By Rob Neil.

I had been planning to visit Tim and Anna Hutchinson and their Alpine Helicopters’ Methven operation for several months. When I arrived at Double Hill Station on a dismal rainy afternoon for our long-planned meeting, Tim and Anna weren’t there. This impressed me greatly. No…really! Let me explain. Having all just visited the Warbirds Over Wanaka air show, the plan was for us to meet at the Hutchinsons’ Double Hill property afterwards. While I travelled by car, the Hutchinsons were to return home by helicopter. The weather was perfectly driveable but it certainly wasn’t good flying weather. Tim could probably have made it back from Wanaka to Methven without difficulty—possibly.

I was scheduled to go flying with Tim in the Southern Alps the next morning. His decision to stay on the ground—safely—down south rather than taking any risks to make our “important” appointment told me a great deal about Alpine Helicopters-Methven and Tim Hutchinson. I was going to be perfectly happy to fly with this man.

The Methven division of Alpine Helicopters is a relatively new branch of one of New Zealand’s oldest commercial helicopter operations. While it is far from being New Zealand’s biggest helicopter operator, Alpine Helicopters is certainly one of the country’s best known. Indeed, the name “Alpine”(whether it be Alpine Helicopters, the Alpine Deer Group or the Alpine Fighter Collection) is a familiar name throughout the South Island.

Sir Tim Wallis—he was just plain old Tim back then—was the first to pioneer helicopter deer recovery operations in the 1960s. The unbelievably fascinating stories of the helicopter deer recovery industry he pioneered and the “deer wars” of the 1970s continue to enthral people from all walks of life, not just aviators.

Tim Wallis’s larger-than-life persona and the exciting industry that grew from his early efforts assured the original Alpine Helicopters—founded by Tim in 1972—of a prominent place in New Zealand aviation history. The current Alpine Helicopters is now run by Sir Tim Wallis’s son Toby and still has its head office in Wanaka.

As the newest addition to the Alpine Helicopters brand, the Methven division couldn’t be a better fit with the company’s image. Despite the geographical separation between Wanaka and Methven, there are many “logical” links between the two branches. The outstanding husband-and-wife team behind Alpine Helicopters-Methven, Tim and Anna Hutchinson, are a fourth-generation farming family; like the Wallis family, they have a strong affinity for the land. With the Wallis’s Wanaka operation centred at the southern end of the Alps and the Hutchinsons’ property located bang in the middle of the northern end, Alpine Helicopters now lives up to its name well and truly; its operations span the entire mighty backbone of New Zealand’s South Island.

The 3,000-hectare Double Hill Station is the quintessential New Zealand high country station. Situated in the upper reaches of the Rakaia River in mid-Canterbury, Double Hill has been in Tim Hutchinson’s family for 92 years. Such a long history of living with and working the land has conferred a sense of “down-to-earth aristocracy” upon the Hutchinsons—as it has with so many long-standing farming dynasties. However, one would be hard-pressed to meet more down-to-earth or friendlier people than Tim and Anna Hutchinson.

Just like their many farming family counterparts, the Hutchinsons’ “protectiveness” of Double Hill—and the much wider environment of all of the South Island’s high country—is genuine and deeply ingrained and comes across clearly in everything they say. It is delightful to meet people who—as in Tim’s case, despite a lifetime of living in a place—still appreciate its majesty and value.

Aviation has always been a “natural” activity on major “remote” farm properties like Double Hill. On many such high country properties, aircraft have become as indispensable as tractors, so Tim Hutchinson was certainly not unique when he developed an interest in aviation.

Tim’s interest in flying began 20 years ago with aeroplanes. He and a friend bought a Cessna 150 in which Tim learned to fly. The little Cessna served him well as a cost-effective first aeroplane. However, the 150 is hardly renowned as a “performer” so considering the use to which it was put, and the places it was expected to operate, it was perhaps not surprising that one day, while Tim’s friend was flying the plane, it was damaged beyond economic repair in a minor accident.

Tim’s second aircraft was an Auster, which he owned for a while before graduating to a Cessna 180; an aircraft that—in aviation circles, at least—has become as much of a Kiwi icon as the Buzzy Bee.

As wonderful as the 180 was, it still needed airstrips to operate from. In view of the terrain surrounding Double Hill and Tim’s family connection to the Wallis family (his sister Annabel married Jonathan Wallis) and Alpine Helicopters in Wanaka, the move to a helicopter was a logical progression for Tim. His journey from fixed-wing to rotary began by replacing the Cessna 180 with a Robinson R22.

