On to Greater Things
It was in the early part of 1964 that Zingi grabbed me by the collar and said “Come with me.” By this time I had learned not to ask questions. We jumped into Old Piet’s red 250 Comanche and thundered off across the Reef. No maps, no flight plan, and in a big hurry.
We landed at Baragwanath and were ushered into a private office to be met by two brownish, thin-nosed gentlemen who wore hats and ties and a furtive air.
After making sure the door and the window were securely closed, they asked Zingi whether we could supply them with a dozen Pawnees. They wanted the new, big, mean, 235-hp models – not the standard 150-hp ones.
Now Zingi was sharp – he immediately smelt a rat. The aviation world was small, and we would have heard if a new crop-spraying company was about to spring into existence.
He worked out the total price on a bit of paper – no desktop calculators then. It came out to about $US6 million in today’s money. They signed and handed over a cheque with lots of noughts. Zingy explained we didn’t have that many Pawnees in stock – we probably didn’t have any – and the delivery would take a few weeks while we shipped the aircraft in from the States.
No sweat, they said, in fact, they would do the shipping themselves – we just had to deliver the aeroplanes to the dockside in New York.
