IT'S NOT often your boss asks you to fly to Australia as part of your duties.
But this is what happened to former Grimsby Telegraph reporter Phillip Norton – who you will now recognise from Look North – just weeks after returning from a dream round-the-world trip.
Regular readers were kept up to date with Phil's mammoth travelling adventure through his features in the Telegraph – and, just weeks after setting down in the UK, he was back in the air again, this time thanks to an exciting helicopter assignment.
He has recently returned home from Australia after months of filming for a new BBC series of Helicopter Heroes – the first episode of which airs tonight.
The former Healing School and Franklin College student joined the Leeds-based team for a five-month stint filming the work of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.
But just two weeks into his placement, the 31-year-old was asked to travel to Australia to help film a new spin-off of the popular show.
He said: "I was undergoing some fairly rigorous training to enable me to fly as a fully fledged crew member on the Yorkshire Air Ambulance for the UK show when I had a phone call asking me what I was doing for Christmas and New Year.
"It soon became clear that I was needed to help the team already out in Sydney, and five days later I was saying goodbye to my family and on a plane flying out to Australia."
The assignment followed weeks of advanced training, from first aid to aircraft navigation.
"To film onboard the air ambulance I had to train as a qualified crew member," he said.
"Aviation guidelines meant I had to learn about all aspects of aircraft safety and even learn how to navigate the helicopter.
"I've been taught how to read aviation charts, and now I'm able to tell the pilot where to fly in order to find tiny farmhouses picked out on a map in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales.
"Perhaps the most daunting part, however, was the helicopter underwater escape training at a special 'dunk tank' in Middlesbrough.
"I was strapped into a replica helicopter which is then dropped into a deep pool of water in a simulated crash. It was quite an experience having to push my way through an escape window in an overturned helicopter while underwater, but thankfully I survived – and passed."
The escape training was one of the requirements to fly with the New South Wales Ambulance Service helicopters as they often perform search and rescue missions over the Pacific coast.
"The programme follows the work of the British medics and pilots who fly across Australia, saving countless lives every year," said Phillip.
"Most of the time I was following doctors from the UK who are spending one or two years in the country before returning home with the new skills they have learnt.
"It did involve a lot of long days – the doctors man the helicopters for 12-hour shifts, but some of the bases we flew from were a couple of hours away from where we were living in Sydney.
"There were many 5am starts and late finishes, and quite a lot of waiting around with the crews for call outs, but when they came it really got the adrenaline pumping."
From the time a call came in, Phillip and the rescue crews would be in the air within just a few minutes, and on their way to anything from a shark attack to an exploding barbecue.
"By the nature of the helicopter rescue service, the call-outs were generally to people who were very badly injured, but because I'm so busy with my camera filming everything, there often isn't much time to fully take in what has happened," he said.
"Everything seems to happen in a bit of a blur when you land at the scene of an accident. I'm so focused on making sure my footage is exposed correctly and gathering interviews that there isn't much time to have a look around and let myself be affected by anything I see.
"It's definitely a different type of journalism to what I'm used to. Usually as a reporter I will turn up some time after an incident has happened and be stuck behind a police cordon – with this job, we can sometimes be on the scene before the police have even arrived.
"The journey to and from the scene was often quite busy too, with lots to film, but I must admit it was hard to keep the smile off my face as we swooped low over the famous Opera House and Harbour Bridge to one of the nearby hospital helipads.
"It was quite a spectacle, and one I don't think anyone could ever get bored of."
Phillip flew with helicopters based in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong during the two month-long deployments, often staying with crews overnight.
"At one point I walked into the air ambulance station with my camera at 8am on a Monday morning, and didn't leave until the following Thursday. Incredibly, in the six shifts I covered back to back, I didn't get to fly on any emergency call-outs, but that's the nature of the job sometimes.
"It gave me plenty of time to get to know the doctors, paramedics and pilots though, and I became good friends with many of them. I was seen as one of the air crew by the end of the filming, and it was quite sad having to say goodbye."
Phillip is no stranger to spending time away from home, having returned from a year-long career break last summer when he travelled around the world and documented his journey on afishoutofgrimsby.com, which was serialised as a column in the Grimsby Telegraph.
"It was nice to go back to Australia and not be too worried about my budget. It's an expensive country to live in at the moment, and when I was last there a year ago I was trying to survive on less than £10 a day as a backpacker," he laughed.
"The tight filming schedule meant I only had a couple of days off during my time out there, but it was great to revisit some of my friends in Sydney and Melbourne who looked after me during my travels. It was nice to finally be able to buy them dinner and a few drinks to say thank you."
Since returning home, Phillip has been working hard helping to edit the ten programmes before they are transmitted, and admits the Sydney summer sunshine already seems a distant memory.
"Australia had one of its worst heatwaves on record when I was there, with temperatures hitting 46ºc at times. Kitted up in a flying suit, lifejacket, helmet and in a helicopter with no air conditioning, it was quite tough at times," he said.
"We had to have special training about the killer snakes and spiders that we could encounter in the bush, and there was a very real threat of dehydration and sunstroke – not to mention other risks associated with Australian call outs such as gang shootings.
"It was a far cry from the filming conditions I normally work in around Yorkshire and Lincolnshire for Look North. It was a huge challenge, but a challenge I and the rest of the Helicopter Heroes team relished to highlight the amazing work being done by British medics and pilots so far away from home."
Helicopter Heroes Down Under begins on BBC Two and BBC Two HD from Monday, April 1 at 6.30pm.
View Helicopter Heroes video