“In Search of …  ”  Painting by Coplu (Coplu.Com)

Nerd Alert!

• I compiled this blog for Airbus pilots and ground staff who need to access the Airbus FOCT manuals.   It is written for those who wish to learn more about how to make full use of the impressive (but undocumented) search features in the Airbus FOCT.
• This blog has NO relevance for any other people. In fact this blog will make NO SENSE to people outside this piloting community.
• Some of the information is technical and might not make sense to people with less than advanced computer skills.
• The following is NOT official information.   This information is NOT provided in the FOCT.  This is my personal information that I offer in the hope that it may help you.

How to search Airbus FOCT manuals more efficiently

My father, Peter de Crespigny, 88, taking off in a Spitfire, September 2013.

The Airbus Flight Operations Consultation Tool (FOCT) comprises the user interface (Java) and data files that present relevant Airbus and airline manuals to pilots and other interested parties.   My A380 FOCT  for the A380 comprises 2.4GB of data spanning 2,600 files.  The FOCT supports other Airbus aircraft types.

I investigated the FOCT in detail in 2008 before the first A380 arrived at my airline.  I assisted my airline to optimise the our electronic manuals and made recommendations to Airbus to improve the FOCT.  The “DU Search” was one facility that I request in 2008 and that was subsequently released in the FOCT update in 2014.

Peter de Crespigny (Spitfire pilot at 88 years)

The FOCT provides limited documentation on how to search itself for information.

I provide the following notes to help others search the FOCT more effectively.  I use these tools every time I search the FOCT for data.  I have shared this guide with my airline and friends, all who later comment how it helped them to make faster and more narrowed searches.

I hope that this information helps you.

Understanding the FOCT Search Indexes

The FOCT uses the Lucene search engine.   Lucene is an open source, high-performance Java utility that provides search functions for compatible index files for almost unlimited data.

It is possible to view the structure of the FOCT indices.  The Luke (Lucene Index Toolbox) toolkit can open Lucene indices in the FOCT manuals, displaying the structure and showing interesting statistics.   For instance, the FOCT supports Lucene version 1 indices (Lucene is currently up to version 5).  Opening up the ECAM index reveals that there are currently 1,229 ECAM checklists in the A380 (up slightly from the 1,225 checklists that I described at page 157 of “QF32″ that I produced in 2011).  Likewise, the TITLE index reveals that there are just 6,931 pages in the A380 Flight Crew Operations Manual (up from 6,334 in January 2010) and just 257 pages in the Flight Crew Training Manual. This is irrelevant information except perhaps to consider the saving and benefits in using electronic rather than paper manuals. Given that an FCOM  “page” can span any length, we would need to use AT LEAST seven reams of paper to print just the FCOM and FCTM!

Every FOCT manual has a corresponding set of indices that are used to enable searches of that manual:

• FCOM – contents, context, ecam, title
• FCTM – contents, title
• MEL – contents, ecam, func_code, title

FOCT Indices:

The FOCT includes many instances of the following indices:  (important indices bolded)

• contents – Contains a listing of the unique words (except for stop words) for the selected manual.  For example the FCOM contains 18,000 unique words.   The “contents” index is used by default.  Word Search window uses this index.   For example: “contents:fire” or “fire”
• context – index not populated.
• ecam – ECAM checklists.  This index is used for internal FOCT purposes and is not user-friendly.  So there is little point searching this index.   For example, the Word Search of “ecam:al_29_10_060_01″ retrieves the ECAM “HYD G(Y) RSVR LEVEL LO” checklist.
• func_code  – Index of MEL entries.  For example, to find the “78-30-04 Thrust Reverser Lock” ECAM search using either the Word Search using “func_code:78-30-04″, or the Functional Code search using  “78-30-04″
• title – this is the page name / global display unit / GDU.   The discussion of his topic is now outside the scope of this document.  The title search was useful before Airbus updated the FOCT to provide the “DU Search” window.   For example, the DU Search of “4192” finds the same Autopilot page as the Word Search of the page “title: lg01087*”

Search using the following expression:   [indexname:]search_expression

• indexname is one of the index names listed above (in lower case).  The colon marks the end of the index name  (ie   func_code:23-72-01)
• search-expression is the alphanumeric search text

Understanding the FOCT Search Windows

The FOCT includes search windows for:

• Word Search   – defaults to “contents” index
• Interface Search – enable by setting “isInterfaceSearchActivated = true” in  ..\foct-conf\ct-access-search.config
• Index Search – Index not populated.  Not worth enabling.
• ECAM Search
• Functional Code Search –  defaults to ” “func_code” index
• DU Search – Search Display Units

As described previously, the Functional Code Search is similar to the Word Search, except that the Functional Code Search defaults to the “func_code” index.  For example, these two searches both locate the same MEL  (DDG) page for “24-21-01 Engine Electrical Generator”:

• FUNCTIONAL CODE SEARCH – “24-21-01″    (defaults to func_code index)
• WORD SEARCH  – “func_code:24-21-01″   (forced to search “func-code” index instead of default “contents” index)

FOCT Search

Peter de Crespigny (Spitfire pilot at 88 years)

Knowledge is everywhere.  The challenge for knowledge management systems is to  quickly identify then dive for just the pearls of wisdom rather than drown the in the ocean of big data.

The FOCT’s success as an electronic bookshelf depends upon the quality of the search engine and your ability to quickly find just the information that you need.   Unfortunately the FOCT provides little information about how to use the many search windows and no information about Lucene searches.

 The challenge …  dive for just the pearls of wisdom rather than drown the in the ocean of big data.

Enabled Search Features

Here are some search expressions that the FOCT’s search windows support.

Complex Search Examples

The following searches use various combinations of two words (icing and fuel) to show the options and their corresponding search results.

Keep Calm and Aviate!
(Painting by Coplu Coplu.com)

Note:  These search results were compiled in 2010 using the FOCT at that time.  Your search results may vary.

Flaring Iraqi gas fields (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Notes:

1. All searches are case insensitive
2. The search operation only searches for valid search words (not including Stop Words)
3. You cannot search for a combined phrase with a trailing wildcard such as “t?re”?
4. FOCT boolean (AND OR NOT) queries do not obey a strict boolean logic. “A AND B” or “A AND NOT B” will work as expected, but “A AND B OR C” will give unexpected results. It’s best when thinking of the logic to think in terms of the logic simply being applied one step at a time from the left to the right. It’s also easiest to think in terms of MUST and MUST_NOT (“+”, “-” ) instead of in terms of AND, OR, and NOT.
5. Caution. When using a + prefix, every word must have a prefix, otherwise unexpected results are returned.
6.  The FOCT also includes other utilities that could provide additional functionality (i.e. ACE viewers).
7.  I am happy to share more deeper technical information about searching the many FOCT indexes if requested.

Suggested FOCT Modifications

It’s crowded out there!  Flying west descending through 20,000 feet over the English Channel – 22 September 2014 (Photo RDC)

A380s, “Sweet Spots” and Storm Petrels

I forecast that the A380 neo will be built and that the A380 will be the largest operating passenger aircraft for decades to come.

The aviation industry continues to  evolve.   The changing political, economic, cultural, technological and communication landscape is forcing continued consolidation of airlines, routes and aircraft types.  It’s a case of  “less is more”.

The A380 is also aptly called the “RouteMaster”

The A380 is a key player in this consolidation, transporting the rapidly increasing number of passengers between congested Asian and European international hubs.   (Asia is now the largest (and fastest growing) aviation transport market with 948 million passengers flown last year, followed by North America (808 million) and then Europe (781 million)  (IATA – 2013))

I am confident that:

• the A380-900 (stretch version) will be produced, and
• the A380 will fly up until the 2060s, and
• that airline ticket prices will continue to reduce as the seat counts increase on newer aircraft.

Furthermore, I think:

• the A380 will be the last large four (quad) engine commercial passenger aircraft to be built, and
• the industry will eventually build jet engines capable of 150,000 pounds of thrust.

The A380 is a passenger magnet.    Passengers tell me “this is the best flight of my life” when I meet them in the cabin and  farewell them at the door.    They comment on  the smooth ride that the signature “Dance of the Ailerons” provides.   They love the space.   They love the entertainment.  They love the quietness that calms everyone.   Babies don’t cry, so mothers relax, the passengers relax.   The pictures outside and the time flies by.

The A380 has taken the primary role in moving people between the worlds monopoles.   The A380 is also aptly called the “RouteMaster”.   This is a fitting moniker for the aircraft’s role as the dominant long haul international aircraft of choice for the airlines that have stepped up to meet the challenges for aviations over the next 20 years.

In this blog I’ll share a few of my thoughts about aircraft “sweet spots” and why airlines ultimately invest in one brand of a spread of aircraft to bracket their operational needs. Finally, I’ll discuss why a super sonic car might influence future super aircraft designs.

Sweet Spot

Every airline’s challenge is to deploy the best aircraft type for its route structure.   Indeed the selection of size and weight in aviation follows the same pattern already cast by nature.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Photo: iStockphoto)

The operational environment determines insect’s and bird’s cruising speeds that in turn determines its weight.    Small birds are suited for slow cruise sectors whilst international maritime flight is reserved for the fastest cruising (heaviest) birds such as the Pelican and Albatross.

Migrating birds that migrate beyond their “design range” or “sweet spot” range risk perishing at sea.    Migrating birds drown if their long range cruising speed is insufficient to make headway into head winds.   Reports of mass bird deaths at sea show “natural selection” at work, extinguishing the birds that cannot accurately forecast maritime weather.

The Storm Petrel understands this weight-cruising speed-wind relationship.  Its name was derived by early mariners who observed the bird return to take refuge ashore before storms approached, conveniently broadcasting their foul weather forecast.

Using similar logic, we suggest that the Pteranodon, the largest flying reptile (despite its low wing loading) had such high takeoff, cruising and landing  speeds that flight was restricted to souring above the cliffs along the shore.

Pelican (Photo Sophia de Crespigny)

Aircraft manufacturers apply Biomimicry into their designs.   So the theories for birds also applies to aircraft – that the route length and cruise speed determines the ideal aircraft weight.   Everything else is a compromise; passenger count, fuselage size & type, wings and engines.

Aircraft selection also skews towards larger seat-counts for operations into congested airports (in Asia and Europe).

The consequences for Airbus and Boeing are clear.   Aircraft manufacturers must understand the demography and travelling habits of travelers and provide aircraft that are tuned to the same “sweet spot” speed and range that suits the market.

The  Great Flight Diagram shows a remarkable relationship between weight and cruising speed.   This graph also shows outliers.   The Concorde was hopelessly over-winged for cruise flight.  Compared with all other flying things, the Boeing 777s and 787s appear to be under-winged (faster) and the Airbus A350s appears to be over-winged (slower).    The A380 also appears to be over-winged, but for reasons outside the scope of this review.

The risk of poor aircraft selection is just as critical for the airlines as it is for bird species.  Putting the wrong airframe onto a route can have dire consequences.   The airline’s challenge is to apply the right aircraft for the required range.  For companies that fly long and short haul routes, its imperative to limit the number of aircraft vendors and aircraft  types to minimise the costs of manpower, training and maintenance.

I have gathered aircraft performance data over the past decade,    This data reveals the sweet spot ranges for many aircraft types.

I calculate that the initial A380 has a sweet spot (maximum efficiency) range of between 5,700 and 6,700 air nautical miles (anm):

• 5,700 anm (Example: 12 hours flight time, London – Singapore)
• 6,700 anm (Example:  14.5 hours flight time, Los Angeles – Sydney)
• 7,000* anm  (A380s delivered after January 2013 with the re-twisted wings and 6 ton higher maximum takeoff weight)

(Photo RDC)

The new Qantas QF7 / QF8 routes Sydney – Dallas (Fort Worth) – Sydney sectors are the world’s longest routes and are  up to 1,200 nm longer than the original A380’s Sweet Spot range.

• 6,980 anm (12,920 akm) route from Sydney to Dallas.   The 7500nm (13,890 km) ground track is shortened 520 nm by hitching a ride on the 35 knot average tail winds on the Pacific for the 14.5 hour flight.   A theoretical maximum of about 580 passengers could be planned on this sector.
• 7,885 anm (14,600 akm) route from Dallas to Sydney.   This 7510 nm (13,910 km) route is biased towards the calmer 23 knot equatorial headwinds for the 16.3 hour flight.    A maximum of about 385 passengers can be planned on this sector.

I calculate the A330-300’s sweet spot is currently between 3,000 and 3,800 anm (although the heavier weight versions will increase the optimum reach):

• 3,000 anm (Example:  6.1 hours flight time, London – Dubai (2,870 anm))
• 3,800 anm (Example: 9 hours flight time, Sydney – Hong Kong (3900 anm)

I’ll publish sweet spots for other aircraft in my Big Jets book.

Understanding sweet spots make it easier to understand why Cathay Pacific needs more Boeing 777s, Airbus A330s and A350s than B747s and A380s.  Cathay’s Hong Kong home base is located within 5 hours flying range from half the world’s population.

London Heathrow ,  a  saturated airport  in need of more A380 services

The sweet spot selection involves engine and aircraft manufacturers and airline participation.  Click here to view this excellent interview of Airbus and airline CEOs.

Sweet Spot Compromise – A380 for Slot Limited Airports

“I can’t believe the Asian carriers will not buy the A380 in big numbers.”   (Tim Clark)

Having introduced the ideal concept of the Sweet Spot, lets now look at compromises and divergences from this rule.  For sometimes the  the practice is sometimes different to the theory.

Clearly the A380 is currently tuned for the longer haul and efficiency drops if the heavy airframe is flown outside this sweet spot over shorter or longer routes.  In these cases the passenger count and freight load must be maximised to protect profits.  Interestingly, the  world’s A380s have flown an average sector length of only 8.3 hours over their first six years of operation.

The A380 is the optimum choice for airlines operating from congested airports or on congested routes.  Despite a sweet spot time of 12 to 14 hours flight time, the A380 early adopter airlines have chosen to optimise the A380 for greater seat counts on shorter routes between congested ports.  This trend (preferencing higher seat count before the sweet spot range) will continue particularly in markets where more passengers travel into national hubs that have become (politically) land-locked and undersized such as London Heathrow and Hong Kong.

• Heathrow has operated close to its capacity since the start of the decade.  In 2013 it processed 3.4% more passengers, mostly because the airlines squeezed 2.8 percent more seats into (the same number of but)  bigger aircraft such as the A380.  I think that this trend should be adopted by Hong Kong.

I think Hong Kong’s airport is saturated.   There will be no relief unless larger aircraft substitute the smaller aircraft:

2050 – 70% of the world’s population living in megapoles connected by VLA (A380, B747) and internally serviced by smaller A320-A350 and 727-787 aircraft.

• February 2014:     Operations during the two sectors  were delayed:  (holding), compressed traffic separation on approach, extensive push-back, taxi and takeoff delays – all indicating that the airport was task saturated at these times.
• 26 July 2014, QF128 flight HKG-SYD.   Whilst waiting to push back from the terminal at Hong Kong airport last night I heard the crew of another aircraft ask ATC for pushback clearance for their flight from Hong Kong to Shanghai.   ATC informed that crew that their flight was number 5 in the queue to fly to Shanghai, but due to congestion on that route, that ATC had negotiated a later takeoff slot time for the flight – that was now delayed by 5 hours!
• Aviation Journalist Ben Sandilands also considers the A380 the inevitable solution to the congestion at the slot limited Hong Kong airport.

Aircraft manufacturers and some airlines realise that Big Jets are in greater demand for short sectors:

• Insufficient new airports will be constructed to meet the growing demand over the next 20 years.
• Long distance carriers such as Emirates will operate fleets of large jets such as the B777 and A380 to connect the world’s hubs and saturated airports.
• Airbus, realising that the Asian “airpark” is full,  is considering a variant of the A300 airframe with a shorter “sweet spot” range.  This “trimmed” A330 could have a smaller fuel tank capacity which would lighten the wing structure, wing box and airframe weight.  The resulting shorter “sweet spot” range will be better suited to the short intra-asian routes.

Tim Clark, the CEO of Emirates he believes that the next generation “will recognize the value of the A380. I can’t believe the Asian carriers will not buy the A380 in big numbers.” 

Very Large Aircraft (VLA)

Consider the B747 and A380 VLA aircraft deployments.   The top five B747 and  A380 airports (respectively)  for 2013 are: (anna.aero)

Boarding the big bus (Photo RDC)

1. London (B747) \ Dubai (A380)
2. Taipei \ Singpore
3. Frankfurt \ London
4. Hong Kong \ Paris
5. Bangkok \ Frankfurt

Note:  October 2014, London Heathrow overtakes Singapore to be the world’s second largest port for the A380.  Heathrow’s two runways are now operating at 98.1% of  flight capacity (increased from 97.8% the prior year).

