David Jones

Aerial Coordinator & Stunt Pilot

David Jones, Aerial Unit Coordinator
January 29th, 2024

It was May of 1990 when I first heard David Jones’ voice. He’d called me at Chelan Airways in Chelan, Washington. I was seaplane mechanic and an expert on the Dehavilland Beaver aircraft.

David Jones ran Jones & McKernan Aviation. They did aerial unit and stunt pilot work for the movies. Jones had a job in the Amazon. He’d bought a Dehavilland Beaver in St. Cloud, Minnesota and convinced Saul Zaentz to use the plane in his new movie “At Play in the Fields of the Lord.”

Jones wanted me to be the mechanic that maintained the Beaver during filming. I took the job and spent six months in Belem, Brazil at the mouth of the Amazon River about 120 miles south of the Equator.

I first met David Jones at Miami International Airport. We flew together on the Varig airliner to Belem. We hit it off right away. I could tell that Jones was a good pilot just by looking at him.

He was about 5’9” tall and wiry. He had that smile and those sharp blue eyes that good pilots have. He was also very smart.

After working all day in the jungle flying in and out of a very hazardous narrow dirt strip surrounded by huge trees, we’d get together at the Belem, Hilton for a couple of drinks on the Terrace Bar overlooking the main avenue.

David would always have two double Bombay gins, no more, no less. I’d have a few Cerpinhas (small beers). We’d talk about aviation and the stories we’d seen and heard over the years. Across the street were the hookers on the bandstand in the park and the time and temperature sign. The temperature never got below 21C (70F) at night. Usually it was about 85F and humid.

David told me that he’d had to quit working on Apocalypse Now. Jones had organized the brilliant helicopter scenes in the movie and done most of the stunt flying himself. Landing the Huey helicopter in the tightest of spots.

“That Coppola is a madman. I’d lost 30 pounds. I could tell I was dying. What did it for me was when I saw the chef on the movie set dragging a dead water buffalo through the mud into the outdoor kitchen. He was dragging the bloody animal with a motorcycle. I had to get out of there.”

But my favorite story of David Jones was about a job he did on a movie set in Yugoslavia.

There was a Huey helicopter in the woods sitting on a trailer in a clearing. The trailer had flat tires. The Huey belonged to the Yugoslavian Army and the Captain told Jones that they’d tow out the chopper for him so he could fly it.

Jones looked around the small clearing and said, “Let me start it up and fly it out.”

Jones climbs into the Huey. Starts it up. He does a 180 degree pirouette and climbs straight up out of the clearing with feet to spare from the trees. Then he flies back down and lands the Huey back on the trailer.

When David Jones opened the cockpit door the Army soldiers gave him a standing ovation.

“That was the only applause I ever got on a movie set.”

RIP David Jones
TJM