Of course, the move to a helicopter meant an increase in the flying budget, and so Tim and Anna decided to make it a paying proposition by building a commercial helicopter operation based around the priceless alpine resource they had—literally—at their back door.

Before long, the little Robbie was replaced by a Hughes 300 and then a 500C, in which Tim completed his commercial licence. With the venerable C-model having done its job, this machine eventually gave way to a 500D-model as the Hutchinsons’ commercial operations took off.

The Hutchinsons’ helicopter business is simultaneously an integral part of their Double Hill Station property and a stand-alone commercial helicopter operation. In a rather unique way, it combines the life and business of the farm along with every aspect of commercial helicopter operations.

Tim and Anna’s aim is to provide a highly personalised all-inclusive “experience” that revolves around their helicopter’s ability to showcase the scenic grandeur and alpine experience of New Zealand’s Southern Alps around Double Hill Station.

Among Double Hill Station’s many attractions, they see it as a perfect venue for corporate retreats. The property features a large, recently renovated accommodation block that can easily accommodate 10 people. Overlooking the Rakaia valley and the main farmhouse below, the guest accommodation is comfortable and extremely spacious and, despite the wonderful feeling of “distance” from the city, it features wireless internet and satellite television.

As well as providing “self-catering” accommodation for groups, Double Hill is able to offer fully catered service for individuals, couples or small families wanting the ultimate personalised high country experience.

In addition, Anna, who completed extensive cooking training overseas and spent several years as a chef in hunting and fishing lodges, is easily able to cater for day groups of up to 50 guests. Having sampled Anna’s culinary expertise first-hand, I can attest to the fact that Double Hill’s high-end clients will be brilliantly catered for! Apart from its suitability as an alliteration with Hutchinson, the term “hospitality” should be Anna’s middle name, as it sums up the genuine warmth of a her wonderful Double Hill welcome.

Double Hill Station’s location gives it a rather “historic” feel; the Rakaia is highly renowned for its salmon and trout fishing, and its head is one of the two sites in which red deer were first released in the South Island in 1897 (the other being near Palmerston). The headwaters of the Rakaia River and its tributaries, the Mathias and Wilberforce Rivers, are world famous for the red deer that live there and, as a result, helicopters are very much a part of the area’s history.

As a fixed-wing pilot myself, I have often flown around the hills and mountains in the vicinity of Double Hill. Indeed, the route up the Rakaia River and a flight between Canterbury to the West Coast through the Whitcombe Pass is probably a familiar memory for just about every Canterbury PPL or CPL trainee. However, despite having flown fixed-wing aircraft in the area many times, I could hardly believe the stunning vistas of colourful glaciers, towering cliffs and steep jagged peaks that opened up to me when I flew as a passenger in Tim’s helicopter. I had never realised that such massive and scenically impressive glaciers existed on the eastern side of the Alps. From a fixed-wing aviation safety perspective, I suppose it is a good thing that I was unaware of these things. The limitations of fixed-wing aircraft mean that it just isn’t possible to get a similar view because aeroplanes cannot manoeuvre safely in the confined areas that are perfectly safe for helicopters; a fixed-wing pilot in such country needs to spend much of his or her time avoiding the large rocky bits to be able to look around at the view.

During the time I spent flying with Tim, one of his neighbours joined us for a flight into the mountains. The man is a fixed-wing pilot who has lived in the valley for all of his life. While he has been flying for many years and still owns an aircraft, his flight with Tim was his first into the area in a helicopter. He was as awestruck as I was with the scenery (including several groups of Himalayan tahr bouncing amongst the crags) and the “experience” of helicopter flight into places that no aeroplane would dare venture. It said a great deal about what Alpine Helicopters-Methven and Double Hill Station are able to offer visitors that someone who was so “familiar” with the land—and who had flown over and around it for many years—could be so impressed.

As a helicopter passenger, this area is quite simply unbelievable and literally takes one’s breath away. Double Hill Station lies just two hours’ drive away from Christchurch. Within two and a half hours of leaving home, a visitor from the city could be perched beside a high alpine tarn overlooking the headwaters of the mighty Rakaia or cruising over spectacular crevasses in the blue, pink and grey glaciers that are hidden away in impossibly steep mountain valleys. And all of this stunning scenery and “remote wilderness” lies within minutes of the helipad at Double Hill Station!

