From a young age, Josh dreamed of flying. His fascination began with the helicopters buzzing around his family farm, and his passion for aviation only grew stronger from there. 

Growing up in Southland, he found Wanaka Helicopters ideally located with its challenging mountain terrain for flight training. When researching where to go, the high level of instructors and ability for course funding at Wanaka Helicopters made Josh’s future career possible. 

He praises the exceptional instruction at Wanaka Helicopters, noting that the focus was on genuine learning and imparting clear decision making by explaining why and how, rather than just logging hours. The training provided exposure to diverse challenges and terrain, with tailored cross-country and mountain courses. The flying and exposure to different terrain and challenges was amazing. With the best backyard for training on offer, Wanaka Helicopters maximises its exceptional location by tailoring its cross-country and mountain training to fit the environment perfectly.

Having a balanced training regime of theory and practical elements, Josh reflects that both elements were structured and well delivered. One of Josh’s fondest memories whilst training at Wanaka Helicopters was his training based on safety management systems where he got to build a functioning safety management system for a company was a great way to put his learning to good use. 

He believes the training at Wanaka Helicopters was great for preparing future pilots. Wanaka Helicopters gives you a great foundation to work off, the balance between practical and theory was good. The instructors were always open for a chat about how we could do things better or begin networking for future opportunities.  

Now at Volcanic Air, Josh works as a Helicopter Pilot, based in Tourism, Charter and Commercial works. His day-to-day responsibilities include being on duty for any flight bookings which are mostly scenic tours around the Bay Of Plenty region whilst also covering commercial work including fire training for FENZ and GNS Surveying. A career milestone for Josh has been flying the AS350 B3 helicopter, a long-time dream of his. 

Josh finds the most rewarding aspect of his job is contributing to successful missions and being part of a team. 

We asked Josh if there was a specific piece of advice he learnt from one of the instructors or team members here at WH that you think will stick through your career and his response was “the advice I was given was to respect our surroundings, the wind especially. And don’t forget there’s always tomorrow!”

“I would highly recommend Wanaka Helicopters, it’s a great course run by great people. 

If I could do it all again I wouldn’t change a thing. You wont regret it.”