Kim Rolph-Smith

Kim learnt to fly in Hamilton, New Zealand and worked for Robertson Air Service after graduating high school. Kim then worked for Territory Airlines and Macair charters in Papua New Guinea.

Kim Rolph-Smith our principal and chief pilot has been flying since 1964. He has now taken 3500 people for flights in the T28 Trojan and is Australia’s most experienced T28 pilot. We only employ experienced commercial pilots who are passionate about what they do and enjoy the terrific responses from our passengers, some coming back 4 and 5 times to experience the thrill of flying in these ex-military type aircraft.

Kim Rolph-Smith was a board member of the Australian Warbird for 16 years and past president for 3 years. Kim, Bill Hamilton and Bruce Simpson (both senior Qantas pilots) were responsible for lobbying the government and CAA (now CASA) to allow a person to experience a flight in an ex-military type aircraft.

This took many years to get approval. There are only a few countries around the world that allow fare paying passengers to experience flights in these amazing machines. We regularly attend and display our aircraft at airshows and fly along the eastern seaboard of Australia.

Craig Wilcockson ‘WILCO’

“Wilco” has maintained a passion for all things Aviation from a very young age and his passion extends to, not only piloting the aircraft, but also to maintaining the aircraft.

He is currently a serving member of the Royal Australian Air Force employed as an Avionics Technician. During his career in the Air Force he has worked on the MB326 Macchi, F111 Aardvaark, P3 Orion and is currently serving on the C17A Globemaster aircraft.

Wilco started flying in 1989 and has amassed most of his flying time piloting ex Military (Warbird) aircraft. He is an experienced Formation Lead and Wing Pilot and holds both Low Level Flying and Low Level Aerobatics ratings.
He is also an experienced Air-show Display Pilot conducting Formation displays, Low Level Aerobatics and Aircraft Handling displays.

Since he started flying ‘Warbirds’ Wilco has gained endorsements in the following Warbird aircraft:
CJ6 Nanchang
YAK 52
De Havilland Chipmunk
L39 Albatross Jet
S211 Marchetti Jet

Wilco has also achieved a number of aviation milestones throughout his flying career.
These include:
Flying for Media outlets for news items and documentaries
Flying for the Australian and International Military services
Flown as “Chase Pilot” for an International UAV trial
Displayed a number of different aircraft types for the RAAF ARDU Test Pilots and Flight Test Engineers
Flown as Lead Pilot in radar trials for DSTO flying the L39 Albatross against a Naval vessel.