The Hutchinsons are hoping that Christchurch residents and visitors to the city will begin to realise how close they are to some of the most spectacular scenery in the country. If they want to see a glacier, they needn’t travel all day to reach Fox or Franz Josef—they need only hop in their cars and drive to Double Hill for a flight-of-a-lifetime

Initially, when Tim and Anna began commercial helicopter operations, they operated under the auspices of the nearby Mt Hutt Helicopters, which, in aviation terms, is “just around the corner” from Double Hill. With plenty of business to go around, neither of them ever encroached on each other’s speciality or “poached” the other’s customers. Nevertheless, although Mt Hutt Helicopters was extremely accommodating, there were obvious limits as to how Tim and Anna were able to promote their own unique “Double Hill Station” experience to customers.

The move to Alpine Helicopters has allowed Double Hill Station to begin promoting itself comprehensively in the way Tim and Anna always envisaged. However, Tim says his relationship with Mt Hutt was always extremely good and the two—now separate—companies continue to maintain a good relationship.

Once Tim and Anna had ability to promote the “Double Hill experience” effectively, the MD (Hughes) 500 was no longer the right machine for the job. As “back-blocks iconic” as the MD 500 has become (it is the helicopter equivalent of the Cessna 180 in rural New Zealand), the type’s age and limited size did not fit with the high-end corporate image necessary for the Hutchinsons’ plans for Double Hill Station. Accordingly, in March this year, the faithful 500 was replaced by a more modern and powerful Eurocopter AS350 Super-D “Squirrel” (ZK-HKU).

The Squirrel offers an open, airy and much larger cabin for passengers than the 500, and is much “smoother” to fly in with far less vibration. The luxurious leather seats in HKU (which can carry as many as six passengers compared to only four in the 500) are easily removable, and with its large wide-opening doors, unobstructed flat floor and greater load-carrying capacity, it offers significantly more flexibility than the smaller machine.

There is no doubt that Tim misses flying the 500; most pilots who have flown the nimble MD500 series consider them to be delightful pilots’ aircraft. However, in corporate or primarily passenger operations, they have their limitations. This is why the Eurocopter AS350/355 (and its descendant, the EC130) helicopters are now so prevalent in such operations around the world.

The “Super-D” version of the Squirrel is basically an AS 350BA re-engined with the Honeywell (Lycoming) LTS101-600A-3A engine instead of the standard Turbomeca Ariel. Compared to the little 375-hp MD500, which was working hard to carry any sort of load at altitude, the bigger Squirrel, with around 650 hp on tap from its LTS101 engine, gives Tim a much greater safety margin in the mountains than he had in the smaller machine.

In addition to the increasing corporate work, Tim continues to provide regular transport for groups of hunters into the mountains, where the Squirrel’s greater size and payload allow larger groups to carry more gear. The use of an external baggage pod increases the Squirrel’s flexibility further. The baggage pod on HKU swallows a huge amount of gear, which avoids the need for Tim to carry hunters’ gear in an underslung net, as was usually necessary with the 500.

Double Hill Station’s proximity to some of the best hunting in the world means that hunters do not have to pay a fortune for the “luxury” of rapid helicopter transport to and from their hunting grounds. A 15–20 minute flight obviates lengthy four-wheel drive or even lengthier walking access. The helicopter allows hunters to carry luxuries—like decent food—to their destinations so they can really enjoy a stay in the mountains. Furthermore, having a helicopter to carry out game at the end of a hunt certainly beats carrying it out on one’s back for many hours.

Having already demonstrated the importance of “safety first” by sensibly not showing up for our initial meeting, Tim took me flying with him on several trips. Whether he was carrying a load of hunters into the mountains or conducting a “straightforward” scenic and mountain landing, Tim impressed me with his attention to detail, methodical checks and procedures, and smooth flying. All these things added to an impression of professionalism that matches the corporate image Double Hill is aiming at. It is nice for Tim’s passengers to know that he has 20 years of experience flying in the area and knows it like the back of his hand. The fact that he first got to know the area in fixed-wing aircraft has endowed Tim with a healthy respect for the vagaries of the environment, which shows in his careful approach to flying.

There are numerous retreats and resorts in New Zealand serviced by helicopters. Some even have helicopters based on site. However, I am not aware of any at which the helicopter is such an inherent part of the whole resort experience. Double Hill truly is “home” for ZK-HKU, and those lucky enough to fly with Tim at Alpine Helicopters-Methven will enjoy an unforgettable flying experience. Set foot on Double Hill Station and one is immediately made to feel like a family friend. Fly with Tim Hutchinson in his magnificent back yard and one immediately feels like a VIP being given a private tour of a royal estate.