna and pre kids we also did one of these safaris which was, was our first one where we kind of got out of our top end bubble with the airplanes and we flew all the way once again with a group of eight people through to Newcastle and down to Lake Macquarie for the Rathmines Catalina Festival. And one of the overnight stops there was at Hamilton island in the Whitsundays and with both Jenna and I, Jenna was actually on board as the, as the kind of host for all the passengers, which was really cool. I think she was four or five months pregnant with our first kid. And we returned to Whitehaven Beach. We both hadn't been there, I don't think, for at least four or five years.
So we both went to an area that we both love so much in our current role and still got the photos of Jen and I in front of the mallard on the beach there, anchored up. And unfortunately, the weather did not play its game. It was pretty windy and gloomy and showery, but wasn't the typical photo with Sunday's day.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: Daniel, we'll edit that bit out. Don't worry. No one wants to know that.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: No, but it was still pretty special actual, you know, being on the beach there and with the mallards. I think they're probably a couple of my highlights that, you know, I've had over the last few years.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: Brilliant. Thank you, Jenna. Anything. Anything comes to mind.
[00:33:07] Speaker C: Probably one of my highlights was last year we got to host our CASA board. So CASA is the regulatory board that oversees aviation. And so we got to host the board in our hangar for a morning. And that involved showcasing our aircraft and the very rich history of them and the history of Paspali and the family and the pearling side of the business. And so we showcased it. And when I say we, we had a whole team of people presenting to ca, to CASA on how invested they were in the projects that we were undertaking and, and the aircraft and the role we play in their story, really.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: Oh, that's not fair. Everyone else is going, oh, we've got little Sesta casserole coming out to look at that.
That's fantastic. And as you say, I think yours is such a unique story of.
It's like the history of aviation. You've got this beautiful old aircraft. And I say, I keep referring. And we will ask people listening to podcasts, please check out, check out the image and you'll get a sense, if you don't know, of how amazing the these old working aircraft are. The malar, they're just fabulous.
And you know, what you guys are relating is such a rich story. And I think we're all a bit envious of flying around in tropical North Queensland and being paid for it. Most of us have to pay a lot of money to go on your trips, I'm thinking. So look, we'll just one last question for each of you, and it's this, which I know you've answered this before, but I think it's so powerful. What would you say to young women and men who are thinking about pursuing any kind of role in aviation? What would you say to them, starting with Dan?
[00:35:09] Speaker B: I can Start. Jenna's answer is probably way more, way better than mine. But I think, you know, I think a few of the things that we see here that are probably the negatives that I would say the don'ts or I could transfer those negatives into the do's potentially is make sure you well aware of the company that you're going for. If you hold a qualification for a pilot's license, for example, don't just go out there and hand out resumes to every single operation without actually doing a bit of research as to whether they are an operation that you could get an opportunity at or that you have the skills required at that, that operation. So for example, we get a lot of pilots who come in dropping off resumes with us who don't even know what a growing mallard is or that what we operate under the water and it's quite frustrating that they haven't done the research. Whereas if people can actually try and find out, you know, who the chief pilot's name or who the business manager's name is or who they're actually dropping it off to and target their resumes or target their cover letters to that company, I think that's super helpful.
But once, once you've done that research and you've probably identified, you know, Darwin has a lot of, we have a lot of general aviation operators up here that accept those kind of low time pilot jobs. And you know, I think it's really important to try to show your face, to really get out there and meet the people, shake hands with the chief pilot, look them in the eye and you know, put yourself out there so that they remember you.
Find out where the, where the pilots are going for a beer or if they're going to play sport up here and doing maybe indoor cricket or something, try and join in with them and get to meet these pilots so that they can be a reference for you as well as you get out there. So I think overall the idea is just to get yourself out there, put your face out there, be confident and present yourself well and then you'll be ready for that opportunity that pops up.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: That's great advice. So the technical qualification is literally only just the beginning, isn't it?
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.
But obviously aviation has a lot of different qualifications that branch off that basic commercial pilot's license, for example, from a Poland perspective. But you know, other operators may require further requirements, so figure out if you actually meet those or is there something else you need to do to get into that specific operation before, you know, heading in there you know, a bit blindsided, I guess.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you. Daniel and Jenna, bring us home.
[00:37:53] Speaker C: Probably the one of the people in my career who have had the most influence was one of the pilots I first flew with on Hayman island, and he used to drill home to me a couple of. A couple of things. One, always be humble in every situation. Nobody likes the person who stands up and thinks they're amazing at everything.
Two, never stop learning, especially at the very start of your career, you've got so much learning to do that there is learning opportunities at every moment, and you've got to control those learning aspects that are in your realm of able to be achieved, essentially. So be the best that you can. Absolutely be in a learning sense.
Always be the person to give a little bit more, leave a little bit more on the table to invoke people wanting more from you, and always approach everything you do with positivity. You know, positivity and a positive approach is often the lasting impression that you give in any situation. And it's so incredibly vital to present yourself positively. And, you know, even the little setbacks that you'll have in your career if you turn it around and you take something positively away from it, that'll shape the next path that you take.
[00:39:22] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you, Jenna. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, the Boltons.
[00:39:26] Speaker C: Pleasure.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: You've been such fantastic guests, and I think we nailed it. I think we nailed our first aviation couple on the Sky Careers. Thank you so much.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: There's a few of them around that I could tell you right now.
[00:39:37] Speaker A: Thanks so much for your time.
[00:39:39] Speaker C: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Mark.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: Thanks very much, Mark.
[00:39:44] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Sky Careers podcast. If today's conversation has sparked your interest in aviation, then head over to our
[email protected] au whether you dream of flying aircraft or you're curious about the hundreds of other exciting roles that keep the aviation industry moving, skycareers is your gateway to discovering these opportunities. And if you are already in the industry, check out Sky Careers Connect and Sky Careers Leadership and consider joining our online learning community. Until next time, keep reaching for the skies.
