Thinking As They Say,

out of the box,

is what pilots and doctors of the The Royal Flying Doctor Service have to do, the service of
providing flying doctors began in May 1928 and by the late 1930's there were
Sections of the RFDS operating in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia,
New South Wales, Northern Territory and of course Queensland, the service is
the only way to get medical attention to serious cases as the distances in the
above areas are so vast, so what to do when a night landing has to be made and
there are no ground landing lights? 

think out of the box, what has every home
in the outback got lots of? The answer, toilet paper! Take 20 or so rolls dip
them in diesel mark out the runway and light them, about 180 kilometres north
of Cloncurry, north-west Queensland, on the night of July the 31st. pilot Geoff Cobden said there were no
flares available to light the runway, so they turned to the next best thing, 20
toilet paper rolls soaked in fuel, "I've probably landed with toilet rolls
a few times a year," he said, amazing, Mr Cobden said flying into remote
spots required lateral thinking at times, "The last resort, we can land
with the lights of four cars, which gives us a touchdown point and where the
other end of the airstrip is, but that's an absolute last resort," he
said, "Generally, if a station doesn't have flares, the toilet roll option
is the next best thing to using car lights and most stations have got enough
toilet rolls." the injured female station hand was picked up from an
airstrip near the Burke and Wills Roadhouse and taken to the Mount Isa
hospital, in case you are wondering about the size of the are that is covered, piolet Geoff Cobden is based in Mount Isa, sometimes called the
"oasis of the outback", with his three-person Flying Doctors team --
a doctor, nurse and a pilot -- covering an area of some 760,000 square
kilometres, or putting it another way, an area bigger than France! (640,053 sq km).