Most people choose to spend their retirement travelling or playing endless rounds of golf but for Neville Page, volunteering for Angel Flight ticks all the boxes.
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The Paddys River pilot has completed almost 70 missions for the charity that runs non-emergency flights for regional people to seek treatment, often in capital cities.
For Mr Page, the chance to do what he loves most whilst helping those in need was something he was always going to grab with both hands.
"Six years ago I was up at the gliding club and the guys were talking about Angel Flight and thought I'd like to do that," he told the Southern Highland News.
"I've done 68 flights over the last five years and I try to do two a month. I find it really satisfying because not only do I get to go flying, I get to help someone. The appreciation you get from the community is amazing. It's a very good service.
"Angel Flight is a volunteer organisation, it doesn't get any subsidies from the government. It's all from fundraising. We volunteer our time and our aeroplanes and Angel Flight pays for our fuel so we get to fly at half the cost and help someone at the same time so it's wonderful.
"Then we've got the Ground Angels who pick them up from Bankstown and take them to whatever hospital or service they need. So it's not only the Angel Flight pilots that are great, it's the drivers who are very important to the system as well."
Mr Page said that while it was occasionally tough when clients [patients] passed away, being of service to them and their loved ones was immensely satisfying.
"When you take kids home and parents write letters and thank the organisation for your good work it's very satisfying," he said.
"I go to Hay a lot, halfway to South Australia, and I talk to the clients about people I've taken before and when they say things like 'he's not here anymore' that hurts a bit. I try not to get too close to the clients because when they pass it knocks you around a bit."
It's just another chapter of a lifelong obsession with flight, one that started decades ago on his parents' dairy farms.
Since then he's started a business in Echo Air Conditioning and renovated a World War II airstrip on a property where he and his plane now reside.
"I originally come from western Victoria, my parents owned dairy farms and I always wanted to join the Navy and wanted to fly," he explained.
"So when I did join I tried to join as a Naval pilot but there were 200 of us and took about 10 and because I wore glasses they weren't interested in me.
"I started to learn to fly in 1975 privately, started my own business, Echo Air Conditioning, in 1980 and then by 1985 I bought my first aeroplane. A couple of years later I bought a bigger one and ever since I've done over 3000 hours in my plane.
"I used to keep it at Bankstown airport in the hangar I built there and then I bought a farm at Paddys River that had an old Second World War airstrip on it. It had big gum trees growing through it because it was closed in 1960.
"When I bought it in '91, I had a bloke come down and pull the trees out and fix up the airstrip. I built a hangar here and keep the plane here full-time.
"I was raised on dairy farms so to come back here onto 100 acres and not only have an airstrip but a farm as well and a good rural outlook, it's like when I was a kid."
Angel Flight relies on donations to keep running. if you would like to support them please click here.
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