Described as a tenacious and rule-breaking living aviation legend, Max Hazelton, founder of Australia's Hazelton Airlines, turned 95 last week and marked the occasion with a knees-up at Orange Airport's Aero Club - naturally named in Max's honor. Mr Hazelton started his bush airline in 1953 with a single Auster Aiglet aircraft and went on to build one of Australia's most successful regional airlines before selling out to Ansett Australia in 2001. Along the way, Max Hazelton's story is full of adventure, derring-do, and a healthy dose of contempt for the rules.
A pioneer who didn't play by the rules
Hazelton Airlines, alongside now-defunct Kendall Airlines, are the foundation airlines behind modern-day Rex. That airline hosted Mr Hazelton's birthday party on Friday attended by family, friends, local politicians, and senior Rex executives. Rex's Deputy Chairman John Sharp calls Max Hazelton the last living Australian aviation pioneer.
"Max did things that nobody else had done," said Mr Sharp. "In the course of doing so, he changed the way rural and regional airlines operated. He did it by breaking the rules in many cases. You could argue he was not just an entrepreneur, not just a determined person, he was very tenacious. But if I was a bureaucrat, I wouldn't use the word tenacious - I would use the word larrikin, but he was larrikin who changed or broke the rules for the right reasons."
Rule-breaking pushes through changes
While John Sharp is happy to sing Max's praises now, Rex's Deputy Chairman is a former Australian Government Transport Minister and would have had a stroke had the full force of Max Hazelton's larrikinism occurred during his watch.
"When he broke the rules, he would hop in his plane and fly to Melbourne and see Sir Donald Anderson, who was the long-standing head of the Department of Aviation, and he'd say to Sir Donald, 'I've broken the rules again," and Sir Donald would ask what he had done, and Max would say I did this, and I broke the rules in the process, and you need to change the rules - and inevitably the rules were changed."
John Sharp, in his new life as an airline executive, says by breaking the rules, Max Hazelton forced through changes that improved the airline industry in Australia. "That's what pioneers are," he says. "Pioneers are not people who follow the same path as everybody else. Pioneers are the sort of people who create their own path and Max created his own path and other people followed. Today, there is an enormous legacy that owes its existence to the man we honor on his 95th birthday."
Max Hazelton walks for six days after a plane crash - then no one would take his calls
The stories about Max Hazelton's wilder days run thick and fast. In 1954, when flying his Auster over the rugged Blue Mountains west of Sydney Airport, he got caught in a storm and crashed into trees. "I thought the highest mountain in the area was 5,000 feet, but I was wrong," he said on Friday. "It was 5,500 feet. I got a break in the clouds, and I was flying right into the trees and I thought, 'Oh Jeez.'"
Max survived the crash with only some mild concussion and walked until he found help. The Auster wasn't so lucky. Max says it ended upside down in the thickly forested mountainside. After six days, Max finally stumbled across some loggers who directed him to a post office with a telephone box an hour's walk down the Cox's River. "If I'd come this far, I could keep going," Max Hazelton said. When he got to the phone box, authorities wouldn't accept his reverse-charge phone call because he was written off for dead and his repeated calls were presumed hoaxes.
Flying cargo class
"There's another story about Max wanting to get to Sydney from Orange," said Mr Sharp. "In those days, Max was operating Short 360s. Max wanted to go to Sydney and expected to get on the flight, but it was full and there were no spare seats. Max was told he'd just have to wait for the next flight or drive to Sydney, and that's the end of that.
"And that was the end of Max until the plane landed in Sydney and the baggage handlers opened the luggage compartment and there he was, sitting on a box in the luggage compartment. And there are so many anecdotes like that, which show you how tenacious Max was in getting on and doing what he wanted to do."
Of course, that was then and this is now. If you pulled a stunt like that today, boss of the airline or not, you'd be arrested or worse, outed online. Things were a little more lax then, rule-wise. Max Hazelton has watched the world (and the airline industry change) and he's generally positive about the progress made. He was devastated when Ansett Australia collapsed shortly after taking full control of Hazelton Airlines, but he is delighted with modern-day Rex - the airline that Hazelton spawned. One suspects he's also delighted at the ongoing respect Rex and its executives like John Sharp have for him.
Respect for an old school aviator
"We did break the rules," Max admitted on Friday. At 95, he got up and took to the lecture, giving a short but on-point thank you speech. He took the time to thank the people who worked for and built up Hazelton Airlines over the years. He talked about the days when he was just starting out, crop dusting at night (again in contravention of the rules), but like any good rule breaker, 60 years after events, he still outlines the reasons why with bullet point precision.
"People came in and helped with the problems we had," said Mr Hazelton. On Friday, Max and his immaculately attired wife of 64 years, Laurel, mostly sat like the King and Queen of some small country while a conga line of dignitaries, friends, and relatives came up to shake their hands and speak to them. It was quite something to watch the deep respect for an old man nearing the end of his life who achieved so much throughout his life - and took so many people along for the ride.
"I'd like to thank you all for coming today," Max Hazelton said when wrapping up his speech. "It's something that I'll remember. I feel very proud of what we've achieved."
- The writer traveled to Max Hazelton's birthday party courtesy of Rex.