FROM FARMING TO FLYING

“My favourite place to visit in New Zealand – the Earnslaw Burn near Queenstown, which is only accessible by helicopter.”

MEET PHI INTERNATIONAL’S NEWEST TRAINEE CO-PILOT JARED FALLAVER

Jared Fallaver is the latest co-pilot to join PHI’s trainee programme led out of PHI International’s flagship New Zealand base in New Plymouth. He joins Liss and Cory who kicked off their training in March last year.

Growing up in Palmerston North – a city in New Zealand’s North Island – much of Jared’s childhood was spent gazing up at pilots flying over his family’s farm in fixed wing and rotary agricultural aircraft and thinking: ‘that looks cool.’

His fascination with helicopters grew stronger with a local search and rescue helicopter based right next to his house.

The helicopter flight path went right over our house,” Jared said. “I used to watch them take off and think they were awesome while everyone else in my family hated it when they were flying all hours of the night.

Before he learned to fly, Jared first spent several years working as a crop farmer operating heavy agricultural equipment including tractors, combine harvesters, fertiliser spreader trucks and excavators. Jared said:

I believe the machinery operating skills I have has helped me a lot when it comes to hands-on flying skill.

He decided to enroll in a Diploma in Aviation for Helicopters and started flight training in his home city. He then transferred to Wanaka Helicopters in New Zealand’s South Island to complete his training. A popular tourist spot, Wanaka boasts snow-capped mountains, stunning lakes, nearby low flying training zones and a family atmosphere - all of which proved to be the perfect blend to attract Jared to want to stay and make it his home.

Armed with a fresh commercial helicopter pilot license, he landed a casual/on-call job with Wanaka Helicopters carrying out frost protection, maintenance and ferry flights, while also working for an earthmoving contractor operating heavy machinery in the summer and pushing snow up on the ski fields in the winter to pay the bills. Within a year, opportunity knocked. Jared was sent to Port Moresby as a co-pilot flying Bell 212’s in Papua New Guinea for an operator that supplies helicopter services to the country’s defence force.

For the first two years, his role focused on moving defence force personnel around for border protection, natural disaster relief, soldier deployment into areas of civil unrest with a winch capable helicopter for search and rescue. During this time, he was able to witness the aftermath of two major earthquakes and watch a volcano violently erupt right in front of him while providing disaster relief.

November 2020: Refueling the tractor and about to head out between flying jobs in Rongotea, New Zealand and waiting to start with PHI in January 2021.

Papua New Guinea’s mountainous and remote landscapes and dense rainforest up to 14,000ft means helicopters are the easiest way to transport people and materials around the country.

Jared said:

Papua New Guinea is such a unique country. I learned so much while working in some untouched and very remote places, flying in deep in the jungle and up in the mountains high, hot and heavy. It was an incredible start to my career.

In his third year, the focus of Jared’s role turned to oil and gas operations with EXXON Mobil, undertaking pipeline survey, personnel transport, external load and medevac operations in a Bell 412 helicopter. His experience was the perfect prelude to where he would move onto next.

He spotted the advert to train as a co-pilot with PHI on a helicopter careers website, which answered a desire he had long harboured but until now, had not been able to pursue.

This photo was taken just after I had completed Instrument Flight Rules and type rating training in AW139 and checked to fly the line in New Plymouth.

I had looked at training to become an Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) pilot myself before finding this opportunity with PHI, and to gain the required experience is a massive financial commitment – about $70,000 New Zealand dollars to start.

The fact that PHI was giving people with low flying hours a paid opportunity to train as co-pilots, and with a company of its scale – it’s just awesome.

Jared applied for the programme along with Liss and Cory and impressed the team, but just missed out at the final interview stage. He was offered a role in our New Plymouth dispatch office until a place on the programme came up after only a few months behind the desk.

Coming from an agricultural background I never saw myself going down the IFR offshore route when I initially started flight training, but it was a new and different challenge that I’m excited to take head on.

I’m excited to work towards my captaincy and I would love to travel around all of PHI’s bases overseas. PHI is a great company to work for – there’s no better place I could be.