Ross Ewing has been a pilot/instructor for over 40 years.He is a medical practitioner and is an internationally recognised aviation author. He trained initially as a military pilot with the Royal New Zealand Air Force and flew jet fighters, before becoming an instructor on piston-trainers and jets and later training with the United States Navy on Douglas A-4K jet fighter/bombers. He reached deputy squadron commander level and the rank of squadron leader.

He is a war veteran and saw active service with the US AirForce in South Vietnam as a forward air controller flying Cessna 0-2As. He has flown in several military and civilian formation aerobatic teams and asa solo low level aerobatic display pilot.
He served as public relations officer for the Royal New Zealand Air Force and then left the air force and took up medical studies at Auckland University. He then re-entered the RNZAF and became flying personnel medical officer and president of the aircrew medical board and lectured to service aircrew in aviation medicine and other aviation human factors.

He then entered private general medical practice and also became an independent consultant in aviation medicine for civilian aircrew groups, individuals and organisations; he has been an aviation medical assessor for the civil aviation authorities of New Zealand, Australia and Canada.

He has lectured regularly in aviation medicine and aviation human factors to civilian airline and other groups, including to ab initio pilot trainees, and has lectured in aviation medicine to doctors at Otago University, holding diplomas in aviation medicine and industrial health from that university.

He has been an advanced trainee with the Australasian College of Occupation Medicine, Royal Australasian College of Physicians and an associate member of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners.

He has written articles in aviation magazines on flying and on aviation medicine and aviation human factors.

He became an aviation author in the 1970s and has now written a number of books, both jointly and more recently as sole author. He is a recipient of the Duncan Campbell aviation writers' award.

A founding member of the NZ Warbirds Association, he later went on to form the first Warbirds formation aerobatic team flying NA T-6 Harvards. More recently, he became helicopter trained and a captain on New Zealand's only PBY-5A "Catalina" WW2 vintage amphibian flying boat. He is President of The Catalina Club of New Zealand.

He is the first New Zealand chairman of the London-based Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators, a member of the executive of the Brevet Club of New Zealand and is a member of the International Fellowship of Flying Rotarians.

He was chief executive of the New Zealand confidential aviation safety incident reporting system, known as "Icarus".

More recently he has set up a book publishing business and was re-appointed to the editorial staff of Pacific Wings Magazine

Dr Ross Ewing,

Christchurch, New Zealand
MBChB, BHB, DipAvMed, DipIndHealth
Squadron Leader (Ret'd) RNZAF, cfs.

Email address: contact us