Gyrocopter crash pilot: 'He was a great son'

A pilot killed in a gyrocopter crash spent a week doing the things he loved in Northland - fishing and flying - before his final fatal flight.
Grant Simpson, 50, died when the aircraft crashed at Awanui, north of Kaitaia, about 11am on Saturday.
His passenger, 35-year-old Shane Hunt, a builder from Kaitaia, was seriously injured in the crash and is in a stable condition in Whangarei Hospital.
A Civil Aviation Authority crash inspector was at the scene yesterday collecting evidence.
As Mr Simpson's family gathered at his parent's Kaitaia home to organise the funeral, his mother Val recalled the week of fun her only son and eldest of four siblings had had at home.
Mr Simpson and his new wife, Kathy, had travelled from Taumaranui where he worked as a mobile mechanic.
"He had a week up here fishing with his father. They were catching plenty and having a great time. We all got together for dinner the night before," Val said.
"He'd been giving different people around the place flights ... he loves flying."
She said her son, a former Kaitaia College student, became a mechanic and always had a love of flying - something he may have inherited from his father, Wilf, who is a former gliding instructor.
"He was a really great son."
Last year he had given Val a surprise 75th birthday flight, taking off from Ninety Mile Beach.
He married Kathy on November 10 last year after they had been together five years.
Mr Hunt's partner - photographer and journalist Petrina Hodgson - visited him in hospital yesterday after six hours of surgery to "loads of broken bones and cuts".
"He has no internal injuries and no brain damage. He is breathing on his own now and talking to us," she said.
Ms Hodgson met Mr Simpson last September when she wrote an article about flying in the gyrocopter. It led to her partner going for a ride on Saturday morning.
"It was a perfect day for flying with such clear skies," Ms Hodgson said.
She was with Mr Simpson's sister and Kathy on Gill Rd when the gyrocopter crashed, and they had rushed to the paddock. She realised Mr Simpson was dead as she helped the injured Mr Hunt.
Last Tuesday 95-year-old Tom Trigg, of Kaitaia, had taken a flight with Mr Simpson over his block of land at Fairburn.
"I actually had two flights and by jove it was a great view. It was a great little machine and Mr Simpson certainly knew how to fly it," Mr Job said.
Autogyro Association committee member Brett Oswald said Mr Simpson was a "great guy" and an extremely skilled gyrocopter pilot.
"He would have been, you'd have to say, the best pilot, easily the most skillful pilot, in New Zealand."