Dick Smith and his wife Pip talk about when they flew a Sikorsky S76 helicopter around the world in 1995, taking over 10,000 photographs at 500 feet for a book.
Video / Brett Phibbs
The name Dick Smith is synonymous with electronics in this part of the world after he turned a car radio repair business started with little more than A$600 in 1968 into a multimillion-dollar retail empire with stores on both sides of the Tasman.
“I’m well-known because of Dick Smith Electronics,” Smith says, “but I’ve also been an adventurer. I’ve flown five times around the world, the first balloon flight from New Zealand to Australia, and flown this helicopter right around the world.”
The helicopter Smith refers to is a Sikorsky S-76A model, affectionally known as Juliet, which flew rescue missions in Te Tai Tokerau Northland for 23 years.
Dick and Pip Smith with Juliet the helicopter at the Motat workshop in Auckland. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Northland Rescue retired the aircraft in 2019 and offered her to Motat for preservation and to share the many stories of life-saving missions flown by the chopper and her crew. Smith was in Auckland earlier this week with his wife Pip and visited the repair shop where Juliet is being restored in preparation for public display next year.
“I’d originally flown around the world solo in a little jet-ranger helicopter,” Smith told the Herald. “That was a great adventure. Then I thought I’d go the other way around the world and take my wife Pip with me. And so, we took off in this helicopter from Sydney and it took us about a year to fly right around the world.
“It was the first ever flight around the world by helicopter from East to West. Normally, helicopters go with the wind from west to east but we went the other way. It was the first and that’s why this is quite a historic helicopter.”
Dick Smith with the S-76A Helicopter after dodging a typhoon and being forced to land on Panay Island in the Philippines. Photo / Pip Smith
Choosing to circumnavigate the world in a helicopter and against the prevailing winds has its own set of problems, Smith said, including being beholden to the weather. Flying at low level and navigating by sight meant looking for the best weather possible.
“If the weather closes in then we got forced down and we’d just land and wait for the weather to improve,” Smith said.
Pip added: “And that did happen a few times and it actually added to the adventure. We got to meet some of the local people – we landed in Nepal and we also landed in Norway in bad weather.”
Pip’s role during the year-long flight was mainly to take photographs for the book Above the World: A Pictorial Circumnavigation published in 1996.
“We had a big downslide window and I had a Pentax 645 camera that only took 15 exposures on the film,” Pip said. “I would sit with my feet either side of the door, which was closed but the window was open, and look out and take these photos, which was amazing.
Dick Smith with village children during an unscheduled stop in Nepal in 1995. Photo / Pip Smith
“And the good part was although Dick was the pilot, he’s also a photographer himself, so he would often put the helicopter into good angles so I could get really good shots.”
But there were times when things got a little too adventurous.
“The scariest time without any doubt was when we were coming through the Philippines and we got into bad weather and we lost control of the helicopter,” said Smith. “It started rolling 60 degrees and we called mayday; my wife was in the back sending out a mayday signal. And we thought we were going to crash into the ocean.
“Fortunately we got out of the weather and we managed to stabilise the helicopter. We landed in a school yard and managed to fix the helicopter and fly on to Australia.”
Luckily there was no real damage to Juliet, who was once owned by the King of Jordan and flew in the Royal Jordanian Airforce, and she went on to serve the people of Northland for more than 20 years.
The Sikorsky helicopter in action off the Northland coast in 2016. Photo / John Stone
The helicopter was kindly donated by the Northland Emergency Services Trust (Nest) but the costs of restoration are being met through Auckland Council ratepayers, generous donations from individuals, families and businesses.
Steve Subritsky is an aviation engineer at Motat and is heading up Juliet’s restoration. He says that they’re still sourcing parts but hope to have the machine on display in six months’ time.
“We’re so privileged to have the helicopter that Dick Smith flew around the world,” Subritsky said. “We’re very excited about that and it’s been a fantastic morning with Dick. We’re proud of it and looking forward to having it on display.”
Dick Smith turns 80 next March and stills bears that famous friendly but slightly mischievous grin that became the branding of the electronics empire that bore his name.
“We’ve been married for over 50 years,” Smith said. “And Pip didn’t know at 19 that we were going to be adventuring around the world. But it happened.”
