Paton Air owner David Empey with his team Paddy Davis and Ben Timmers.
Photo by
Fiona Lloyd
Mansfield-based Paton Air has been flat out supporting the flood recovery effort, delivering hay and sandbags to farms and communities across northern Victoria.
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Paton Air has had two choppers working with the incident control centre out of Bendigo but on November 10, when Country News caught up with them, they were packing up after delivering bales of donated oaten hay to Graeme Chessells’ stranded cattle near Bunbartha.
The team delivered 10 large round and 14 large squares to about 200 of the Chessells’ beef cattle from a nearby property off Burgess Rd.
Paton Air owner David Empey said it took about three hours to deliver the hay using a six-seater Eurocopter B3E.
The rounds were carried in two at a time, but the squares had to be choppered in one by one — due to their weight and size — to the cattle, who had made it to higher ground and the top of a levee behind Loch Garry.
Mr Chessells said a government grant and donated hay had helped make the fodder drop possible.
He thanked the Paton Air team and said he hoped to get in soon to set up some temporary fences, but said the drop meant the cattle would “not run short” in the meantime.
The Paton Air Eurocopter B3E coming into land off Burgess Rd, Bunartha after delivering hay to stranded stock on November 10.
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