Obituary: Jim Larsen was Waitotara's Indiana Jones of the air

Jim Larsen bought his Cessna plane in 1973 and flew it all over New Zealand. Photo / supplied

Waitotara farmer Jim Larsen was known for his can-do attitude and love of flying - and he featured on television in Country Calendar and Gone Fishin', as well doing flying missions for The Lord of the Rings.

Still flying at 84, he became the Indiana Jones of the air, writes Laurel Stowell

In one flight, up at 1000 feet, a possum crawled out of his Cessna's engine and popped up just behind the propeller.

It eyeballed him for a moment before sliding along the plane and falling to the bush below.

Frederick James (Jim) Larsen died of an aortic aneurysm on September 15. His 84 years were full of rugged Kiwi enterprise and adventure.

He tried native timber milling, deer farming and eeling as well as flying tourists all over New Zealand.

He was quietly spoken and not a great talker, his wife Juliet says. He took on new challenges with No-8-wire ingenuity, and pined when he was unable to fly.

Jim was born on July 30, 1935, the fourth of Fred and Hazel Larsen's five children. The family owned a 1000ha farm in a big, fertile basin right at the top of the Waitotara Valley.

Jim and his brother Bob were the last two children at Taumatatahi School before it closed. After that he went to Ngamatapouri School, then Wanganui Intermediate and Wanganui Collegiate schools. At collegiate he held the mile running record.

He left school at 15 to work on the farm, and one of his jobs was loading bags of fertiliser into Tiger Moth topdressing planes. He fell in love with flying, joined Wanganui Aero Club and got his private pilot licence at 16.

Jim, Bob and their father stayed in shearers' quarters and worked the farm while the rest of the family lived in Whanganui. Jim and Bob earned the nicknames Thunder and Lightning, for the way they drove their car down the valley heading for town.

When Jim was 22 the brothers bought a Tiger Moth for themselves. They kept it at the farm and used it to fly to town.

When a chainsaw broke Jim flew to Whanganui to get it fixed, and went to a dance that night at the Aramoho rowing club. He took a turn around the floor with Juliet Earle during the excuse-me dance, and had just enough time to ask her to come flying.

The Tiger Moth flight was scary, she said, and she couldn't talk to him because mason bees had got into the plane's speaker system. The two became a couple and Jim sold the plane to buy her an engagement ring.

They married in 1961 and Juliet and her pony went to live at the farm. The two had five children - Wendy, Kirsty, Peter, James and Penelope.

For 10 years Larsen felled and milled native trees from bush on his Waitotara Valley farm. Photo / supplied

While on their honeymoon Jim had bought two large circular saws. Back at the farm he set up a sawmill. For 10 years he logged huge native totara, rimu and matai trees during the summer and milled them in winter - as well as farming.

He set up a flying fox to get logs across the river. The first time it was used the logs fell into the flooded Waitotara and washed all the way to the beach.

Jim had been pining for flying, and in 1973 he wrote a long list of reasons not to buy another plane, and a shorter one of reasons to buy one. He bought one, a CKO Cessna 185. It was a six-seater, and he flew his family all over New Zealand, and to Australia in 2002.

He used the Cessna to fly hay into the farm's backcountry and feed cattle during the winter, with Juliet in the back wearing a crash helmet and letting the bales go.

Then he studied for and got his commercial pilot licence, aged 42. He offered scenic and charter flights, taking people to the Central Plateau mountains or to Fox Glacier to shoot tahr.

With son Peter he started Remote Adventures, which offered Waitotara hunting opportunities and jetboat rides as well.

Jim Larsen and his son Peter were both part of the Remote Adventures tourism business. Photo / supplied

In 1983 he bought a deer farm in the equally remote Ahuahu Valley. It was the peak of the deer boom, with fallow deer worth $1000 each. Then the price dropped dramatically, and a bridge to the farm went.

Jim removed seats from the Cessna and used it to fly the 800 deer, 12 at a time, to the Waitotara farm.

He sold the Ahuahu farm and nearly had to sell the plane. Instead he diversified yet again, by grazing dairy cows, catching eels in the Waitotara River and flying them to Stratford for processing.

In the early 2000s, after a visit to friends in Golden Bay, Jim moved most of the scenic flight business to Takaka, with many flights taking trampers to and from the Heaphy Track.

Jim Larsen does a spot of welding. Photo / supplied

Then Jim needed a major heart operation. It was successful, but he was no longer allowed to fly paying customers.

He continued flying but three years ago crashed his Cessna on a Westmere farm in bad weather - having landed there to avoid paying the airport landing fee.

On that day he was going to his annual health check. After the crash the plane was upside down.

He kicked in its window, got out and waved away the Chronicle. He continued to his health check, where his heart rate and blood pressure were normal.

With that plane wrecked Jim again pined for flying. He bought a Savannah microlight, learned to fly it, and was using it regularly until his death.