These lists suggest that the VLA market is primarily used to resolve major hub congestions.      Notice that Australian and USA airports fail to appear in the these lists despite the A380 having a “sweet spot” that is ideal for USA-Australia routes.  From my own recent observations, the long  lines of A380s transiting at the congested Dubai and Heathrow airports reaffirms my conclusion that the seat count currently takes higher priority than the “sweet spot” range.    On the five-times daily route from Dubai to London, Sir Tim Clark said that his A380s were running at 95 per cent capacity.

Willie Walsh (CEO of International Airlines Group) stated in this video (47 minute mark) that he is very pleased with the A380.  Two A380s (London-Los Angeles) have replaced three former 747s, same passengers, better cost efficiency and freeing up one slot at each airport.

[The A380] It’s a great aircraft. It’s extremely efficient on certain parts of our network (Willie Walsh –  CEO – IAG)

Transaero and Amedeo are two airlines extending this concept even further ….

Nancy Bird Walton (A380-OQA) (Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

Super Carriers: Transaero and Amedeo

Airbus is trying to convince airlines to adopt the 525-seat A380 configuration.

Most A380 airlines offer between 407 seats (Korean) to ~ about 540 seats (Air France, Lufthansa).    Qantas’ A380s are configured for 484 passengers (14 First, 64 Business, 35 Premium Economy & 371 Economy).  Emirates plan to introduce two-class A380s with 617-seats.

Refuelling the A380 under a London (Heathrow) moon. (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

My data analysis shows that that an A380 filled to the brim with 853 passengers (315/538 on the upper/lower decks respectively) provides fuel efficiencies that surpass all other aircraft types, including another darling of the skies, the A330-300.

“When we put the proper seat count on the [A380] plane, the economics are unbeatable and will remain unbeatable”    (Doric Chief Executive Officer Marc Lapidus)

Two Airbus customers are listening and responding to improve the A380’s efficiency.

Amedeo (formerly Doric), an aircraft leasing company is lifting the A380’s seat count to 630.   Amedeo ordered twenty A380s to most likely fill a strategic capability for airlines that wish to provide the most competitive  (low cost high density) service between congested hubs.

The Russians will supercharge low cost  air travel even more when Transaero takes delivery of its first of four A380s in 2015.   Transaero’s A380s will seat 652 passengers in three classes (12 Imperial (first), 24 business and 616 economy) making it the first airline to fill the aircraft closer to its certified passenger limit (of 853).

“Toulouse – we have a problem!”

Transaero’s and Amedeo’s challenge is to select a lighter cabin design.    They will have a limited freight capacity (with a full passenger load) if they install heavy seats in a heavy cabin.

Airlines are too conservative and have not put the right interiors into their A380s – Sir Tim Clark

Currently the A380’s limiting freight related weights include:    (see QF32 page 345 for more info)

242t – Manufacturers Empty Weight (MEW) (approx)

300t – Dry Operating Weight (DOW) (45 tonne cabin fit-out plus crew plus catering)

369t – Maximum Zero Fuel Weight (MZFW)

Airbus designed the A380 to be as light as possible.   Airbus engineers planned (and hoped) that airlines would also fit the lightest cabin layouts, ideally weighing no more than I think about 35 tonnes.

Some airlines have installed cabin designs weighing up to 45 tonnes (heavy seats, furniture, showers, bars and two lane stairs).   These “obese” cabins  leave just  69 tonnes for passengers and freight (369t MZFW minus the 300t DOW).

Emirates CEO Sir Tim Clark agrees, recently stating “airlines are too conservative and have not put the right interiors into their A380s”.

If Doric installs a heavy (45 tonne) cabin, then 652 passengers and luggage would weigh about 65 tonnes leaving just four tonnes for freight.  The freight capacity can be increased if:

Transaero and Doric install the next generation of lighter seats and cabin interiors (lighter than 45 tonnes), and/or

Airbus further increases the maximum Zero Fuel, Takeoff and Landing weights.   (I think Airbus cannot reduce the MEW).

Westminster on Thames.   London is one of the A380’s key hubs.   (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

A380 – Future

… the A380 is the future. And we don’t like anyone talking about it not being around   (Tim Clark, President, Emirates, announced Nov 2013)

… more A380s, not 787-9s, because slots at the major middle east, European, and American and Japan and China airports are at prevailing growth rates, totally wasted on smaller jets  (Ben Sandilands)

A380’s Forward, Mid and Aft fuselages. A380-900 has an additional 5 frames in the forward fuselage (+ 3.2m) and 5 frames in the aft fuselage (+ 3.2m) (Image: Airbus)

Airbus announced (October 2013) that the A380 program should break even (financially) in 2015  (based upon 30 sales/deliveries per year)

Evolutionary changes by Airbus, airlines and the engine manufacturers will all contribute to improve the A380’s efficiency by I think another 8% to 15% over the next 15 years :

• Airbus is investigating fitting massive winglets for a potential 3% increase in fuel efficiency (curiously based upon the A320).   (The wings delivered after January  2013 were re-twisted to  provide an improved cruise fuel flow.)
• Rolls Royce has announced plans to improve their engine’s Specific Fuel Consumption (SFC).   A 5% Specific Fuel Consumption (SFC) improvement could be achieved by updating the engine’s compressors, high pressure turbine blades and reducing the turbine clearances.   Keeping and laminar air flow around the nacelles will also improve the SFC.
• Airlines will be forced to fit better engineered cabins and more condensed seating.   Immediate savings can be achieved by removing the unnecessarily wide stairs, unnecessarily heavy seats and obese cabin fitouts. 

Tim Clark, CEO of Emirates recently described the A380 as “A Magnet“.      If the A380 operation can be improved by another 15%, then its future can be assured for the next 40 years, taking us up to 2050 when demand for world air travel will have tripled.  In this case I imagine the A380 being the only heavy lifting aircraft that can provide an equatorial air conveyor between the handful of clusters of the worlds largest mega cities.

A380-800

The A380-800 is 73 metres long.

The A380’s published sales price is US$414.4m (Airbus 2014).   This is higher than the “back of the envelope” figure of US$1m per ton of basic weight (without fuel and freight) although deals have been negotiated at bargain prices (Doric purchased  A380 (MSN 136) for US$245m)

The A380 continues to sell.    A total of 318 A380s have been ordered by 19 customers.  A380’s now fly to 41 airports.   Having flown 1.5m flight hours in 180,000 commercial flights, the average flight length is 8.3 hours (Airbus Sep 2014).

The A380 can be easily reconfigured to carry more seats to meet the competition:

• Most carriers configure A380s with between 450-550 seats
• Emirates will receive its first of fifteen A380s in November 2015, configured with 617 seats in two classes.  They will also convert some of their existing A380s to the 617 seat configuration.
• Emirates considered purchasing an 800 seat version for the Hajj flights.

A380 – 800 Neo

The A380 Neo is the name given to a A380-800 New Engine Option.

An aircraft’s greatest range is proportional to the engines’ propulsion efficiency multiplied by the airframe’s lift/drag ratio.  (Louis Breguet’s Range formulae)

Improved engine efficiency remains the best path to increased range.

A380 Refueling panel (Photo RDC)

Alain Garcia, the former CTO at Airbus, forecast earlier this year that the efficiency of large commercial aircraft will improve by about 45% over the period from 2013 to 2050.  Benefits will comprise:

• Acft weight down 8%
• Drag down 12.5%
• Engine Specific Fuel Consumption up 25%

Over the past 50 years, engine propulsion efficiency has improved twice as fast as the improvements in aerodynamics (L/D).

An aircraft’s Lift/Drag ratio varies with the square root of the Aspect Ratio (wingspan/chord).  Whilst the aspect ratios of commercial aircraft have improved by 40% over the past 50 years, the A380’s aspect ratio is now effectively fixed because the wingspan is limited by the 80 metre limit.   The A380’s wingtips probably cannot be made larger and more efficient, nor even installed because of clearance requirements for Code F aircraft. The aspect ratio is also limited by the maximum chord that is limited (extraordinarily) by consequences of satisfying evacuation provisions.

The A380’s manufacturer’s empty weight cannot be reduced significantly because composites already comprise 25% of the aircraft’s weight.  Even worse, range only improves by 25% of the percentage reduction in weight.

So the last frontier for improving the A380-800’s efficiency and range (other than airlines engineering efficient and lighter cabin designs)  rests with Rolls-Royce to provides an enhanced engine.

The new Rolls-Royce engine would probably incorporate the capacity for hotter turbine inlet temperatures and reduced turbine clearances for better sealing. Laminar air flow over the engine nacelle will also reduce drag.  These changes will improve the engines thermal and propulsive efficiencies and so improve the engine’s specific fuel consumption, and thus improve the aircraft’s range.

The A380-900 will be powered by the Neo designs, so it makes sense for the A380neo to be the next evolutionary step.

Tim Clark, CEO of Emirates:

• In September 2014 expressed his desire for another 60-70 A380 neo
• In January 2015 offered to increase his order to 100 A380 neo (worth $43b)
• In March 2015 offered to increase his order to 200 A380 neos

 Such orders would have Emirates owning up to 340 A380s!

Airbus will decide by the end of 2015 whether to build the A380 neo:

• The benefits provided by the A380 neo come at a heavy cost of R&D
• Airbus is reticent to spend R&D resources on an A380 neo that might ideally suit the needs of onc customer (Emirates)
• “an A380neo is at least a decade away” (Fabrice Bregier, June 2105)

A380-900

The A380-900 will be the aircraft of choice for long range intercontinental travel.

[Airbus] will one day launch an A380neo and we will one day launch an A380 stretch  (Fabrice Bregier)

I hope Airbus decides to produce the next stretched version of the A380, the A380-900.  The A380-900 will be the super conductor in the new globalised and connected world.

The A380-900 is an A380-800 stretched by another six metres to make it fill a “box” 80 metres long by 80 metres wide.   The latest “Code F”  airports are designed to cater for aircraft having up to an 80 metre wingspan and 16 metre wheel track.

I guess that the certified seat count might increase by about 100 to about 953 passengers extending the aircraft further into it’s own super league.  The A380-900 should enable unit seat costs that will be below what can be achieved by the A350-1000, 787-10 or the upcoming versions of the Boeing 777x.

I think the A380 was always designed to be 80 metres long.   The cruising speed, wing, fuel tank capacity, and limiting weights all point to this aircraft needing to have a higher wing loading and thus, more passengers and more weight (refer back to the Sweet Spot and Great Flight Diagram).

Airbus Chief Executive Fabrice Bregier recently announced that he thought the A380-900  will be available, maybe in in 2023-2028.  He asked investors to not be “impatient.”  Airbus “will one day launch an A380 neo and we will one day launch an A380 stretch.”

And When I Die …

What is the future for A380 aircraft when they come to the end of their operational life?

Multiple sling shots overhead London Heathrow at 6 am 22 September 2014. (Photo RDC)

The A380 was designed with a Fatigue Life 38,000 cycles.   Fatigue testing in the static rig has proved the airframe to more than 48,500 cycles (about 25 yrs of airline operations).

It is prohibitively expensive to reconfigure an old A380 to suit a new carrier.    Airlines’ customised A380 cabins will probably not suit a new owner.    It costs about $30-50m today to configure an A380 cabin.    Replacement Trent 900 engines start at about $10m each.

Emirate’s Tim Clarke is clear: “The A380, its future life, its [residual value] is something everybody is challenging us on. When Emirates is done with it in 12-15 years, we’ll put them in the desert. We’ll cut them up”.

The A380 neo should be available at the time Tim Clarke is threatening to shred his first A380s.

SYD-HKG Feb 2014
(Photo RDC)

By the 2025 the airspace for big jets will come to resemble the traffic jams on highways choked with cars.   Air Traffic in Asia, Europe and the Middle East will be suffering pneumonia, gasping for breath.  The busy arterial airways will be choked.   Slots at the hub airports will be 100% subscribed.

Journalist  Ben Sandilands  puts it succinctly:  “Qantas …. needs more A380s, not 787-9s, because slots at the major middle east, European, and American and Japan and China airports are at prevailing growth rates, totally wasted on smaller jets.” 

The only antibiotic and breathing space for these regions will come via the very large jets such as the B777, B747, A350 and A380 all configured for high seat counts.   Airlines must deploy these VLAs if their seat costs are to remain competitive.

At the top of this peak, the biggest people carrier will be the A380 neo (hopefully stretched and probably configured with 600++ seats)

Last of the Four Engines

I think that the A380 marks the last four engine passenger aircraft that will grace the skies.

Four engine (quad) aircraft traditionally provided benefits over the twins:

• better engine optimisation (for the cruise)
• reduced wing bending moments (lighter wing box and wing)
• improved range, payload and high altitude performance
• freedom to work outside the Extended range Twin Operations (ETOPs) limitations

But these relative advantages of the quad have reduced with time.

Economics now favours the twin over the quad:

• Simpler and lighter structures,    Twins gain weight reductions and drag benefits from lightening the structures and optimising the flows over the rest of the wing where the third and fourth engines were removed.
• The integrated aerodynamic flows, wing aero-elastics, manufacturing purchase price, running and maintenance costs
• Cheaper to buy two big engines than four small.

Aerodynamicists prefer to design simpler  “semi clean” twins rather than the more complex “dirty” quads:

•  An aircraft i s now designed as a compete integrated unit, merging the fuselage, wing and engines into one complex structure.  Gone are the days of treating them as many separate entities.
• Quad aero-elastics is more complicated than twin aero-elastics.   This is a very complex subject.  However for a simple analogy,  please view my later blog: “Bio-Mimicry of shaking Dogs”.    Whilst viewing the video, imagine the dogs’ ears being aircraft wings. Now consider being the engineer given the responsibility to design the ears, responsible for the shape, structures, aerodynamics and aero-elastics.  Now imagine designing how to mount two engines onto the ears.  Now imagine mounting four engines onto the ears…

Despite these improvements that now favour twins rather than quads, many limitations remain that prevent engine manufacturers from making engines that could power a twin engine version of the A380.

Flying over Europe at 37,000 feet (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

“The engines canna take anymore, Cap’n!”

 ( Scotty (Character) – Star Trek)

The magnificent 84,0098 lb thrust, 32,000 parts, 6.4 ton, 8.5 to 8.7 Bypass Ratio, USD$18m Rolls-Royce Trent 900.   The dorsal fin at the top left? That’s a discussion for another time!   (Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

No engine currently exists that could power a twin engine A380.  The A380 “twin” would probably need engines capable of producing up to 150,000 pounds of thrust, well beyond that current generation of engines that top out at about 115,000 pounds of thrust.    Many factors currently limit the capability to build super-engines, including:

• physical diameter of the engine (compromising the air frame by raising the fuselage higher off the ground), and
• the capability to build fan and turbine disks that are able to withstand the incredible forces without exploding (going BANG!), and
• the maximum temperature that the High Pressure Turbine blades can withstand.

The good news is that although I think the A380’s tail fin is over-sized for the A380-800, it’s probably the perfect size for the A380-900 or even the A380 twin (I’m a little cheeky).

Interestingly:

• Aviation Week recently revealed the Airbus ‘Mega-Twin’ Concept and research into very large twin jets the size of the Boeing 747.
• Emirates discusses the need to provide enhanced engines for the A380

Preventing things going BANG! …

Andy Green and I know a little bit about this.

Rolls-Royce Trent 900 4th generation fan blade – the most complicated aerodynamic structure on the A380. (1.07 metres long, 14 kg, pure titanium, “honeycomb” hollow wide chord, supersonic swept, diffusion bonded/superplastically formed (DBSPF) Cost > US$35,000 (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

First, we need to understand that jet engine turbine disks operate very close to their temperature and rpm limits.

Aviation turbine disks are certified to survive rpm over-speeds of just 20%  (44% more strain) over the maximum rated rpm.  To put the centripetal forces into perspective, each fan blade on the front of the Rolls-Royce XWB jet engine (powering the new Airbus A350) experiences 100 tons of force during takeoff – equivalent to a freight train hanging off each blade.

The high pressure turbine blades (I think the most technically complex components on the entire A380) operate in even more threatening environments.   At high power the blades sit within (and are impacted-powered by) exhaust air that is 400 degrees Celsius hotter than the blades melting point!

QF32

Part of the 1 metre diameter, 160kg, 8,300 rpm   Intermediate Turbine disk recovered after the QF32 event (Image: ATSB)

In the case of QF32, the number 2 engine on my aircraft failed when the intermediate pressure turbine disk exploded under conditions of high temperature and RPM.

Andy Green (and his Super Sonic Cars (SSCs))

Andy Green, Sydney – 2013 (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Wing Commander Andy Green is the Royal Air Force fighter pilot who in 1997 set the world land speed record of Mach 1.02 (1,228 kph, 763 mph) in the twin Rolls-Royce Spey 202 powered “Thrust SSC”  (Super Sonic Car)  jet car.

