Games of marbles with the Feral Kid and counter tea with a young Mel Gibson punctuated long, hot days of shooting in the desert around Broken Hill for Mad Max 2.

Harvey, a helicopter pilot who enjoyed a long and colourful career, spent about a month in far western New South Wales flying cameramen around for the aerial shots of the cult film.

"They kept the pressure on every day," Harvey recalled.

"From first light to last light, we kept filming the whole time."

The Mad Max film crew hit Broken Hill like a storm, with Harvey meeting a range of characters there.

This included legendary Australian artist Kevin Charles "Pro" Hart, who painted a picture of Harvey in his helicopter.

"He did it in a matter of minutes," Harvey said of the talented artist.

Harvey's work with the iconic Australian film was just a portion of a remarkable aviation career.

After learning to fly around 1946 at an undeveloped landing ground at Old Bar, Harvey became one of the founding members of the Manning River Aero Club where he later became a chief flight instructor.

Harvey's career would see him fly in rugged terrain all around the world, including several stints in Antarctica, Papua New Guinea and remote Australia, with several harrowing escapes part and parcel of the earlier days of aviation.

Harvey is in the process of writing a book detailing his colourful working life.

Heart troubles disrupted the latter stages of Harvey's career, and after a quadruple coronary artery by-pass in 1986, he gave up flying in 1992.

His flying career had spanned more than 45 years with more than 16,500 hours of flying time logged in fixed-wing aircrafts and helicopters.

He married his wife Lilian in 1955 and the couple had three children.

With the fourth Mad Max movie receiving largely positive reviews from film critics, Harvey says he'll eventually get along to see the newest addition to the franchise that he worked with more than three decades ago.

"It was great to be a part of," Harvey said.