“I went out and said ‘if you can give us a minute, would you like to come in and see the helicopter’?” he asked Shannon Carrington-Hingston and her three-year-old son Paora McGhee. “So they did, and it was great fun!”

In fact, if Colin or any of his Trust Tairāwhiti Eastland Rescue Helicopter crewmates looked out the front on any given night they would see Paora and his mum on their regular circuit around Gisborne Airport so he can say “goodnight” to planes, vehicles and especially the rescue helicopter.

“He’s been obsessed ever since he first saw the team fly over our house,” Shannon says. “The helicopter is his greatest passion.”

To be fair, Paora is mad-keen on all sorts of mechanical stuff and that’s no surprise . . . his dad Paul is a sheet metal engineer; his great-uncles are truck drivers; and his grandfather operates a digger.

“He knew what to do with a sprocket set from year-dot so it really must be in the genes,” Shannon says. “But he does like to get under cars with his fixing and measuring things, so that’s something we have to be really careful of.”

Paora has had a helicopter pattern on his bedroom curtains; planes printed on his duvet cover; a cool car-shaped bed; and countless machine-related accessories from a toy rattle gun (that he converted to a pneumatic wrench), to his own helicopter complete with working rotor blades.

Before he turned three, in January, he went to daycare from where his Nanny Jude would pick him up every day and take him on a trip around Aerodrome Road to see the vehicles and aircraft.

Now he’s a big kohanga boy mum Shannon has taken on that role, which she says brings him joy every day of the week.

And regular visits to the Tairāwhiti Aviation Museum – next door to the Eastland Helicopter Rescue Trust hangar – are also high on his list of favourite things to do.

Meanwhile, living just around the corner from Gisborne Airport means the team’s biggest fan gets to experience the work of the Eastland Rescue Helicopter at all times of the day . . . and night.

“We can hear – and often see – them flying out so Paora says ‘helicopter’ and heads straight to look out the window,” Shannon says.

“We thought it might be something he’d tire of but he just hasn’t, so we’re really happy to support this big passion in his life.”

CAPTION: When he invited a small guest, Paora McGhee (3), in to see the aircraft Trust Tairāwhiti Eastland Rescue Helicopter CCFP Colin Green didn’t realise he’d stumbled across the team’s biggest fan.