Click here to see the video of the record breaking run.  The car’s bodywork was exposed to air pressures of up to 10 tonnes per square metre.  Notice the shock waves churning-plowing the hard desert surface into dust.   Interestingly, Thrust SSC experienced an unexpected massive increase in drag at Mach 1.   The increase was attributed to the shock waves slamming against the desert floor, shattering the hard surface into an air-rock “plasma” – absorbing critical energy in the process.

After setting the land speed record, Andy’s next challenge is to build his Bloodhound SSC car that in 2015 will exceed his previous record by 31%, exceeding 1,000 mph (Mach 1.4, 1600 kmph or 447 metres per second!).

Rolls-Royce Eurojet EJ200 jet engine powers Bloodhound

Bloodhound SSC will be powered by a single Rolls-Royce EJ2000 jet engine (from the Typhoon Eurofighter), and a rocket motor (that incorporates an oxidiser “fuel” pump powered by a 750 hp Cosworth Formula 1 engine).   The jet engine and rocket will combine to produce about 133,000 thrust horsepower, the equivalent to 180 Formula 1 cars.  (click here to view the cockpit).   The EJ2000 was first installed into the Bloodhound in October 2014.

You might ask: “Why do we need 130,000 horsepower to travel just 16 times our road speed limit?”   The answer comes courtesy of the drag and power equations.  Drag is proportional to speed squared.   Power is proportional to drag times speed – so power is proportional to speed CUBED!   So we need 16 cubed (= 4,096) times as much horsepower to go 1,600 kmph than we do to travel just 100 kmph (although this equation does not account for losses from (shock) wave drag).    You will appreciate the Bloodhound’s high finesse (smoothness) when you divide 133,000 by 4,096 to calculate the horsepower the Bloodhound needs to travel at 100 kmph.

What has Andy’s Bloodhound got to do with the Airbus A380 and larger engines?   Andy told me that the Rolls-Royce and Bloodhound engineers face similar challenges:

Bloodhound SCC (image: Siemens NX)

• One of Andy’s limiting challenges for the Bloodhound SSC car is to create the fastest wheels in history that will not explode under radial loads of 50,000 G at high speed.    Bloodhound’s 90cm diameter wheels will rotate at 10,200 rpm, faster than most disks in your PC’s hard drive and three percent faster than certified 120% over-speed rpm limit for the the turbine disk that exploded on flight QF32.  View the 1,100 mph (10,429 rpm) wheel spin test.
• Rolls Royce also need to create larger and faster turning turbine disks that can power the next generation of commercial jet engines.  Their challenge is to continually extend the size and thrust limits whilst protecting reliability.

Although Andy’s wheels will be operating in cool air in the Hakskeen Pan in Northern Cape, South Africa, the research and development for Bloodhounds SSC’s  wheels will probably feed back to help Rolls-Royce design bigger more powerful turbine disks that will form the bedrock inside the next generation of larger Rolls-Royce jet engines.  Maybe with Andy’s help we will see super-engines capable of powering a future two engine A380!

Conclusion

This blog has covered some theory of flight from the Pteranodon, through the Storm Petrel, Albatross, Concorde and A330 to the A380 quad and A380 twin.  It also presents some of the challenges the engine manufacturers will face when building the next generation of turbo fan engines.

I doubt that we will ever see an A380 twin, but history shows that aviators have continually invented and improvised to make the impossible, possible.

Counter to some industry reports, I think the A380 (particularly the A380-900) will fill fly for decades, and remain the best of breed for long distance (A380-900) and also for high seat density (A380-800) travel.   Tim Clark (Emirates) thinks similarly, stating:

• “[the A380]  it’s a really good aircraft.”  (November 2013)
• “Our customers love it and it is one of the most efficient aircraft to operate in terms of fuel burn per passenger.”  (December 2013)
• “There is nothing out there that resembles what the A380 can do.”  (June 2014)

I love the aviation industry!  It’s the most thrilling, extraordinary and exciting profession.  But never become overconfident and never forget Neil Armstrong’s mantra:

“Expect the unexpected”

I hope you enjoyed this brief tour.    The complete analysis will be included in my Big Jets book.

Good luck Andy.   Good luck Rolls-Royce.  Good luck Airbus.  Good luck Boeing.

Andy Green discussing his 1997 ThrustSSC world record in Sydney – 2013. (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Rolls-Royce is a key sponsor for Andy’s Bloodhound SSC project.  Coincidentally, Andy Green is also a Cresta (skeleton bob sled) rider who recently mentored my son Alexander at the Cresta Run in St Moritz.

Summary

The A380 is a passenger magnet!

I forecast that the A380 neo will be built and that the A380 will be the largest operating passenger aircraft for decades to come.

“Please help me!” write Emily Redmond

“Dear Richard,

I am currently undertaking my private pilots licence with the intentions of hopefully becoming an airline pilot in future.  I am just wondering if you could possibly take a short amount of time to give me some tips with regards to flying and the best approach for me.

I have read you book “QF32“.  It  has inspired me even more to continue with a career in something I am so passionate about.”

Richard Responds

Thanks for your question Emily.   I don’t have sufficient time to respond personally to the hundreds of people who ask me similar questions.  So I have amassed all of my answers into this blog that I will update regularly.  Please:

• post any unanswered questions at the end of this blog,
• revisit this page occasionally to find new and updated information, and
• select “FOLLOW THIS BLOG” at the top right of this page to receive updates

Aviation Pathways for Aspiring Pilots

“Thanks Rich” said John Barkas. “It was awesome to be invited to the flight deck yesterday morning after our chat on flight QF10 from Dubai”   (John had occupied seat 5K on QF32 on 4 Nov 2010.)

1. Aviation Pathways
2. Constraints
3. Training Options
4. Employment Options
5. Employment Tests & Interviews
6. Career Development
7. Alternate Career
8. Aviation Industry
9. Aircraft
10. Life Plan
11. Money
12. Where From Here?
13. Summary
14. For more Information
15. Answers to Questions
16. Ask a Question,

I urge not just aspiring pilots, but all people working towards a dream to read this article (Brandon Bullhorn)

The Lancet

“Science, Freedom, Beauty, Adventure… aviation offers it all!”  (Charles A. Lindberg).

I include (for fun) italicised quotes from “THE LANCET” dated the 28 September 1918.  

The report is headed “The Essential Characteristics of Successful and Unsuccessful Aviators” by T. S. RIPPON (Captain RAMC, attached RAF) and E. G. MANUEL (Lieutenant RAF)  (Thanks to Robert Wilson, Editor Flight Safety Australia, CASA for the research)

Disclaimer

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Aviation is more than just a difficult career, it’s a difficult life as well.   (I am writing this paragraph on a Sunday morning sitting in a hotel in Dubai 7,000 miles away from my loving family)

Nothing in life comes easy.   Aviation is a hard and time consuming journey and not one for the distracted or impatient.  You will have to work hard if you want a successful career in aviation.  The effort needed to learning to fly is less than 1 percent of the effort needed to gain the knowledge, training and experience to become a safe and efficient jet pilot.  The challenge is to improve your skills commensurate with increasing responsibility as you methodically work your way towards the jet’s left hand seat.

Your aviation life will have highs and lows.

The highs are real and measurable.   Your feelings and emotions of  love, thrill and excitement of flying result from surges of the human body’s natural (and sometimes addictive) hormones.

 You will remember the natural “highs” that we feel after the pleasure of:

• passing your Wing’s Parade, Conversion courses and licence tests (dopamine);
• fly the fastest most powerful and complex aircraft in difficult circumstances (dopamine);
• commanding an expert crew of pilots and cabin crew (serotonin);
• being a leader who creates a safe, supporting and productive environment  (serotonin);
• bonding with the crew and passengers (the parents and grand parents, nervous fliers and excited children)  (oxytocin)
• being respected and thanked by passengers who tell you as they leave the aircraft that your flight was “the best that I have ever had”  (serotonin)

The unfortunate (though case-hardened) pilots will never forget their negative feelings of panic, fatigue and fear that might have accompanied:

• surviving emergencies (adrenaline); and
• flying to a safe landing in adverse (fog, ice,  turbulent, windy) weather (cortisol).

Rewards in your life lie beyond your comfort zone

The cost of entry to the cockpit is high; physically, emotionally and financially.   You need to be determined, confident and courageous because there is no easy path to flight, and rewards lie beyond your comfort zone.  Don’t plan nor expect to be helped through these stressful phases as they are ultimately your own personal challenges.  If you don’t have the money to learn to fly then it’s your responsibility (not others) to research the alternative paths.

If you are older than 15 then you probably have less than twenty five thousand days remaining to live.   For anyone working towards achieving a dream; make the most of these days, live and enjoy every one of these days, love these days.

Hopefully the information below will help you kick-start your career.

1. Aviation Pathways

Back to: Aviation Pathways

There are many pathways to taking up a career in Aviation.      Careers exist for pilots, engineers, technicians, air traffic controllers researchers and journalists.

Chasing the sunnset (Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

The best pathway for any person is one that suits the applicants interests, passions, skills,  physical fitness, and financial capability.

Aspiring Aviators need the same  Situation Awareness to plan their careers that professional pilots use when flying.

My definition of Situation Awareness is knowing:

• Where you were
• Where you are, and
• Where you will be

Review these aspects of your life at least ever year to ensure that your career plan is  achievable and on track.

2. Constraints

Back to: Aviation Pathways

2.1  Mental Constraints

“there are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots” (E. Hamilton Lee)

You must remain in perfect mental health to be an effective pilot.    This leading edge industry is flooded with threats, where the survivors live by Neil Armstong’s mantra:

“Expect the Unexpected”

Pilots are the most expert managers of risk.    Pilots identify, classify and negotiate risk as part of their daily functions.   The best pilots (risk managers) are those who possess the mental aptitude to appreciate threats, then develop skills and discipline to manage the risks.

Do not panic if you lack these skills.  Most of us start without these skills but fortunately they will develop along with your maturity over time.  Learn by talking to the older and wiser aviators who by definition have the “right stuff” to survive.   You will be surprised how happy the experienced pilots will be to help point you in the right directions, to “give back” and to mentor.

You are expected to possess the following personal traits when beginning a career in aviation:

• Passion (the Why)   (Why I want to be a pilot)
• Core ethics (values and beliefs)
• Determination, drive, aspiration
• Independence of thought
• Thirst for unlimited knowledge
• Pride, dignity, respect & empathy for others

THE LANCET – 1918:  …..[the successful pilot] possesses resolution, initiative, presence of mind, sense of humour, judgment; is alert, cheerful, optimistic, happy-go-lucky, generally a good fellow, and frequently lacking in imagination. ..

THE LANCET – 1918:  …. [He]  possess in a very high degree a fund of animal spirits and excessive vitality.

Personal traits you will be expected to acquire throughout your career include:

• Maturity
• Confidence, courage and persistence tempered by modesty and even vulnerability
• Decision analysis
• Teamwork, communication and leadership

 “the minute pilots think that they know everything is the second before they do something really stupid”

•  Successful aviators are confident but never overconfident.   I am reminded of this every three months when I revisit the simulator!

Personal skills you will be expected to acquire throughout your career include:

• Computer literacy.  The ability to use computerised systems.   The knowledge to understand and recognise when automated systems fail and the ability to take manual control to ensure safe flight.

2.1.1  Passion

Passion is an emotional turbocharger that resides deep in your fast and instinctive mind.   Passion empowers your values and beliefs.   Not everyone has a passion, but you  can observe it in others and you know when you find it.  You can feel your own passion, yet cannot describe it in words.  Passion inhibits the negative and inhibitory processes that dominate processes in our mind.   Passion engenders a focus and offers unlimited energy to pursue thoughts or actions.    Passionate people wake up with the energy and inclination to devote almost unlimited effort to achieve results.

2.1.2  Maturity

consider completing your academic training before commencing flying training if you are immature for your age.

Maturity provides the ability to control our thoughts, impulses and emotions.   The mature mind harnesses three brain centres:

• Emotions and fear (flight and fight circuitry in the limbic system)
• Thoughts, impulses, motivations,  sociability (grey matter, that peaks at puberty)
• Wisdom (white matter connections, that sub-peaks at about 25 years of age)

The brain does not mature by getting larger.  The brain matures when the “hyperlinks” in our white matter, correlates the “knowledge” in our grey matter to become more interconnected, and specialised to respond to the environment.

too much knowledge is a dangerous thing

Teenagers take on risky and emotively behaviours because these three brain functions peak at different ages.   The feisty limbic system develops in the first years, the grey matter tops out at puberty, and wisdom doesn’t peak until our mid 20s.  These development mismatches explain the teens’ propensity for risky and reckless behaviour, free thinking, experimentation and socialisation.

The timing in my graphs for Thoughts, Wisdom and Recklessness vary for every person:

• Wisdom (the green line) first peaks at about 25 years of age, and slowly increases afterwards.
• We are reckless (the amber line) and more inclined to do irresponsible acts from the age of puberty until about 25 years of age.

Interestingly, a graph of “aviation accident rates versus age” follows this graph of recklessness up until 65 years of age.

The mismatch is greatest in our formative years from ages 13 to 25.   Tennagers’ brains have insufficient wisdom to resolve their abundant knowledge.  Teenage minds are like “cities” of knowledge but without the wisdom to differentiate and select the best outcomes.

We act recklessly when we have insufficient wisdom to control our thoughts and emotions.   In these cases we have trouble controlling impulses or managing risk.  We act irrationally, make wrong decisions and take unwise risks, often to our detriment.

The mismatch in the brain’s development is well suited for expansion and evolution of the species, however it is not well suited to disciplined, conservative procedural pursuits.  This timing mismatch explains why our young teenagers’ appetite for socialising and risk taking, peaks just after puberty.  Perhaps it explains why some teenagers opt out of reading and relaxation for the higher risks associated with:

• social media,
• violent computer games,
• shoplifting, reckless car driving (car accidents account for 50% of teen deaths),
• homicide, suicide (second and third cause of teen deaths), and
• drugs, firearms, street gangs and terrorist activities.

To make matters worse, puberty is now starting earlier, boosting hormone responses when the mind is even less mature.

Understanding that maturity grows as recklessness falls in the late teens and early twenties is information we need when planning our careers.  Where does your personality appear on the reckless-maturity graph, and why does it matter for your aviation career?

A mature mind is more capable to identify, rate and work with risk and thus maximise survival.  So consider completing your academic training before commencing flying training if you are immature for your age.   For example, you have only one opportunity to complete your flying training in the air force, so don’t fail because of immaturity.  This was my strategy.

I was probably too immature at 17 years of age to attempt and pass the Air Force Direct Entry pilot course.  I started my four years of RAAF Academy academic training when I left school at 17 years of age.  My full time RAAF flying training commenced when I was a more mature 21 year old.

2.2 Pilot Licences

Photo: Byron Van Gisborne

The world’s aviation authorities are currently harmonising with ICAO’s range of Pilot Licences.

For example, the new Australian licences include:

• Recreational Pilot Licence (RPL):   >= 16 years old, > 25 hrs (20 dual, 5 solo),  Fly within <= 25nm from aerodrome
• Private Pilot Licence (PPL):  >= 17 years old. 35 hrs experience
• Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL):   >= 18 years old
• Multicrew Pilots Licence (MPL)
• Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) >= 21 years old, 1500 hrs (for fixed wing).  Must undertake Multicrew Co-operation course, and flight test.

EASA licences pic.twitter.com/A3fXccRb4E

The airlines will most likely require a CPL as a pre-requisite for employment

2.3 Financial Constraints

Dad’s Turbo Piper Arrow (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Another Dad in Paradise (Photo Richard de Crepsigny)

You will need about USD$150,000 to pay for flying training and flying hours to obtain a Commercial Pilot’s licence.   If you cannot finance this training then you must search for less costly entry options via:

• Airline Cadet Courses (if available)
• Military

2.4  Education Constraints

2.4.1 Research

Recruit pilots must attain the employers’ required skill levels.  These requirements are  realistic.  They based upon the skills that you need to become a pilot then have spare mental space and capacity to develop into captains, managers and leaders.

It is your responsibility to find out airlines’ requirements for employment as a pilot.   Don’t ask your parents or friends to research this for you.  It’s not their job.   It’s your job to do the research for your career.

The best airlines and defence forces generally require the highest levels of practical skills.   These requirements are the first filters that separate those who have the highest motivations and potential to become a pilot from those that don’t.

(Photo RDC)

2.4.2 School

You must acquire some basic skills at school if your want a career in aviation.

Take charge of your time at school.  Don’t waste your school years.  You are responsible for your learning.  You are responsible for your ignorance.   I list a few essential education criteria below.

