Feet on the ground
As the pilots wowed crowds at Avalon, PTE John Wellfare sat down with the less glamorous members of the Roulettes team.

Aviation technician SGT Wayne Robinson performs an after-flight check on a Roulettes PC-9 after performing at the Australian International Air Show at Avalon.

Photo by PTE John Wellfare.

‘THEY won’t be back for another 20 minutes,” one of the red overall-clad aviation technicians calls out from the Roulettes tent in a cordoned-off section of the Avalon airfield. He was referring to the pilots.

The “other” members of the Roulettes team are familiar with letting the aircrew steal the limelight and they don’t seem to mind – they’re comfortable with the part they play in the team’s performance.

As part of the Air Force’s most public component, the aviation technicians go wherever the aircraft do and it’s not unusual for people to mistake them for aircrew, says Sergeant Wayne Robinson, who supervised the Roulettes ground crew at Avalon.

“Walking around in the crowd wearing the bright red overalls, people see ‘Roulettes’ on the hat and they [assume] we’re the pilots,” he says as the distinctive red aircraft perform a low pass in front of an enormous air show crowd just a few hundred metres away.

“But we’re all part of the one team and when they say ‘great show’ we say ‘thank you’, because we feel that we’re part of it as well.

“Then most people ask what it’s like to fly and that’s when you feel that you have to tell them that’s not exactly our job.”

And it’s not just spectators who get it wrong. At last year’s Indy 500 on the Gold Coast a local newspaper photographer rounded up a group of Roulettes ground crew for a photo, not thinking to ask what role they performed in the team.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen it printed in a newspaper,” says SGT Robinson. “But [cases of mistaken identity] happen quite a lot.”

While most of the maintenance on Central Flying School aircraft based at RAAF Base East Sale, including the Roulettes’ PC-9s, is performed by civilian company, Airflite, Air Force aviation technicians do work there and are called upon to provide a military presence for the team’s deployments to air shows and special events throughout Australia.

While the ground crew can perform basic aircraft maintenance on the road, the PC-9s don’t need a lot of work to keep them in the air.

“We refuel them and fill them up with smoke oil,” SGT Robinson says. “Occasionally we might have a tyre or brake change, or a bit of prop blending to do, but most of the time they hold together pretty well.

“It’s pretty much standard servicing done on the aircraft before and after a show, then every now and then they get pulled into the hangers back at Sale for a total strip down and overhaul.

“On the trips they’ve had everything they need to have done on them and we do the pre-flighting and the after-flighting services.”

A long, elated ‘yahoo’ comes over the handheld radio that the ground crew uses to keep in touch with the pilots. The Roulettes are performing a formation barrel roll in front of the crowd. It begs the question – does he ever get jealous of the pilots?

“Not really, no. I’ve always wanted to work on aircraft rather than fly them.

“They have a lot of fun while they’re doing it - they enjoy it - [but] I’d much prefer to fix them than fly them.

“I enjoy riding in them though, that’s good fun.”

The pilots might get most of the credit, but the claim that they’re all part of the one team seems more than just a token gesture. The relationship between air and ground crew in the Roulettes is no different to any other flying unit in the Air Force. The pilots wouldn’t get off the ground without SGT Robinson and his team, and they know it.

 

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