| The Airborne Cowboy Heads North |
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It's dawn above the savannah and everything that can run or fly flees the sound of the oncoming helicopter: the jabirus and the brolga cranes, the wild horses, donkeys, wallaroos and buffalo. This area is known, in the cattle trade, as ‘rough country.’ It is a landscape that offers cattle plenty of places to hide from helicopter musterers. There are deep creek beds surrounded by spreading gum trees, and rocky gullies lined with savannah forest. It takes a pilot with the skills of Clinton Brisk to coax the cattle from their comfort zones so they can be collected and managed.
Clinton Brisk has been a Top End aerial cattle and buffalo industry stalwart for 21 years, mustering properties from the Gulf Region to the WA border and Darwin to Gove under the banner of Brisk Contracting. His other helicopter company, Airborne Solutions, has seen remarkable expansion in the past three years. Now Mr Brisk, 48, is moving Airborne Solutions to Darwin where he will demonstrate the company’s versatility and professionalism to an entirely new clientele.
Then in 1989, Mr Brisk made the transition to operating his own business, when he and partner Alan Edwards bought a chopper. It was the start of a series of partnerships that saw him win contracts in Kakadu lighting incendiary fi res, doing feral animal control, savannah search and rescue as well as mustering. He realised there was a long list of helicopter services that went beyond mustering cattle, and he would broaden his skills to become profi cient at all of them.
Grasping it with two hands Mr Brisk bought an R44 four-seater and set up Aerial Solutions as a tourism business. Working with Nitmiluk Gorge tour operator, Travel North, they initiated tourist fl ights for Ghan stop over passengers. Then his company won the tender for the entire Gorge helicopter concession. “We won that concession because we wanted to do more than just joy rides,” recalls Mr Brisk. “We wanted to take people into the park to have a look at Aboriginal art and swim and involve them in the culture and environment. The Nitmiluk Park Board liked that. ”Three years later the Gorge tourism contract was renewed with Mr Brisk’s two businesses now expanding to a fl eet of nine with 11 pilots. Not one to rest on his laurels, Mr Brisk, married with four children, is about to tackle another tougher challenge – moving Airborne Solutions into the Darwin market. “The Territory is going through a transition period at the moment, and if you’re aware of it and can make the transition,you’ll do well.”With the recent delivery of two air conditioned R44s and a Jetranger, Airborne Solutions will enter Darwin’s growing corporate and tourism market. One of the new helicopters will be fi tted with emergency fl oats so it will be able to work over water, servicing the Tiwi Islands and the Cobourg Peninsula. Along with partner Andrew Gearing, Airborne Solutions’ investment totals around $5 million in Katherine, Borroloola, Nhulunbuy and Darwin, including a new operations facility and engineering division. A Darwin based Airborne Solutions will be a long way from Mr Brisk’s cattle station musters, but he will bring the same reputation for quality work to the Big Smoke. “I think we can do it better,” he says. “The Territory is going through a transition period at the moment, and if you’re aware of it and can make the transition, you’ll do well. We’ll stress safety and new machinery. You have to operate at the highest standard. That’s where I want to go.”
Article Courtesy of "The Territory Q" Magazine  The Airborne Cowboy Heads North PDF Document (165k)
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His Robinson R22 dances across the treetops, when, spotting a few head of cattle below, the chopper rolls into an abrupt dive, cutting the animals off in their tracks, turning them in the direction of the muster. “You can’t pressure them too much or they get confused,” explains Mr Brisk. “You gotta give ‘em a chance to think about where they’re going.” The cattle will soon join others on the gallop, heading for an open paddock where stockmen wait beside a growing mob.
Clinton Brisk grew up on a property in the Hunter Valley and, after working as a ringer in Queensland, he got his fixed wing pilot’s licence at 25 and his chopper licence at 27. He knew livestock and he could fly choppers so he moved to the Territory in 1986 to fly Bell 47s on Delamere station. Those were the days when companies like Helimuster at VRD and SlingAir in Kununurra dominated the Top End aerial mustering industry, their pilots acting as mentors for young helicopter cowboys like Mr Brisk.
Mr Brisk bought an R22 fi tted with crop spraying apparatus for agricultural work, and engaged in crocodile egg collecting and weed control. That led to buying a second helicopter before opportunity intervened: in 2004 the Ghan rail passenger service began operation and Mr Brisk was approached about adding a tourism aspect to his business. More than 400 people a week would soon be stopping over at Katherine, looking for someone to fl y them over the world-famous Nitmiluk Gorge.