2.4.2.1  Maths and Physics (essential)

Plan to graduate school with Mathematics and Physics subjects.   Chemistry would also be an asset for an aviation career, but is certainly not a requirement.

It’s not hopeless if your academic skills initially fail to meet the grade.  In this case however it’s now up to you now more than ever before to alter your values, beliefs and motivations.  You will have to work harder to pass the subject or consider repeating school until your marks improve.

Gaining mathematical skills is one of your most important steps to ensuring a successful and secure career.   Surveys show that people with superior maths skills are creative and become effective contributors and leaders in critical roles.  25%-40% of people with maths skills earned doctorate degrees, compared with just 2% of the entire USA population.

Focus on maths if your maths skills are lacking.   Be seduced by the beauty of maths.   Read and re-read the maths books.    Dream the maths.  Find the beauty in maths. Repeat the maths exercises until you reach perfection.  Enjoy the addictive dopamine high that you feel when you solve a problem.   When you make this commitment, you’ll gain a sense of understanding, purpose and meaningfulness for maths, experiencing the joy  of using the equations and processes as tools to solve problems,  just like the screwdrivers and hammers in your toolbox.

Your joy for maths can be as emotionally strong and addictive as your passion the that you feel for music, art and poetry – you just have to commit yourself to study it.  You just have to try.

No-one can help you with this.  It’s up to you.   You can do it!   Prove to everyone else that you can do it!

2.4.2.2    Computer Coding (desireable)

Everyone who works with mechatronic  (engineering, computers & electronics) technologies should have computer coding skills. Coding skills include the fundamentals of computer communications, algorithms, logic and code.   These are the blood vessels, brains and universal languages through which  computers monitor, process and respond to the environment.

Coding skills help us to survive our future in a digital world increasingly dominated by algorithms.   Coding builds critical thinking skills and an appreciation for why technological is designed, how to use it effectively and what to do when the technology fails.

Here are a few of the many ways that you can develop and maintain your coding skills.  :

• Complete a computer course at school
• Join a STEM club at school or local community (or create one if it does not exist).   The Code Cadets at Canberra Grammar is a great example of how a few students can help each other to achieve great results.
• Write “Hello World!” on your iPhone or iPad using Apple’s Swift  program.
• Build exciting computer controlled sensing and interactive controlled machines in minutes with remarkable Arduino kits.
• Learn Java, Visual Basic or  Delphi if you are just interested in software languages.

2.4.2.3   Stress of Study and School

It is normal to be  stressed by the activities of study and school.  The art of learning is a personal journey and starts only when we become aroused.   Stress is a personal state and some scenarios that stress one person will not stress another.

Canberra Grammar Code Cadets (www.codecadets.com)

I am a pilot not a psychologist.  However  my small understanding of  how the brain is designed, its functional makeup and its limitations has helped me to study more efficiently and effectively.  Here are some of my thoughts to improve your study techniques and to reduce stress. These methods worked for me – I hope they help you.

Please consult your teachers or perhaps psychologists if  you are unable to manage your stress levels.

2.4.2.4  Focus

It’s natural to be distracted whilst studying.  However distractions destroy focus and thus the quality of study.  So how can you minimise distractions?

Learn to love the term “study”.  Planned, focussed and prioritised study is the path to your success!  Study processes and assimilates knowledge into your mind.  Knowledge is power.  Power is is success in this competitive world.  Power comes through focussed study, deliberate practice.   The major skill that separates us into our separate track, careers and outcomes is NOT intelligence, it is our study, our deliberate practice.  Mozart, the Beatles, Tiger Woods, Federer, Neil Armstrong are the best examples of experts who have excelled through deliberate practice.  This is your method if you wish to join their ranks.

Focus deeply until the topics that you are studying consume your mind.   Don’t just give the thought a fleeting interest, focus deeper, going into the detail then deeper again.  Get inside the thought.  What if….   Extend yourself…   Immerse yourself…  Drown in the thoughts.

Vestibular System (Photo R de Crespigny)

When we focus on a thought or sense, the brain’s inhibitory neurons block extraneous senses and thus enable us to narrow our focus even more.   We become “tunnel visioned” when we focus on a thought or sense to the detriment of others.  Feelings, noise and distractions vanish.  Attention is maximised.  Time flies.   (Click here to read more about the neuroscience of inhibitions)

It’s easy to experience how we can tunnel our senses and avoid distractions.   Work through a Sudoku puzzle the next time you run on an exercise machine. You’ll find that focussing on the puzzle has the effect of the suppressing the pain and awareness of running.  The discomfort and fatigue vanish, time quickly passes and you will reach your exercise goal with less mental effort.

2.4.2.5  Study Breaks

Plan your study time to include breaks.  Frequent breaks improves focus and mental agility.  The Pomodoro Study Technique  is one example of how to plan breaks into study time:

• Decide on the task
• Set a “pomodoro” (iPhone/kitchen) timer to n minutes (default 25 mins)
• Begin working on the task
• Take short (3-5 mins break) after every “pomodori” time interval
• Take a long (15-30 min break after every 4 “pomodori” time intervals

2.4.2.6  Social Media

Social media is  distracting,  addictive and counter productive to study

Avoid the distractions of social media during study time.

Social media is distracting, addictive and counter productive to study.  Social media hooks us with hits of the dopamine hormone that is released every time we accept a new friend-connection.   We get a hit even if we don’t know and will never meet the other person.

Social media absorbs time for no work benefit.   We are now spending more time alone on social media that at any other time in history.  Time spent on social media is time lost to listen to our peers, learn, develop our skills and to advance our careers.

• Allocate the first hours in your day (or after exercise) to study when your mind is fresh and primed with new neurons for learning.
• Spend free time to socialise and network with real peers and friends.
• If you must use social media, then spare time for this only during the last hours of the day when your mind is effectively worn out.

2.4.2.7  Confidence

The key to remaining in control is to keep confident physiologically, mentally and emotionally:

• Physiologically – via exercise! It clears the mind, helps simplify thoughts and keeps your body agile.
• Mentally – make a plan for your studies and keep to it. Socialise, but leave the wild parties until next year!
• Emotionally – keep some time to yourself to relax and doing what YOU want to do (electronics, motorbikes, bicycle….)

2.4.2.8.1  Memory

(Painting Jaak de Koninck http://www.jaakdekoninck.be)

Whilst pilots are very “left brain” factual types, the brain appears to be more suited to remembering artistic and visual patterns that are handled in the “right brain”. This means that it is important to give a visual or image context to any data, formulae or facts that you are trying to remember.

The “left brain” processes characters, words and expressions, the “right brain” receives sensor data (images, sounds, taste, smell, touch).   So for example describing an image tends to moves the memory from the right brain to the left brain where the image is more easily “lost”. This “Verbal Overshadowing” means that describing an image often has the effect of impairing your otherwise effortless ability to subsequently recognise that object!

Memories are reinforced when accessed by many sources (cross-linking). This means that you ideally want to create notes that link and cross-link/hyperlink to all your other data. Only a few PC programs do this properly, but mind maps can achieve the same though they reside in your right brain and cannot be stored efficiently in PCs.

2.4.2.8.2 Memory – Practice

Oliver Klaas (3 yrs old) (Photo Jason Klaas)

Memories are also reinforced through repetition.

Sleep!   The sleep processes selectively weaken short term memories and as a result restores plasticity in the mind.   The consequences of this behaviour include:

• The best time to study is during the first few hours after waking
• Memories are best retained if laid down during multiple sessions, each after a period of sleep
• If you do play computer games, then play them at the end of the brain’s day when you have the least capability for form new memories.

The extreme form of practice is called “Deliberate Practice” – practicing the things that challenge us repetitively over periods of years and over 10,000 hours. Mozart, Tiger Woods and Michael Federer are proof that Deliberate Practice works. Whilst you won’t have time to fit in 10,000 hours, any repetition helps!

Celebrate success.   The dopamine hormone hit we get when we achieving goals rewards the work mentality in our mind.   Success sponsors changes to improve happiness, confidence, courage and thus our future successes.

Make a “To Do” list.  The first item must be “Make my bed“.   You will get a dopamine “high” with a sense of pride that you have accomplished the first task of the day.   It reinforces the belief that the little things do matter.   Even if you subsequently have a bad day, you’ll have the pleasure of coming home to a comfortable bed!

2.4.2.8.3 Memory –  Exercise

Exercise improves memory and reduces stress.   Exercise increases the rate that brain neurons are created in the Dentate Gyrus.   These new neurons increases the brain’s plasticity which aids learning and the rationalising of previous previous experiences-stresses.

2.4.2.8.4 Memory –  Summary

• Feed your mind.   Study.   Take every opportunity to gain experience in all aspects of your field.
• Facts are easier to remember when they are associated with images, photos or patterns with other facts
• Build mind maps to replicate and associate and cross-link facts residing in the “left brain” with images in the “right brain” – indeed in this case the two sides of your brain now reinforce each other
• Reinforce memory by either associating it with great stress (this is risky!) or by revisiting the memory many times. Lay the memory then strengthen the bond by revising (studying) many times at regular and increasing intervals.

2.4.3 Personal Traits

Employers require more from job applicants than just academic results.

Once you have jumped over the academic barriers (raw IQ and education scores), employers then divert more attention to your personal health.  Personal health is a study of your attitudes, beliefs and behaviours.   You will be assessed in the areas of conscientiousness, extraversion, openness and agreeableness and neuroticism.   You will also be assessed about your behaviours such as exercise, drinking and smoking.

Take part in active sports.  Sport improves your brain’s motor skills, social skills and confidence.

I recommend school military cadet programmes.    The military drills, courses and camps foster and develop skills in discipline, teamwork and leadership – attributes that every professional pilot must possess.

Beware – a pilot’s life is one of continual study, learning and development.  Technology is always changing and improving, so you will have to study for your entire life if you choose to fly professionally.

RIP the World’s best aviator – Neil Armstrong who said “expect the unexpected” (RDC)

Pilots undertake training courses and frequent check flights.  My employer requires that I be re-certified to operate seven times every year:

• 4 x simulator check flights (4 hours each)
• 1 x day of emergency procedures training
• 1 x Route Check (QF32 was my 2010 route check)
• Aviation Medical Certificate

2.4.4 Age

Do not despair if you are an older university graduate or if you have extensive industry experience and now wish to become a pilot .  Your study and efforts have not been in vain, but be patient.

Airlines first employ you to fill the role of a pilot, however your university degree and experience gives you additional skills that will potentially differentiate you from the younger inexperienced pilot recruits.

Airlines require pilots in senior technical and management positions to have additional skills, so should be keen to employ graduates from Business, Engineering and Test Pilot schools.

2.5  Physical Constraints

All pilots must possess a current medical certificate to be able to fly.

2013 IPC World Cup Thredbo (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

The medical requirements vary with the pilot’s age and type of licence. You will need very good hearing, correctable eyesight and above average spatial and hand-eye coordination.

If in doubt, visit an aviation certified medical examiner before you commit to any training to determine your medical ability to fly.

You must know the many personal, physical and educational requirements to join the military if this is your preferred pathway.  The military recruit relatively  few pilots so it is not surprising that they employ only the most healthy and physically capable candidates.

THE LANCET – 1918:  The successful aviator has always the attributes of a sportsman. As a schoolboy he takes part in all forms of athletics and usually played for the school in one game at least. After leaving school he still keeps it up, and probably goes in for other kinds of sport-hunting, shooting, fishing, rowing, golfing, motoring etc. 

You must remain physically fit for your entire career.   If you partake in risky activities such as road cycling, rock climbing or toboggan racing then ensure that you have a backup career available in the event that you become injured and unable to retain a medical aviation certificate.

THE LANCET – 1918:  We found that the best type of pilot was seldom drawn from a sedentary occupation, that those who had lived a sheltered life were not so good as those who had roughed it. …. 

2.6  Gender (Sex)

There are no constraints separating men from women to take up an aviation career and there is no discrimination against female aviators in progressive countries and companies.

Globally only about 3% of pilots are women – that’s about 4,000 out of 130,000 pilots worldwide:

• British Airways employs 3,500 pilots, but only 200 are female
• Less than 100 of the 2,500 Qantas pilots are female

Less women than men apply for careers in aviation, perhaps because:

• 85% of applicants had dreamed of being a pilot since their earliest childhood years.  Perhaps less women than men commit to flying in these early and formative years whilst at home and school,
• The lack of female role models in aviation,
• The aviation industry’s lack of support for women who plan to raise children,
• Gender bias that preferences male pilots.

Regardless of gender, all applicants must possess a passion for aviation, an aptitude for flight and the dedication to commit to a life of learning and development.

3.  Training Options

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Your decision of how to train to fly will be influenced by the status of the industry, the jobs available and your resources to learn to fly.

You will need an Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) to captain a commercial airliner.  You will need to pass about 14 exams and acquire 1,500 hours flying experience.   Here are some of the many pathways that you can take to achieve these goals.

 3.1  Initial Career Assessment

I recommend a few hours of flying instruction or private flying (with a friend) as part of your initial research before you commit to a career in aviation. The theory of maths, science, Bernoulli’s theorem, and the fun and thrills of  of high speed flight are different to the physical realities of oil soaked engines, pre-flighting engines on cold winter mornings, and the first time when all senses overload during practice emergencies.

3.2  Private Flying

(Coutesy Santiago de Larminat)

Private flying lessons give you the flexibility to select  the types of skills that you need for your desired career.

Private flying is an excellent method to gain broad skills in diverse areas though often these operations are conducted with unknown  governance, culture, training and standards.

If learning to fly privately, then you should get a twin engine endorsement as soon as possible during your training. Your navigation exercises can then be flown in twin instead of single engine aircraft.  You will therefore acquire multiple engine experience as quickly as possible.  This plan saves money for your overall training and increases your chances of employment.

If you wish to join the military, then limit the amount of private flying first, as the military generally want to take you before you have acquired “other” skills.

3.3  Cadet Program

Cadet Programs are an excellent way to learn to fly for minimal costs, though you might have to repay training costs if you leave before a bonding period expires.

Cadet Programs may have a pre-requisite of  no flying experience, or up to 240 hours (Multi-crew Pilot Licence) or 1,500 hours (FAA)  flying hours experience.

Cadet Programs offer advantages for pilots who are looking for a life and career  in the airlines.   The airlines provide the structured working environments, atmosphere and culture where the pilots learn from osmosis the principles of human factors, responsibility, leadership, safety, teamwork and personal development.  However airline cadets often miss out on flying in diverse environments and experiencing the “challenging events” that give confidence, case harden the skills and bullet proofs the character.

To view these thoughts from another perspective, Friedrich Nietzsche‘s famous quotation:

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”

infers that pilots who develop their skills from diverse and challenging flying backgrounds will probably become more resilient than those who experience a stress-free and risk free passage.    (Malcolm Gladwell’s book “David and Goliath” extends these thoughts.)

Cadet programs can  very expensive.  Lufthansa for example trains its pilot cadets over a period of 29 to 33 months at its Airline Training Centre in Phoenix, Arizona.  The course costs 70,000 Euros US$ 140,000) that is paid back in installments after commencing employment.

Click here to see a list of Pilot Cadet Programs

Cadet programs offer no resilience for your careers in case you become unfit to fly.   Your training program is only focussed towards flying and your pilot’s licence will be of no help later if you lose the ability to fly due to physical or mental problems.

3.4  Technical College Diploma

Technical colleges provide short regimented aviation courses.  Students graduate with a “Diploma in Aviation” and the basic Commercial Pilot’s Licence (CPL).  If you want to be a professional pilot, then expect to outlay additional costs after this course to get twin engine and other experience.

3.5 University Degree

Edward Leung after Hong Kong – Sydney flight Feb 2014. Edward has moved to Australia to complete the Aviation course at The University of New South Wales (photo Edward Leung)

I recommend that pilots gain tertiary skills.  You will have the most resilient career if you combine your flying with a university course in another field.

Acquiring knowledge will help you get a job.  Universities impart knowledge. Knowledge begets confidence.  Knowledge is power.   Knowledge will help you adapt.  Knowledge will help you survive.  Ideally your university course will complement flying.

Universities teach students how to think effectively and be better leaders.  Clear thinkers make better decisions.  Making better decisions builds self-confidence.  Self confidence helps us to make the tough and courageous decisions.

University courses in Science, Aerospace and Engineering provide the most skills to bracket any aviation career.    Many of my pilot friends have degrees in law, psychology, engineering, computing and science.  These courses also bullet-proof your options in case you wish to pursue careers in other industries.

“Aviation Studies” courses normally include physical flying lessons.   These course also include a broad range of aviation subjects (safety, leadership, law,  crew resource management, performance, aerodynamics …. ) that cover the breadth of knowledge that is needed to gain entry to any airline sector.

