Peter George, aged in his 60s, made an emergency crash landing in bushland near Putty and was stranded for sometime before being airlifted to the John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle with serious injuries.

Liam George said his father was a "bit groggy" following an operation on his leg on Tuesday.

He said Mr George sustained no life-threatening injuries and was expected to make a full recovery.

"Doctors are looking after him really well and his quality of life will continue," Liam said.

"It is the best outcome having seen all the pictures, he's come out very lightly in the grand scheme of things.

"Our primary concern has been making sure dad is okay."

Liam said Mr George had been a pilot for more than 30 years and had a strong passion for flying.

"He took my wife and I for a fly the other day, he just loves it," Liam said.

"He is still due home for Christmas."

Ballarat Aero Club administration manager Timothy Gilfillan said he watched pilot Mr George fly out from Ballarat Airport on Monday.

"It wasn't a (Ballarat) club aircraft, it was hired from a NSW company," Mr Gilfillan said.

He said Mr George had moved to Singleton in NSW for work for six months, while his family still lived in Ballarat.

A larger aircraft had picked up a distress signal while flying over central west NSW and alerted AMSA.

Investigators are examining whether the pilot spent more than an hour flying over a bushfire at Putty before making an emergency crash landing into bushland on Monday night.

AMSA said as a number of aircraft were searching the flight path when they were contacted by a person on the ground who said they had found the wreckage of a plane and the injured pilot.

Several RFS crew members - who were fighting a bushfire at Putty on Monday afternoon - said they saw a light plane flying overhead and assumed it was a fire-spotting aircraft.

Putty RFS crew members Greg and Dianne Pierce were returning home after fighting the blaze when they spotted the aircraft ''hanging from a tree'' about 100 metres into the bush down a dead-end road.

Mr Pierce said he found Mr George badly injured and sitting next to the four-seater plane, which was perched precariously on a ledge and shaking in the strong winds. The RFS crews had to chain the plane to a tree, so it wouldn't shift and crush Mr George.

''He was pretty badly injured and worried that he couldn't contact his wife,'' Mr Pierce said.

david.jeans@fairfaxmedia.com.au