You will probably graduate from these Aviation Studies courses with a Bachelor’s degree and the subjects completed for an ATPL pilot’s licence.   These qualifications are ideal if you want to join an airline.   These narrower and focussed qualifications have less application though in other industries.

Although the order in which you train is not important, I think that it’s best to undertake university and college courses;

• straight after school (it’s easier to study when young and used to studying than to study when you are older and have not studied for many years),
• during a downturn in the industry (when there is less employment), and
• when working regular flying rosters (studying in your hotel room!)

THE LANCET – 1918:  The [successful] fighting scout is usually the enthusiastic youngster, keen on flying, full of what one might call the “joy of life,” possessing an average intelligence, but knowing little or nothing of the details of his machine or engine; he has little or no imagination, no sense of responsibility, keen sense of humour, able to think and act quickly, and endowed to a high degree with the aforementioned quality, “hands.” He very seldom takes his work seriously, but looks upon “strafing the lines” as a great game.

THE LANCET – 1918:  ….  The authors, however, desire to express their definite conviction that the less the fighting scout pilot knows about his machine from a mechanical point of view the better.

 3.6  Life After Training

Life is not fair.  You will fail often, especially when faced with Donald Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns” and Neil Armstrong’s “unexpected events”.

You must plan to be resilient if you become unable to fly.

Always plan to augment your skill sets after joining an airline.

Give yourself the skills to continue in another profession.  You will be “bullet proof and not gun shy” only when you develop your confidence to face the vicissitudes of life and to continue when the unthinkable happens:

• never give up,
• face down your fears,
• step up when the times are toughest,
• do the hard things and
• be all that you can be.
• It’s at this point that you will have the confidence to take more risks and to advance your career:

4.  Employment Options

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Your focus after gaining your initial licences is to improve your employment prospects.   Use your time constructively:

• Improve your knowledge.
• Grab every opportunity to fly.
• Use spare time to study and gain more advanced licences.
• I suggest that it is not in your best interests to spend time in other aviation trades  (cabin attendant, ground ops or customer service) at the expense of gaining flying experience.

4.1  Military

“Uncle Sam will pay to teach you, if you’re willing to bleed a little!”

My son Alexander after a flight to heaven and back in an F-18 fighter.

Do NOT join the Military (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) to learn to fly for no charge, for this most remarkable flying comes at a great lifestyle cost.

4.1.1  The Military is a lifestyle

The military job is a way of life:  discipline, military history, physical and mental stress, constant study, constant development then deployments when and to where the military decides.   You will be a military officer first, and a pilot second.

You must be confident to undertake a military flying career

4.1.2  Personal Qualities in the Military

You must exhibit (or have the potential to develop) the following personal skills to undertake a career as an officer pilot in the military:

• Physical fitness.   Flying fighters requires peak physical fitness.  You will sweat, puff, pant, strain your neck and be fatigued at the end of a 30 minute combat manoeuvres flight.
• Confidence and the ability to handle failure.  You cannot expects others to have confidence in you if you do not believe in yourself.
• Initiative
• Leadership.   You will be asked to give examples where you exhibited leadership in challenging situations.   You will be tested for Leadership, situation awareness and problem solving skills.
• Teamwork

Military life is hard!    Be prepared to change your thinking, expectations and actions to suit the military doctrine.  These values and beliefs were best described by Admiral William H. McRaven:

• Start every day with a task completed (even if it is just making your bed!)
• Find a mentor to help you through life
• Respect everyone
• Understand and take risks
• Step up when others falter
• Face down aggression and bullies
• Support others
• Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often, so
• Never, Ever give up

Commander Jim Lovell (ex US Navy) (Photo: Michael Watson)

Chuck Yeager on Twitter:   (Chuck was the first pilot to exceed the speed of sound (Mach 1))

Reader asks Chuck:   “Isn’t flying expensive to learn for a profession?”

Chuck Yeager answers:   “Uncle Sam will pay to teach you, if you’re willing to bleed a little!”

4.1.3  Academic Skills and the Military

Your military flying training only starts when you acquire the foundation skills.

You must have skills in  the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects to be eligible for a career as a military pilot.   The military uses only the most advanced and leading edge technologies.  So you must understand how high technology is designed and constructed so that you can operate it to its full potential.   Arts skills are valued lower than STEM skills.

If your STEM skills are lacking, then act to improve them.   Read and practice maths and physics. When you apply sufficient effort, your skills will improve and you will start to enjoy these subjects as a result.

4.1.4  Military Return of Service

A military career is a long career.

The RAAF invested about 1.5 million dollars in the 1970s for my RAAF Academy and pilot training courses, so I had to spend at least eleven years in the force.

Today the costs exceed five million dollars and the bonding period has increased to about 14 years!

THE LANCET – 1918:  ….  Flying Overseas:  There is certainly a cumulative strain on the pilot, greater than any other form of aviation. Duties overseas consist of: (1) artillery observation; (2) offensive and defensive patrols; (3) trench strafing; (4) night bombing; (5) day bombing ; (6) long reconnaissance and photography.  

THE LANCET – 1918:  ….  One of the greatest strains on the pilot’s nerves is when he sees one of his friends go down in flames, or, after arriving at the mess, he learns that so-and-so is missing. When this occurs with monotonous regularity it is very hard for the pilot to maintain his mental equilibrium. There is no branch of the service where losses are more keenly felt.

4.1.5  Civil aviation for ex military aviators

Military pilots make excellent commercial aviation pilots:

• The remarkable Sully Sullenberger (ex USAF)

  The flying skills and experience attained in the armed forces exceed the minimum standards of commercial airlines.  When recruiting new pilots, airlines usually double the hours of military flying experience when equating them to civil pilot flying experience.  The military pilot’s deep knowledge about the theory of flight, airframes, aerodynamics, performance and propulsion form an excellent foundation for any civil aviation career.  You should have sufficient experience for employment in any commercial airline if you leave after completing your “return years of service” (to repay the military for their costs to train you).

• Wing Commander Andy Green (RAF) and his Bloodhound Super Sonic Car

  Military pilots aspire to perfection knowing that it is an illusion and that they will never achieve it.  The airspeeds, altitudes and approaches that they fly might be close to the target, but close is never good enough and they know that they must always improve their skills and expand their limits.

• Military pilots understand leadership, teamwork, comradeship and trust.  Military courses are designed for teams, not individuals.  Obstacle courses are designed to defeat individuals – you will only survive if you help others and in turn others help you.   The best military leaders exhibit the highest standards in these areas, replacing attitudes of narcissism and conceit with humility and vulnerability.
• Failure is never an option for the best military aviators.     This attitude is exemplified by navy pilots who must return from a mission with little fuel and perhaps a damaged aircraft to land on a dark very short and unlit deck on an aircraft carrier  that is pitching on rough seas in stormy weather.    These skills do not go unnoticed.  Jim Hansen recounts that six of the seven Apollo commanders that landed on the moon were former navy aviators.

4.1.6  Military bonds are forever

John Bartels (Now: Captain A380.  Ex: Royal Australian Navy)

You don’t cross a finish line alone in the military,  you always cross it with someone else

The bonds that you make with your course colleagues will never be broken. You will never forget your shared experiences.

Your colleagues become your extended family.  You remember their families, their girlfriends, their strengths, their weaknesses, how you helped them and how they assisted you in return.

You don’t cross a finish line alone in the military,  you always cross it with someone else.  You train together, you survive together.   I remember the weekly physical test at the RAAF Academy.  We failed the test if we were unable to run a few kilometers within a specific time.   I was a good long distance runner.  My friend Gerry Carter was a great short distance runner.  So Gerry and I used to pair up and run the test together, he pulling me along through the middle sections and I spurring him on to the end.  The instructors saw our alliance and feigned not liking it.  Standing at the finish line they yelled out, “faster de Crespigny!  Don’t slow for Carter“;  but I never did speed up.  Gerry and I raced as a team, we finished as a team.

Friendships and respect forged in the military last forever.  For example, today I met Professor Joe Lynch during my flight from Dubai to London (19th April 2015) .  Joe was one of the 44 other cadets that joined the RAAF Academy with me in 1975.   I went my way after graduation and Joe went his way to fly Chinook helicopters.   I had only seen Joe a handful of times since we graduated pilots’ course in 1979, but it didn’t matter.  It was as though I had seen Joe just yesterday.   The memories and emotions came back when  I hugged Joe.   Nothing else needed to be said.

4.2  International Airlines

(Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

QF1, Sydney Dubai, October 2013. (Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

The best international airlines only recruit well trained and experienced pilots.

The airlines do not teach you to fly, they simply show you their standard operating procedures and convert you to their aircraft.

The aircraft, pay and conditions are superior, but you will be employed to ultimately be a captain and the highest flying and leadership standards are expected. You will need about 1,500 / 3,000  military/civil hours respectively.

The international airlines generally employ pilots with jet experience from the military, turboprop and jet airlines.

Flaring from 40,000 feet overhead the Iran Oil Fields 2014.

4.3  Regional, Domestic and Low Cost (budget) Airlines

Bombardier Dash 8 at Tamworth Airport (Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

The regional, domestic and low cost (budget) airlines live in the middle of the pilot “food chain”.   These airlines operate with razor thin margins.

The low cost and budget airlines generally operate over short routes of less than three hours to hopefully fly more sectors than the value added airlines.  All costs are trimmed to provide the legal minimum requirements.

The value added domestic airlines face significant competition.  They might fly longer routes than the low cost airlines, but the increased choices of airlines and the competition puts an upper cap on air fares.

Domestic airlines are very different to long haul international airlines.  The average sector length of the short haul airlines is between 2.5 to 3 hours, compared to 7-8 hours for the long haul operators.   You will fly more sectors, have better hands-on flying skill,  return to your home each night and be less affected by jet lag than your long haul brethren.

The low cost airlines generally have only a few aircraft types.   The pay is less, with more limiting career promotions and less exotic international travel than those offered by the long haul airlines.

You might be able to join these airlines with the minimum of 240 flying hours (Multicrew Pilot Licence) or 1,500 hours (FAA).

Be very careful joining an low cost airline with less than 300 hours of flying experience.  Safety is reduced when airlines put inexperienced of under-confident pilots into the First Officer’s seat.  You will be flying with only one other pilot. You must  learn the skills of your trade much faster and with fewer safety nets than apprentice pilots in the international airlines.

Its not just your passengers that are put at risk, it’s your career if the unthinkable happens and your performance is questioned.

Be prepared to pay for your training costs if you leave the low cost airline before your bonding period is repaid.

The need for regional flying is growing.   For the regional airlines in Australia from 1985 – 2008:   (RAAA conference  Sep11)

• The number of regional airports has reduced down from 268 to 138
• The number of airlines has reduced from 53 down to 27
• BUT the number of passengers has increased from 1 million up to 6 million

4.4  Air Freight Companies

The passenger aircraft industry offers a more reliable future for pilots than the air freight industry.

190 specialist air freight companies boomed over the last twenty years at times when jet fuel was cheap and the rapid road and sea freight alternatives were underdeveloped, slow and provided poor customer service.

Times have now changed.  The air freight industry that once boomed is now holding steady or even in a gentle decline whilst the ground freight companies provide cost effective and acceptable competition. Only 0.5% (43m of 8.8b tonnes) of sea and air freight was carried in the air in 2012.    50% of this air freight is carried in the cargo holds of passenger aircraft.   The remaining 50% is carried by 1,645 dedicated air freighters, two thirds of which are converted passenger aircraft.    The belly based cargo market has declined 30% over the past four years due to effective competition from alternative carriers.    (RAeS AeroSpace, Oct 2014 p10)

Looking out twenty years to 2034, the market for air freighter pilots is uncertain, particularly whilst jet fuel prices remain high and surface based competitors become more efficient.  Even the internet delivers many goods electronically that were once packaged and air freighted. Nevertheless aircraft manufacturers remain optimistic and forecast the freight industry will continue to grow at 3.2% per annum. They forecast the number of dedicated freighter aircraft will increase by 2,670 (870 new and 1,800 converted passenger aircraft).    (RAeS AeroSpace, Oct 2014 p10)

I forecast that short range air freight will be managed via:

• increasing excess capacity of cargo holds of passenger aircraft,
• a steady or even declining number of dedicated air freighters, and
• increasing efficient road, rail and sea freight alternatives.

I forecast that long range air freight will be managed via:

•  increasing excess capacity of cargo holds of international passenger aircraft,
• a steady number of dedicated air freighters.   I also forecast that in 30 years we will see autonomous air freighters (with remotely pilot override) that will transit the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, and
• increasing efficient sea freight alternatives.

4.5  Tourist Industry / Outback / Crop Dusters

Blue Hawaiian Helicopters tours on the Big Island. Kona (the island’s second airport) and this heliports are deposited on top of and covering many black lava flows. (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

4.5.1 Tourist Industry

I suggest that for other than retired pilots, that the tourist industry be planned as a brief “means to an end” to acquire flying hours on your journey to a jet airline.

Flying in the tourist  industry is one of the best ways to build up your hours prior to joining an airline though the repetitive nature of the flying limits your full potential.  1,000 hours flying the same 1 hour sector produces less learning experiences than 300 flights with random routes and destinations.

4.5.2 Outback Flying

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”  (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Ryan Bullock asks:  “I currently have an option to fly in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia for a year and also for a cadet-ship with a regional airline.   Which should I pick”.

Ryan, I would accept the offer to fly in the NT then take the cadet-ship with the regional.  The exciting outback experience will provide a great foundation for any commercial airline position.   I also think that early in a pilot’s career, that time is best spent laying a broad range of core skills and experience than to just acquire seniority in an airline.

I recommend all pilots early their career take up opportunities to fly in the sparsely populated areas the world (Australia, Alaska, Canada, New Guinea, South America ….).

Imagine this (brief) sojourn similar to a medical internship – the pay and working conditions might be poor, but you will gain immeasurable experience, confidence and resilience whilst also having fun learning the basic practicalities of flight, navigation and performance, all without the distractions that come with congested skies and over-controlling management.

Outback pilots quickly acquire the maturity and many of the basis hands-on flight skills necessary to start a flying career.   You will gain responsible and be able to  appreciate and manage the diverse threats and stresses such as navigation, weather, cold/hot temperatures, poor aircraft performance, aircraft mechanics, poor airfields and sometimes troublesome passengers.

Many of our most valuable life-lessons are learned from challenging experiences, and those who have seen more will be more armor-plated to anticipate and manage future risks.   You will probably inadvertently scare yourself a few times and learn to appreciate the benefit of not skimping on your fuel orders and weight and balance limitations.

You will also probably come to appreciate the technical complexities and risks of low flying.  More importantly thought, you will start to appreciate your skills and limitations and become aware of when it is prudent to stand with the birds on the ground rather than to launch into the unknown and into potentially dangerous weather conditions.

4.5.3 Crop Dusting

(iStockphoto)

I only recommend Crop Dusting and other low level high performance flying jobs for the case hardened, mature and experienced pilots. Except for military and helicopter flight, it’s almost always safer to he higher than lower in the air.

Crop Dusting pilots work in an almost exclusive environment of severe risks and stresses:  limiting performance, time, dust, visibility, wires, fatigue. Save the Crop Dusting career until you have thousands of hours experience and the maturity to know your aircraft’s and your body’s limitations and the confidence to say “NO, I’m not flying today!”. Your friends and family will thank you for these decisions!

5  Employment Tests & Interviews

Back to: Aviation Pathways

The interview is not about you,  what you know or your qualifications.  It’s about the company, how you will fit into its teams and culture, influence others and  finally deliver results.

It’s not about you – it’s about them!

Airlines hire future junior pilots with the intention that they will become captains.   Airlines worry about hiring the wrong person because this is one of the most costly mistakes that they can make.   It’s expensive in terms of money, time, market momentum, credibility and emotional energy.  They also worry about the risk to their business and reputation if they entrust their brand to someone who fails to deliver or damages relationships through incompetence or unethical behavior.

You must convince the interviewer that you understand the company and why you are a necessary part of their future.

Tony Hughes writes:

It’s not about you – it’s about them! That’s strange, you’re thinking, they’ve asked me in for an interview and they’re asking questions about me – of course it’s about me! They want to compare me with others. No, they want to know what you can do for them compared with what others can do for them. There is a very important distinction – what can you do for them? Not, tell us everything about you.

Painting by Jaak de Koninck
http://www.jaakdekoninck.be/

5.1  Preparing for your Interviews

5.1.1  Housekeeping

• Ensure your Curriculum Vitae is tailored for the specific job and up to date.  Keep the summary short – no longer than two pages.   A LinkedIn page does not replace a resume.  Focus on your characteristics and capabilities more than your aspirations.  For example  Leadership (responsibility, authority, confidence, courage, vision, organisation, communication).  Confirm your referees are able to support your applications.
• Clean-up / shutdown your social media.  Shutdown inappropriate social media channels.  Remove any embarrassing photos or text.  Be prepared to log on and show your social media pages to your employer

5.1.2  Research

You must prepare and do massive research before your interview:

• Company structure
• Aircraft types, route structures
• Company history, share price over past 10 years
• SWOT analysis
• Knowledge about the industry/sector – 3 major current issues
• What are one/two favorite things about the company – why do you want this job?

5.1.3  Reading

Fledgling pilots should read:

• QF32.  I designed QF32 to be a motivator for and assistance to anyone seeking an aviation career.

Future jet pilots should read:

• “Handling the Big Jets” by D.P. Davies.  Although written in the 1970’s this book contains timeless gems for heavy commercial jet operations.

5.1.4  Tests

You will probably be required to complete psychometric and aptitude testing.

Psychometric tests assess specific personality types, values and beliefs as a measure of motivation and suitability for a specific job.

Aptitude tests measure the ability to perform specific tasks in varying situations and stress.  These tests may include:

• Motor control – basic hand/foot/visual motor coordination and tracking skills.
• Maths, physics, English and comprehension
• Memory –  short and long term memory
• Multi-tasking – perform multiple tasks accurately and under pressure
• Spatial Perception and Orientation

5.2  Interviews

You will be interviewed by a panel of specialists.   Have examples of your situations and experiences that show your ability to:

• solve problems
• show commitment, initiative, leadership
• work with difficult people
• manage upwards when  required

Demeanor

• Be confident, engaging and engaged.
• Be happy to enter a conversations but don’t talk or waffle on about yourself too much.  Remember, it’s not about you!   Show them subconsciously that you understand their problems, what they need and how you can deliver.
• You don’t need to fill in quiet space
• Be prepared for the impossible or tricky questions.  Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know but I’ll find out”

You have to want to work for them as much as they want you.  So consider asking questions about the:

• culture
• communications, all voices heard/valued
• personal development,
• teams versus the individual,
• promotion
• philanthropy

Third party companies provide courses to help you improve your interview and test results:

• Pinstripe Solutions

6. Career  Development

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Summary

• Aviation has irrevocably changed with the arrival of low value add airlines in our flat globalized world.
• Your rate of promotion in an airline depends upon the health of the aviation industry, your company and your skill sets.
• Pilots are more personally responsible now for their personal and career development than at any time in the past.

A380 Diversion Fuels from London Heathrow (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

A pilot’s life is a never ending journey of  learning and discovery.   The skills that helped you get your airline job won’t keep you there in this fast morphing world.   Your skills have to develop to keep in pace with the industry.  You are responsible (not the company) to ensure that your skill sets develop and diversifies to remain relevant.

You are the master of your destiny.   There are no fairy godmothers who will mentor you and guide you through your career.   However, great things happen when preparation meets opportunity.

6.1  Health – Aviation Industry

The aviation industry has doubled in size every fifteen years since the 1970s.   This growth rate is forecast to continue through to at least about 1940.  (It is forecast to triple from 2011 to 2050)     (Aviation Industry)

The aviation industry also exhibits growth cycles having a 10 to 15 year period.    Try to identify where the industry is currently in relation to the cyclic changes.

Knowing these trends will help you when deciding whether to seek employment (on the upside swing) or complete full time education or military service (on the down side).

6.2  Health – Companies

(Photo Airbus)

Choose your employer carefully.  Your promotion will be limited by the depth and growth of your employer. Promotion will be rapid in an expanding company.

Airlines are financially more challenged now than ever before.   The world’s airlines were expected to return a $3 billion profit in 2012 on $631 billion in revenues. That’s a razor-thin 0.5 per cent margin.” (IATA Jul12)

One analyst put it succinctly:

“the yields are asymptoting to zero!”

This low margin means that the airlines now have little profit remaining after paying dividends to stakeholders to allocate for mentoring pilots and their careers.

Three examples will suffice:

• I joined Qantas as a Second Officer in 1986.  I then spent 18 months as a Second Officer before taking up the First Officer Promotions course.   Today , that same transition (S/O to F/O) is taking up to fourteen years.    Transition from F/O to Captain is taking another 5 years.
• Promotion will be rapid in Lion Air.   Lion Air commenced operations in Indonesia in early 2000 and now has a combined fleet of over 700 aircraft.   Lion Air ordered 234 new aircraft in 2013!    There should be a rapid transition from F/O to Captain.
• Promotion will be rapid in the Middle Eastern airlines for experienced First Officers and Captains.   These airlines require pilots who have in excess of 3,000 hours of jet experience.

6.3  Pilot Skill Sets

THE LANCET – 1918: The skilful pilot appears to anticipate” bumps.”  He is invariably a graceful flyer, never unconsciously throws an undue strain on the machine, just as a good riding man will never make a horse’s mouth bleed.

Sydney Runway 34 with simulated 125 metre minimum visibility required for takeoff (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Do what you love and love what you do.

•  Get used to the concept that your (pilot’s) life will be one of continual practice, learning, development and acquisition of new skills.
• Your employer will expect you to turn up with the right attitude, present to your passengers and “make their day”..  You can’t fake these skills – they are driven by your passions, values and beliefs.  So  understand what you love, then love what you do.  When these actions come from the heart, then they will be honest, contagious, effortless and people will follow you.
• Be skilled up in advance of your next promotion opportunity.   Pass your ATPL subject exams at the earliest opportunity.
• Knowledge, training and experience gives you confidence and courage to face the risks, make the best decisions and hopefully in the worst case survive the events that you had never trained for nor expected.  Your career will stagnate when your skills stagnate.  You must never stop learning for you will never know everything about aviation.  

Sydney Runway 34 (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

 Airline initial and recurrent training is now conducted in simulators.   This Airbus video shows how pilots now use many simulation tools on their path to a front seat in the big jets.

Find a senior pilot who will mentor you throughout your career.

Here is your checklist to remain resilient as a pilot in aviation:

• Be ruthlessly and unendingly curious.  Become addicted to and embrace change and learning.  Resist the status quo.   Become immune to the feeling of underconfidence when you are pushed outside your comfort zone.
• Maintain your passion for and literacy in the fields of science and technology:  what you use, how it works, and why it’s necessary.
• Embrace future trends, always looking for opportunities to evolve.
• Read and study and cross reference books, magazines, web sites and trade press.
• Learn from every crash and near miss.
• Socialise with the other pilots when away from home base – don’t retreat to your room to play computer games.
• Join the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators and other aviation organisations.  (View this video that details why you should join the RAeS)
• Develop your computer skills.   Learn to code in any computer language as these skills will give you the confidence to be in command and critical of the automated systems that you will have to work with, that will at some time fail.
• Don’t use paper.  Build then continually update your personal Knowledge Management (KM) system which is your repository and cross-reference for your aviation knowledge.  (100% of my aviation knowledge is stored in a structured PC based knowledge management tool that is hyper-linked, indexed and constantly updated.)  Click here for more information about KM systems.
• Be confident flying your aircraft,  Be unafraid of your aircraft.  Wear it like a glove.
• Maintain your hands-on flying skills!  Don’t fall into the trap of believing that hands-on flying skills are not needed in new highly automated aircraft, for your job is to guarantee the safety of your passengers whether your aircraft is stalled, inverted, spinning or on fire (QF32 p 102).  (Proof:  Of the 4269 fatalities from commercial jets between 2003-2012, 39% (1648)  were due to Loss of Control In-flight and 18% (765) during landing! (Boeing Summary August 2013))

6.4 When to Leave

It’s your life, you have limited days left.  None can be repeated.  Take charge of your days.  Don’t waste them!

Damaged lift on QF32’s wing tips (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

It’s difficult to know when it’s the right time to leave one employer for another.   Imagine the situation where you have a great job, friends and lifestyle with your current employer.  The next job offers better conditions, but there are associated risks when you change jobs and it’s very hard to balance up all the factors and decide if and when it’s best to pull up your roots and commit to a new employer.

Here are my thoughts to consider when deciding if it’s time to leave your employer:

• Leave when you are no longer challenged.  Leave when you are no longer learning, broadening your experiences or developing professionally.
• Leave if you do not share the values, ethics, cultures and beliefs of the company.
• Leave it the company does not appreciate your input.

The ultimate test is:  What would you do if you found out today that you had an incurable disease and that you had only a few years left left to live?  Would you stay with your friends in your current mediocre job or move to another job?   Let the answer to this question be your ultimate guide.

It’s your life, you have limited days left.  None can be repeated.  Take charge of your days.  Don’t waste them!

7.   Alternate Career

Security is a swear word!

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Are you are prepared for the unexpected?   Every pilot should have a plan for an alternate (secondary) career in the event that their primary career is halted due to ill health, airline retrenchments or a bad experience.

Four examples suffice:

1. In 1976, my 18 year old friend found that his aviation medical was permanently cancelled after he was knocked unconscious for the second time whilst playing football.  He was subsequently forced to leave the RAAF Academy!
2. I started my computer company shortly after joining my Airline as I calculated that I had a 50% chance of being retrenched in event of an industry down-turn.
3. Hundreds of pilots’ careers came to a quick end as a result of the 1989 Australian pilots’ dispute.
4. Many of my friends have had their aviation medical license permanently revoked (and their aviation careers terminated) due to declining health.

Pilots can purchase “Loss of Licence” insurance in the event that they cannot renew their Aviation Medical Certificate.   However I consider the cost of this prohibitive for the return.

Rather than taking Loss of Licence insurance, I recommend that when you have found your first job in an airline that you study to acquire a backup career in another profession (building, law, finance, computing …).   Ideally choose an alternate career that complements aviation (ie computing, electronics, engineering ..).

You should have an alternate career in reserve in case you decide that aviation is not for you.   You need a backup career so that you do not feel like a prisoner locked in a career that no longer inspires you.   Perhaps:

• you are tired of the stress that accompanies the continual study, simulator checks and route checks
• your body does not handle the time zone changes
• your wife does not like you being away from home and the kids
• your income is not worth the early starts and late finishes
• you become tired of flying

7.1  Security is an illusion

“Security is a swear word!”   I purposely wrote these words in my book QF32 (page 33) because you will never find security in an aerospace career.   Indeed it’s an illusion and counter-productive for those who think that they have it.

Insecurity is the fuel to build resilience.   It’s okay to feel insecure.   It’s positive, healthy and motivating to be aware that you are never safe from risk, and that others would be willing to take your place if given the opportunity.

People respond well to insecurity.  Our minds are biased to fear failure more than we value success.   We fear missing goals and losing opportunities.

Insecurity will keep you on your toes.  It will energise you to seek new opportunities and espouse the best work ethic and to succeed.  Listen to you insecurities and let them power your progress.

So never take anything for granted.  Never stop enhancing and diversifying your skill sets.   The sooner you accept to live with insecurity, the sooner you will take control over your career and your destiny.

7.2 Alternative Careers in Aerospace

Heath Calhoun at the 2013 IPC World Cup, Thredbo (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Many potential pilots will be disappointed to discover that they are unable to pursue a flying career.  The strict medical, physical and psychological requirements will prevent many aspiring pilots from achieving their dreams.

If you find yourself in this category then do not give up – do not surrender for there are many exciting and rewarding alternative careers in aerospace that are waiting for you – if you jump to the challenge!

never give up – never surrender!

Canberra Grammar Code Cadets (www.codecadets.com)

I recommend that you attend university and complete an engineering degree if you want to embark on a non flying aerospace career.    I recommend a commerce, finance, or law degree if you do not want to complete an engineering degree.

Engineers gain the practical knowledge, skills and experience that engenders courage and the confidence to tackle any aerospace profession. Indeed, engineers appear to dominate in the highest echelons of aviation in leadership, management and specialist areas. An engineering degree will also ensure employment in almost every STEM based industry.

I think the Mechatronics Engineering degree provides the ideal foundation for any aerospace career.

Exciting opportunities exist for university graduates in the following aeronautical industries.  Pick the career that motivates you the most:

• Wing Commander Andy Green and his Bloodhound  (Mach 1.3) Super Sonic Car

  Leadership & Management  (Tom Enders, CEO Airbus is an engineer.   Richard Carcaillet, Head of Strategic Marketing at Airbus is an Aeronautical Engineer.  Simon Ford, head of Alternative Investments at ANZ is an Aeronautical Engineer, Alan Joyce, CEO of Qantas is a mathematician)

• Finance (leasing, venture finance, insurance)  (Most of the infrastructure financiers at (Banque Nationale de Paris)  hold engineering degrees)
• Safety (safety, risk, certification)
• Administration (flight planning, scheduling, crisis management)
• Manufacture (aircraft, simulators, support equipment, UAVs)
• Training (simulator instructor, ground theory instructor, safety, CRM, decision making, teamwork, psychology
• Electronics (simulators, aircraft systems, communications)

• Airservices Aviation Rescue and Fire Fighting fire vehicles welcome home VH-OQA Nancy-Bird Walton at Sydney Airport. (Courtesy AirServices)

  Engineer (airframe, avionics, power-plant, design, performance)

• Computing (automation, robotics, brain in a computer)
• Services (fire, rescue, Air Traffic Control, airports, ground support)
• Military (army, navy, air force, marines)
• Space (rocketry, commercial travel, exploration)
• Research and Development (STEM, renewable power, fusion, power storage, aerodynamics, DARPA, NASA ..)

This list provides a remarkably exciting view into the next generation of career opportunities that will be available for engineering or STEM graduates.

I envy the opportunities that are available for you to choose from and I hope that you jump to the challenge!

8.  Aviation Industry

Back to: Aviation Pathways

2050 – 70% of the world’s population living in megapoles connected by VLA (A380, B747) acft

8.1 Demographics

The world’s population is moving and condensing to live in mega cities and megalopoles:

• Mega-cities as markets with more than 10,000 passengers per day departing on flights of more than 2,000 nm (Airbus)
• Megapoles are massive regional centres that are separated by about eight hours flying time.

• By 2034, 91 mega-cities will exist (up from 47  in 2015)  (John Leahy, Paris Air Show, 2015))
• By 2050, six billion of the world’s 9 billion will be living in megapoles.  (Alain Garcia, Former Airbus CTO, 2014).

.

World Traffic Growth by Market (Boeing 2015)

8.2  Industry Growth

The World’s aviation industry has been reliably doubling every 15 years (since 1972).  This growth is expected to continue over the next twenty years. The number of passenger kilometers travelled will triple between 2010 and 2050.

Aviation – Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPKs) (Boeing graph, 2015)

To meet this expected demand, the number of aircraft (in service) will double (from 20k to 42k) and 1,500 aircraft must be built every year through till 2050. (Alain Garcia, Former Airbus CTO, 2014)

Forecast Air Travel Growth 2013 to 2033 (Courtesy Airbus Global Market Forecast 2013-2032)

8.3  Pilot Employment

The overall  number of aircraft will double over the period from 2010 to 2050.

Alexander with Randy Neville (Boeing’s 787 Chief Pilot in the 787 Flight Simularor in Seattle Jan 2012 (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

533,000 new commercial airline pilots will be needed to fly the new aircraft over the next 20 years (2015-2034):   (Boeing Pilot and Technical Market Outlook for 2015)

• Asia Pacific – 216,000
• Europe – 94,000
• North America – 88,000
• Middle East – 55,000
• Latin America – 45,000
• Russia and CIS – 18,000
• Africa – 17,000

8.3.1 Asia – Pacific

Airbus COO for customers John Leahy said in June 2015:

• Asia Pacific will lead in world traffic by 2034.
• China will be the world’s biggest aviation market before 2025.

8.3.2  Asia

Expect many jet pilot jobs to surface in Asia over the next two decades.   Opportunities in Asia offer young pilots the opportunity to accrue significant jet command hours in a minimum time.  This is a good path to building the command hours you will need to join larger international carriers.

Hans Rosling’s excellent presentation explains the origins of the emerging affluent China and Asia economies.  Draw you own conclusions for opportunities in air travel.

•  Pilot demand in the Asia Pacific region now comprises 41 percent of the world’s needs  (Boeing Pilot and Technical Market Outlook for 2014)
• Asia is now the largest (and fastest growing) air transport market in the world with 948m passengers, followed by North America (808m) and Europe (780·6m) (IATA 2013).
• Asia is the machine driving most of the aviation growth as an estimated 2 billion Asian (and Indian and South American) people increase in prosperity and become eligible to take low cost flights
• 30% of the industry is now based in Asia Pacific (Tony Webber, 2011)
• 45% of aircraft traffic will be in Asia Pacific region in 2050. (Alain Garcia, Former Airbus CTO, 2014)
• 45 new airports are being built in Asia over the next 5 years. (IATA Jun 2011)
• 40% of the worlds cargo market is in Asia  (IATA Jun 2011)
• The worlds largest order of 234 aircraft was recently made in March 2013 by Lion Air of Indonesia, a company that formed only thirteen years ago and currently has 18,000 workers.
• The ASEAN Open Skies Agreement (opening up the Asian markets in 2014) provides benefits and opportunities to access this massive market.
• Japan’s Low Cost aviation market has potential growth of at least 400% over the next few years as Bullet Train Passengers change to faster-cheaper low cost airlines (i.e. Jet Star Japan)  (Deutsche Bank – 2013)
• Hong Kong airport’s two runways were 96% fully utilised in 2013 and will be saturated by 2016.   The airport currently services 370,000 flights over the past 12 months (an average of 65 flights per hour, close to its  upper cap of 68 per hour).  (Norman Lo Shung (Director-General, Civil Aviation Department, Hong Kong, 2013))

Air Traffic growth by region (Courtesy Airbus Global Market Forecast 2013-2032)

Regional

• Airbus forecasts Asia-Pacific to be biggest regional market by 2032.  (AGMF Sep 2013)

Long Haul

• 93%/99% of long haul traffic is/will be flown between 42/90 Aviation Mega Airports in 2013/2032 respectively   (AGMF Sep 2013)

Aircraft Demand by Region. Aircraft aircraft orders (split by size) shows that aviation growth is centered in Asia Pacific & the Middle East (Courtesy Airbus Global Market Forecast 2013-2032)

Asia’s sphere of influence! Aircraft orders shows that aviation growth is tilted towards Asia Pacific & the Middle East (Courtesy Airbus Global Market Forecast 2013-2032)

8.3.3 Middle East

The Middle Eastern airlines are defining aviation’s future for the next 50 years.

The Gulf has established itself as a key aviation hub from the perspective of linking continents by air. 55,000 new commercial airline pilots will be needed over the next 20 years (2013-2032) (Boeing Pilot and Technical Market Outlook for 2014)

The Middle Eastern carriers (Emirates, Etihad, Qatar and Flydubai) placed  a staggering US$162 billion order for aircraft at the Paris Airshow in November 2013.  Emirates placed a US$99 billion order (list prices), the  largest aircraft order in history for 200 aircraft comprising: 35 Boeing 777-8Xs, 115 Boeing 777-9Xs and 50 Airbus A380 aircraft.  

Emirates has so many aircraft on order that they will need 19 new pilots to train EVERY DAY for the next decade to meet demand.

8.3.4  Europe

Overhead London Heathrow at 6 am Sep 2014. (Photo RDC)

94,000 new commercial airline pilots will be needed in Europe and the CIS over the next 20 years (2013-2032)(Boeing Pilot and Technical Market Outlook for 2014)

European aviation is also doubling about every 15 years.  European air traffic controllers are expecting demand to double between 2013 & 2025-30.

In an already congested airspace, controllers are transitioning to four dimensional control (latitude, longitude, altitude, time) .   (Richard Deakin, CEO, NAS, presenting the RAeS Brabazon lecture, Nov 2013)

9.  Aircraft

1. Aircraft production
2. Boeing predictions
3. Airbus forecasts
4. Pilot-Less Aircraft

Back to: Aviation Pathways

9.1. Aircraft Production

Emirates A380 crossing @ 1,800 kilometres per hour 4,000 feet above (RDC)

The demand for and production  of new aircraft is at an all time high:

• This is the busiest year in 15 for maiden flights:  Airbus A350 (June 2013), Boeing 787-9  (Sep 2013) and the Bombardier CSeries (Sep 2013)
• The worlds fleet of 20,000 commercial aircraft will more than double to 42,000 aircraft by 2050  (Alain Garcia, Former Airbus CTO, 2014)
• The newest Airbus A380, Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 aircraft will probably be flying until 2060

9.1.1.   Boeing predictions – next 20 years (Jun 2015)

Source: Boeing

Airlines will need 38,050 new jets worth $5.6 trillion as the world’s fleet doubles over the next 20 years:  (Boeing Long Term Markets)

• 26,730 Single-aisle
• 8,830 widebody aircraft

These aircraft will be delivered to: (Boeing Long Term Markets)

• 40%  to Asia Pacific
• 20% to Europe
• 20% to North America
• 20% to Middle East and rest of world

9.1.2.  Airbus forecasts

(Graph: RDC)

Airbus Forecast 2014-2033

China will displace North America as the world’s largest domestic market before 2024.  Airbus is considering building a short range A330 fine tuned for Chinese domestic routes.

31,400 new aircraft required  (US$4.6 trillion) up until 2033 (next 20 yrs).   The world’s in-service fleet will double:

• 20,000 single isle (up 9% from previous forecast)
• 7,800 twin isle
• 1,500 very large aircraft

Airbus Forecast 2015-2034

By 2034, passenger and freighter fleets will more than double from today’s 19,000 aircraft to 38,500. More fuel efficient types will replace some 13,100 passenger and freighter aircraft  (Airbus, June 2015)

32,585 new passenger and freight aircraft required worth US$4.9 trillion (4% increase on 2014 forecast)

• 22,927 single isle aircraft  (up 15% from previous forecast)
• 8,108 twin aisle aircraft  (up 4%)
• 1,550 very large aircraft (steady)

9.2.  Pilot-less Aircraft

Commercial aircraft pilots are an endangered species.

9.2.1  Pilot-less aircraft – the threat to pilots

As aircraft auto-flight systems progressively become more reliable and efficient, there will be a point in time where travellers start to trust their lives to pilot-less aircraft.  At that point commercial airline pilots will become an endangered species.

Commercial pilots will ultimately become extinct when the commercial aviation industry moves to fully embrace pilot-less aircraft.

9.2.2  Building resilient pilot-less aircraft

We will only be able to build resilient pilot-less aircraft when we can replicate human consciousness, awareness and prediction in a machine.

We will only be able to build resilient pilot-less aircraft when we can replicate human consciousness, awareness and prediction in a machine.

I do not expect the first sentient machine to be built until about 2025.  It will take another ten to fifteen years to take this design to the production floor.  Until then, it is the pilots who have the only chance to save people during Black Swan events.

The current generation of serial processing computers (Servers, PCs, Apple Macs ..) provide no path to or solution for the creation of sentient machines.  These current machines are neither fault tolerant nor resilient.  Here are two cases of  severe consequences that resulted from simple computer failures in current high technology machines:

• The almost total closure of UK airspace on the 12th December 2014 due to a failure of an air traffic control computer server.
• The failure that led to the crew of an A380 conducting an emergency descent from 40,000 feet  over the Indian ocean on the 1oth December 2014.  Two air conditioning “packs” each contain two air generation systems that supply compressed air to pressurise the A380’s cabin to a cabin altitude no higher than 8,000 feet above sea level.   I think that a failure in the electrical system or the aircraft’s monitoring systems lead to an incorrect signal being generated that commanded both air conditioning packs to shut down!    (A similar failure has caused the same result on a Boeing 747.)

The human brain is at least 20,000 times more power efficient than the TrueNorth chip “brain”.

Machines must mimic the parallel processing capabilities of the human mind to be able to host human thought, awareness and behaviour.  These machines do not currently exist.

IBM’s TrueNorth processor chip provides an infantile  start for our quest to build neuromorphic and cognitive systems.  The TrueNorth processor requires 70 miliwatts of power to run 5.4b transistors, providing 4,000 (parallel) cores that each host 256 Neurons and 65,000 synapses.

The human brain is at least 20,000 times more power efficient than an equivalent TrueNorth “brain”.    Human brains need 20 watts of energy to power twenty (plus) trillion neurons and 100 trillion synapses.    We need to assemble 100 racks of 4,096 TrueNorth chip arrays to match the number of synapses in the human brain.   These racks would require 400 kilowatts of power, 66% of the output from the electrical generators on board an Airbus A380, enough to power 800 average homes, enough to power 20,000 human brains!

9.2.3  Marketing pilot-less aircraft

“Crossing the Chasm” – the Bible of innovation by Geoffrey Moore

It’s easy to suggest that we will be flying in pilot-less aircraft.   The aircraft will eventually be built.   Innovative airlines will buy them.   Adventurous passengers will fly them, adventurers similar to those who will rocket into space on board Virgin Galactic.  But how quickly will the pilot-less market transition to include the John Doe on “main street”.

Are you ready to board a pilot-less aircraft?

Technical ideas are free.  It’s the execution that’s priceless.

Many excellent technologies that deserve to persist, die in adolescence due to poor strategy and marketing.   Course “Technical Marketing Strategy 101″ starts with learning how to “cross the technological chasm”.

The “Law of Diffusion of Innovation” explains how high technology products are accepted into society.   High tech developers who ignore this law, do so at their peril.

The Law of Diffusion is expressed in a bell curve.  This bell curve shows the stages in the lifespan of a technical product.  It starts with the initial take-up by tech adventurers, risk takers and “product disciples”.  It finishes when the last product expires in the few hands of the last technology laggards.

A “chasm” blocks and confronts the product as it tries to grow and expand into new markets.

High risk innovators and early adopters are the first to support new products.  These confident people are the risk takers in leading edge industries. They wanted to be the first to explore and benefit from new technologies.

The Early Majority or “main street” users are the next group of users to accept a product as it gains acceptance.   These “main street” people exhibit a slower, more rational, methodical and risk averse approach towards accepting a new product.

These Early Adopter and Early Majority markets are like oil and vinegar – they don’t mix.   A chasm in values and beliefs separates them.   They espouse different levels of confidence and courage.  They take different risks.  So both markets must be approached differently.   Your product will stall and probably fail if you don’t distinguish between them and adjust your marketing strategy to progressively target each sequential group.

The chasm is a “killing zone” in the life span of a product.  This kill zone separates those products that are initially accepted only by the few passionate (read high risk) innovators and early adopters, from those products that continue to be accepted by the majority of the populations that are sceptical, unemotional, analytical, price-conscious and sometimes lazy.

Products fail to gain widespread acceptance when the manufacturers ignore the the technological chasm.

• The Segway fly-by-wire scooter failed to be accepted by the early majority market because the Segways were never granted safe operating areas to share with existing roads and footpaths.  The result is that the Segway market remains bogged in the small innovator and early adopter markets.
• Apple’s iPhone provides a case study of a product that was expertly designed and marketed to cross the chasm.

9.2.4   The future for pilot-less aircraft

Pilot-less aircraft will be introduced into our society just like any other high technology offering.

How well consumers accept pilot-less aircraft will be determined by the ability of the aircraft manufacturers and airlines to build and retain the travelling public’s trust in high technology.

Manufacturers that respect the Law of Diffusion will set in place many strategic processes to sequentially win the minds of the many markets.

The acceptance of new pilot-less aircraft will follow the bell curve of success over time:

• Innovators and early adopters will be the first to experiment and trial pilot-less aircraft.
• The “main street” users will avoid these aircraft until emotional, financial and safety case studies prove the technology to be established and safe.
• Twenty five percent of the travelling population have a fear of flying.   It will be a massive challenge to get these people to board a pilot-less aircraft.
• Laggards will only board pilot-less aircraft when no alternatives exist.

A safety case cannot logically be used to force the aircraft industry to be the first industry to be fully autonomous.   On average, 500 people die in commercial aviation world-wide every year. Contrast this number with the 1,500,000 people who die on the roads.     If non-tolerance for the loss of life becomes the motivator for change, then expect the car industry to be the first industry to go driver-less.

9.2.5   Pilot-less aircraft – Summary

Relax aspiring pilots!  There will be a sustained need for your skills well up until 2060.

The forecast aircraft deliveries for Boeing and Airbus aircraft shown above are all for piloted aircraft.  You will be flying these aircraft that will have a commercial life expectancy of at least 50 years.

The pilot and his piloted aircraft, like every other technology, will ultimately become extinct.  Extinction however will not occur during this century.  In the interval, more piloted aircraft will be developed (future new plastic Boeing 737,  Boeing 777X,  future new plastic A320)  that will continue to delay the extinction date by a further 50 years.  (For those who wonder, the Earth has sufficient gas reserves (that can be converted to any hydrocarbon based fuel) to last for 250 years.)

Like all technologies, the airline industry will ultimately accept pilot-less aircraft.  However this trend will be predictable and take an extraordinary long time. Do not expect to see pilot-less aircraft in commercial passenger operations until the first innovators and early adopters test the market probably some time after 2035.

The chasm will block the first attempts to take the pilot-less aircraft into the main street markets.   Companies that ignore the  challenges of the chasm will fail.  The first automated vehicles will be cars on shared roads and then low risk-consequence cargo aircraft on oceanic routes.

Boeing, Airbus and other aircraft manufacturers are currently researching pilot-less aircraft.     They have united to research the “Advanced Cockpit for Reduction Of streSS and workload” project (ACROSS).   ACROSS will form foundation for future proprietary and confidential research.  Expect to read more information about these topics only when the product patents and futures are in place.

Additional reading – pilot-less aircraft:

• freight aircraft
• commercial passenger aircraft
• air force fighter aircraft
• Who’s flying this thing? End in sight for pilots

10.  Life Plan

Ideas are free, execution is priceless.  So get out there.  Never give up!  Failure is not an option!  Be strong! Shine!  FLY!

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Though I am not qualified to advise others about how to plan their lives, I list some of my thoughts below in case they might help others.   My observations have been gleaned from discussions  with pilots throughout their lives, noting the types of plans that succeeded, and those that did not succeed.

We all want to be happy, yet not all of us are.  True happiness inspires us to get out of bed every morning, to make meaningful connections with other people and to enjoy the opportunity that each day brings.

Happiness cannot be bought or given – it has to be earned.   You have to commit to and invest in happiness before you can expect any rewards.  The top four keys to happiness are:

• good health,
• dignity
• meaningful work/purpose, and
• love.

When you acquire these keys, you will find the comfort that comes from leading a full and rewarding life.  You will be a giver to the world you have inherited, not a taker, and you will understand how to contribute to improving our world.  You will also have the confidence to ride through life’s vicissitudes of successes and failures.

Note: These keys assume that we satisfy our basic:

• physiological needs for food, sleep, warmth, and sex, and
• security needs for a home, job and physical protection.

10.1   Good Health

Our four brains (RDC)

Pilots start their careers with good health.   You must strive to remain healthy not just for your career’s benefit, but also for your happiness and personal well-being.  Keep fit, establish a healthy diet, and socialise.

THE LANCET – 1918:   When they have finished flying for the day their favourite amusements are theatres, music (chiefly rag-time), cards, and dancing, and it appears necessary for the  well-being of the average pilot that he should indulge in a  really riotous evening at least once or twice a month. 

A pilot’s life is one of continual study, learning and development.  It is a life of annual licence recertification tests and transitions to operate many different and increasingly complex aircraft types.  Your ability to successfully negotiate these challenges depends upon your brain’s ability to be “plastic” – its ability to learn, adapt, form and cross-link new memories and practices.

Study and exercise protects our mind, memory and movement.

Keep your brain healthy.  Balanced servings of nutrition, sleep, exercise, reading, thinking, study and Deliberate Practice make up the ingredients for a healthy brain.

• Deep (non-dreaming) sleep is essential for learning.  Brain neurons (that resolve recent experiences and learning) are created during the early stages of sleep.
• Dreaming sleep is important for memory retention.  This is the period when recent memories are rationalised (retained or overwritten) and cross-linked (think hyperlinked) and made accessible broadly.
• Exercise promotes the generation of new grey matter – neurons that increase memory capacity.

• Coral honing her favorite coordination skills

  Keep thinking.   Exercise and mindful study stimulate the Oligodendrocytes in our brain to coat axons with fatty white coloured Myelin (white matter).  Myelin insulates and protects these “hyperlinking” axons and thus protects our memories and physical coordination from atrophy, short circuits and eventual collapse.

• Keep practicing.  Deliberate Practice  is essential for improving mental and physical performance.   Deliberate Practice converts slow and mindful procedures into dedicated fast, subconscious and instinctive circuits in the prefrontal cortex.
• Physical and mindful exercise is also thought to influence the onset of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

10.2   Dignity

Every person needs dignity and respect.  You must however act respectfully to be respected.

Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King & Mahatma Gandhi  understood the “WHY” that underpinned their core values and beliefs, maintained their dignity, put others first, and as a result, peacefully changed the world.    Wouldn’t we all like to be this fearless.

• Honesty is the simplest path to self-respect.
• Recognise your individuality and potential.  Ask yourself “have I lived wisely?” – if not, then why not?.

• Work hard and don’t be afraid to fail.   Indeed welcome failure for the lessons and wisdom that it provides.  Accept the hard realities of life, even unfairness.  When life is not going your way, avoid focusing inwards and harnessing anger and regret.   Instead, keep your morale and ambitions high, look ahead, work hard and continually challenge yourself.    Perceive what others see as obstacles as motivators that power and direct your persistence.
• Be kind to, and find good in yourself and others.  Take yourself out of the center for you do not matter!   It’s what you can do for others (particularly friends, partners and the disadvantaged)  that counts, not what others can do for you!

10.3  Meaningful Work/Purpose

Be the master of your destiny

Meaningful work/purpose consists of:

• being a master of your own fate rather than at the mercy of others,
• doing every day what you love and excel at,
• keeping a positive attitude to perceive problems as challenges to overcome,
• getting encouragement and support to develop your skills,
• being respected for your action and opinions, and
• giving back and serving to help others.

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life” (Confucius)

Be the master of your destiny.  You only live once so ensure that you retain control otherwise live the life you want.   A survey by PARADE magazine and Yahoo! Finance in 2012 identified that about 60% of the Americans surveyed fully regretted their career choices.  Their senses of purpose, dignity, happiness and well-being suffered and they suffered stress because they were living out someone else’s dreams and aspirations, not their own.  Don’t let this happy to you!

Work hard, stay positive, and get up early. It’s the best part of the day (George Allen)

For parents of future aviators, the most important thing you can do is to encourage you children to discover their own passions, then to enable your children to pursue their passions.    Don’t spoon feed your children, rather help them clarify their thoughts, help them develop their plans, then be a catalyst to help them help themselves.  (See also Motivating our Youngest Generation)

“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”  (Les Brown)

For the aviators reading this, your task is to get your aviation licences, flying experience and with these requisites gain access to a satisfying aviation job.  Your mission throughout is to maintain your motivation to excel. Aviation breeds passion, excitement, engagement and growth:

“Equilibrium is the precursor to death!”

Work hard.    Identify a few special areas to focus your skills on that you can someday look back on with a different sense of pride.  Then you will to feel great both now and later.

“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.”  (Farrah Gray)

Work with your “heroes” instead of starting out alone:

• Find a person who will be your mentor.  You have insufficient time and resources in aviation to learn everything from your own mistakes.
• Join a team.  You will gain knowledge and experience more quickly as an “apprentice” in a successful team than when you work alone.  Indeed joining  a passionate and successful company and doing what you really want to do in your life might be even more rewarding than continuing with a Master or Ph.D degree.

You must act respectably if you want to be respected:

• Act like a CEO, because that’s what you are in your aircraft – not a back office employee.
• Be present.  Meet, greet and talk to your passengers – don’t hide behind the flight deck door.  Empathise with the crew and passengers, ensuring that their interests are at the center of all your thoughts and actions (the WHY).
• Be happy, fun and positive!  You control the attitude that you project.   Indeed, the Captain sets the atmosphere for the passengers and crew on every flight!   Make your attitude an award winning and world famous attitude that welcomes others and “makes their day”.
• Be honest.  Tell passengers the truth (full and open disclosure) and be prepared to give a personal guarantee.
• Always expect and plan for the unexpected – that’s what your passengers expect!  Never admit to being bored in an aircraft because others will think that you are not thinking about and preparing for the unexpected.    Would you like hearing brain surgeons telling you that they get bored during their surgeries?
• Be confident but modest (even vulnerable) for you never know it all.   Indeed the minute that you think you know everything  is the second before you do something really stupid.   There is a health benefit from being confident.  Highly extroverted people have more active inflammation-immune systems and thus recover faster from injury than introverted people.
• And when it becomes your turn, give time to help others just as others have helped you.

Never procrastinate.   “Do it now!”   “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now”

Be safe.  If you are not committed to safety then we don’t want you in the pilot’s seat.  It’s the pilots’ responsibility to ensure that every passenger has the opportunity to meet their loved ones at their destination.   When you begin flying, one bad decision to continue flying into bad weather could cost you your career and/or your life.  However when you command the big jets, your responsibility widens to include the lives of up to a six hundred souls. And for every fatality there is about seventy other friends and loved ones who become entangled in the tragedy.

I will prepare and some day my chance will come – Abraham Lincoln

Please read my later blogs:

• Torches
• Why I am a Pilot

10.4  Love

The essence of life is to love and to be loved.  Love is the catalyst to our emotional well-being.

For junior aviators, I recommend that you wait until your aviation career is kick-started before you  do get “hitched”.

Don’t be afraid to take risks early on in your career.   Expect and embrace failures in your early years.  For knowledge, experience and growth often comes from adversity and it’s better to take risks and advance your aviation career as quickly and selfishly as possible before family commitments steers your career choices.

The pilot’s life opens up exciting opportunities to travel and to meet many remarkable people.   But your career path requires great sacrifices (financial, mental and physical) before the good positions become available.   You might need to position to remote areas or to Asia and the Middle East to gain flying experience (hours). It is a special person who can happily settle into the life of the pilot’s spouse. So as a fledgling pilot, take your time, socialise outside aviation and find the best person who you love, is confident and independent.

Your priorities should/will change when you become married.  Your responsibilities will widen to include your spouse, marriage and career.

The most important things cannot be seen with the eyes but with the heart  (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince)

Where your career was priority one in your early years, your career now shifts down into second place as your family responsibilities increase.   By this stage you will probably have spent the previous 15 years working hard to develop your skills, experience and to ascend the aviation ladder.  Half of your rewards for these efforts are lost if you end up divorced.

Work just as hard at your marriage to ensure that you don’t end up like this Chinese couple.  Your partner must grow and develop independently as you grow and develop.  He/she must be happy to support any children at home alone whilst you travel abroad.

Fulfillment comes from making a difference and knowing that it will carry on.  It starts with a sense of belonging and responsibility to give and self-sacrifice for others.  It starts with being part and contributing to your extended families: having loving relationships, rearing great kids and changing others lives for the better.

Coming home!(Painting by Coplu)

My wonderful wife Coral has clear priorities.  When our children were about ten years old.  A friend asked Coral what her priorities were in life.   Coral’s answer surprised him:

1. my husband,
2. my children, then
3. myself.

Coral reasoned that if she looked after me, that two parents would do a better job of raising our children that one parent.   She also understood that she would be left at home with “just her husband” as company when the children grew up and left home.

11. Money

Back to: Aviation Pathways

I have saved this subject for last, because it is the subject that least motivates me.

My career aspirations have never been motivated by money.

I have observed that those who are obsessed with money never achieve a healthy perspective of “how much is enough”.  They continually grasp for more, compare their wealth to others, and so are ultimately never content.

I have worked hard throughout my entire career,  thrown security to the wind and taken every opportunity that was within my grasp. I have found that the skills that I have acquired along my journey have value and are appreciated in many industries. From passion, commitment and perseverance comes skill, and from skill comes rewards. This is my career and I would not trade it for any desk job!

• Click here for an overview of some pilots’ salaries.
• Why are pilots paid so little in the United States of America?

12.  Where from Here?

Back to: Aviation Pathways

12.1  School Students

As a school student, you will have to acquire many skills to be qualified for an aviation career. Focus your efforts to excel at school.

Put emphasis on mathematics and science subjects (physics first, then chemistry).

Participate in team sports to keep fit and develop leadership and teamwork skills. Join cadet programs if possible.

The military cadet programmes provide a great way to learn about the military, but are probably only worth the effort if that is where your interests lie.

Don’t be afraid of technology.  Disassemble printers, computers and hard disks before discarding them to discover how they function. Any experience with engines (motor cycles, cars, workshops, books, aero clubs) is also recommended.  You should be confident manipulating and working with machinery.  Never be afraid to play with or fix engines.

Be medically examined by a Designated Aviation Medical Examiner (DAME) to confirm that you are fit (medical and eyes) enough to hold an aviation medical certificate.

Virgin Galactic’s 3rd Supersonic flight – 10 Jan 2014 (Image: Virgin Galactic)

Create a file that contains information about the airlines that you wish to join and/or the military.   Visit their web sites.

Document what aircraft they fly.  Research their employment requirements for air crew.

If your heart is set on flying light aircraft, then take an introductory flight at a flying school at a nearby airfield.  This is normally free of charge.

Get a part time job over the weekends to raise money to continue flying if you want to build up more flying experience. Take every opportunity to fly in one of the front seats.   These flights will increase your motivation at this early stage.

12.2 Before your Interview

• Prepare for your interview
• Read every aviation book that you can find.    Read my book.  Digest the stories and build up your knowledge of the industry for aviation is a knowledge intensive high tech industry that will never stagnate.
• Ask your friends and family to give you aviation books for birthdays and special events.

13. Summary

Back to: Aviation Pathways

(Photo: Lee Gatland)

Emily Redmond, thank you for your question (at the top of this article).    I hope that I have helped to answer some of your queries.

Be strong! Shine!  FLY!

Never give up on your dreams, for the rewards are commensurate with the risks and opportunities you take as your career progresses.    Fulfilling careers await for those who are brave enough to find them and and who rise to the challenges. Security is both a swear word and an illusion.

Where and what you end up flying depends upon your strong sense of self, what opportunities you constantly seize along your passionate journey to learn and develop, and understanding that change is constant.

Aviation is not an easy career choice.  You’ll have to learn and research for every day of your career, face the mental challenge of continual re-certification and physical challenges of working extreme hours and perhaps sometimes in extremely risky locations.

Both switches miust be pushed to activate the fuel jettison. (Photo R de Crespigny)

A pilot’s work is never a job.  Pilot’s work is a life.  You will never succeed in aviation unless you develop the passion and hunger to research and plan your career and do whatever it takes to achieve your plan.   It’s your plan, so own and execute it..

Great rewards await the intrepid amongst us who take the risk and jump to the challenges of flight.  Maybe you will be one of them.   Maybe you will experience the delights of this Boeing 737 pilot.

Anything is possible if you have the mindset and the will and desire to do it and put the time in (Roger Clemens)

There is a piloting job waiting for every person who has the health, intelligence, drive, and commitment to forge their way into this leading edge, high tech, high risk career.

The graphs in Section Seven suggest that the aviation industry will continue to double every 15 years . Discuss the topics I have listed here with other pilots and your mentor.

Ask opinions from retired pilots who have successfully navigated a lifetime of aviation’s challenges.   These old and wise pilots are the true heroes, with memories laced with nuggets of wisdom gleaned from occasional  errors in judgement and experiences surviving  fate’s unexpected and unthinkable events.    These mentors deserve your highest respect, for they are the world’s best risk experts who worked day-in, day-out, flying along the edges of chaos in the most leading edge, high tech and risky industry, all the time protecting their passengers from harm.

If I have had good foresight and luck in my career, it is only because I have been standing on the shoulders of these past aviation giants. If you could be so fortunate …..

Celebrating the wonders of flight. View from  my desk, 36,000 feet overhead Broome, Australia, 5th March 2015 (RDC)

I have been very fortunate during my life to have received much from family and friends.  It is my turn now, my privilege and duty to give back to the younger.     My final mentoring support comes from the last paragraph in Jim Collins great book on Level 5 Leadership, entitled “Good to Great”:

Jess Gallagher – 2014 Sochi Paralympic Games skier (slalom & giant slalom)

“When all these pieces [of advice] come together, not only does your work move towards greatness, but so does your life.  For in the end it’s impossible to have a great life without having a meaningful life.  And it’s very hard to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.  Perhaps then, you might gain that rare tranquility that comes from knowing that you’ve had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution.   Indeed you might also gain that deepest of all satisfactions knowing that your short time here on earth has been well spent and that it mattered”.

Many people in their deathbeds reflect back over their past and ask just three questions:

• Did I live wisely?,
• Did I love unconditionally?, and
• Did I matter (serve greatly and make a difference)?

As a fledgling pilot you can look forward to an aviation career that offers you the ability to seize the joy and excitement in every day of your life and to answer “YES!” to all three questions.

If you need a role model, then look no further than Dave Goldberg, who ticked all these boxes.  Will someone write this about you when you are gone?   If not, then WHY not, and HOW will you change?

Coral – the Wind Beneath My Wings ….

Coral and I send our very best wishes to you as you embark on your safe, happy and fulfilling career.    I promise you fun and rewards and that you will matter!

Ideas are free, execution is priceless.  So get out there.   It won’t be easy.  Never give up!   When you get knocked down, you will get back up again.   Failure is not an option.  Be strong.  Shine.  FLY!

14.  For More Information

Back to: Aviation Pathways

At QF32.Aero:

• “Torches“
• Motivating our Youngest Generation
• Giving Back – Code Cadets
• The Golden Circle
• Why I am a Pilot

Other Reading:

• David Learmount’s excellent blog detailing how to enter into an aviation career.     (David and I clearly think alike!)
• Pilot Cadet Programs
• RAeS – Career Flightpath Magazine 2013
• RAeS – Graduate Placements 2014

Other Pilot’s Experiences:

• A day in the life of an airline pilot   (Click here to view Eric’s blog)

Feedback

Back to: Aviation Pathways
Please write a comment below if you have any corrections for this page, or suggestions to help our future generations of pilots.

Subscribe to this site (at the top of this page) to receive updates.

“Knowledge”  Painting by Coplu (Coplu.Com)

Report on Resilience

“Resilience – Recovering pilots’ lost flying skills”

The Royal Aeronautical Society, London has published the report that I produced after I opened the Flight Simulation Conference at the RAeS in London in November 2014.

(Data FSF)

My report studies the flight safety statistics from the 1942 until 2014 and the implications for flight simulation industry.

The future trend for Aviation flight safety (hull loses/year) can take three paths:

1. extrapolates to zero by 2025,
2. levels at the incidence of Black Swan Events, or
3. increases as a result of many factors.

My report also analyses three methods to mitigate an increase in the aviation accidents  (senario 3):

1. (ODG osterhoutgroup.com)

   more hands on flying time,

2. Stress Proof Deliberate Practice, and
3. cloud hosted high fidelity low cost personal simulation anywhere anytime.   Note:   ODG and Oculus Rift have key technologies that form the basis for hosted VR simulators.

RAeS Airspace, June 2015 p32

Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger  (US Airways Flight 1549)  and Commander Jim Lovell (NASA Apollo 13) have also contributed to the report.

My report has been published in the June Edition of “Aerospace” (pp 32-37).

Click here to download the report

Optimism (Painting by Coplu (Coplu.Com))

Video Interview

“Black Swan Event: Interview with Captain Richard de Crespigny—Part 1″

Captain Eric Auxier has a very good aviation web site Adventures of CAP’N Aux

Eric interviewed me recently about values and beliefs, leadership, teamwork, training, resilience, decision making, crisis management, open disclosure and personal guarantees.

Click here to view Eric’s first (13 minute) of three videos of the extended interview.

(Erix Auxier)

The interview is also being printed in the July edition of the Airways Magazine.

Meaning of Life  (Painting by Coplu (Coplu.com))

Presentation in the Woods at Oshkosh

Oshkosh 2015

The EAA AirVenture Oshkosh is the World’s premier fly-in airshow in the USA.  The airshow runs from 20-26 July 2015.

I will be presenting at the outdoor Theater in the Woods at the Oshkosh Airshow on the opening evening of Sunday 19th July 2015:

• I will tell my story and answer questions.
• Please come along and say hello to Coral and me.
• A small number of QF32 books will be available for purchase and signing (pre-order here).

I am looking forward to seeing  Commander Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Gene Kranz also present at the Theatre on Wednesday night 22 July.

Rort Air (Painting by Jaak de Koninck http://www.jaakdekoninck.be)

I enjoyed being interviewed by Mark Bouris this week about “Resilience at the edge of chaos”.   We discussed issues ranging from the neuroscience of leadership to survive ‘Black Swan events’, to future technologies  and how robots will impact business and employment.  markbouris.com.au/episode-14-mark-bouris-podcast

Mark’s Podcasts

Mark’s fascinating podcasts are downloaded by about 275,000 listeners every week.

Each week he summarises the current financial climate  before introducing his guest speaker.

I recommend Mark’s recent interview of Angela Mentis.  Angela is the Group Executive that runs the $30b Business Banking division at  the National Australia Bank.  Angela “walks the talk” and steers NAB to remain one of the most respected business bank in Australia.

Mark’s Interview with me

I met Mark at 7:30 am on Wednesday morning when he arrived at the recording studio with his communications and PR team.  He was impressively dressed in his gym clothes having come straight from a boxing session that started his day.   The interview started two minutes later.

Mark shares my fascination for neuroscience.  So we discussed the brain, the mind and how it relates to everyday subjects such as business resilience, trust, disclosure, brand, decision making, surfing the edge of chaos, crisis management, knowledge, leadership, mechatronics, sentient robots and finally recruitment companies for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Terminators”.

I recommend all of Mark’s weekly podcasts.   I hope that  you enjoy listening to Mark’s 14th podcast with me.

Note:  At the 22 minute mark I should have said that Micro-Managing (not delegating) is the cancer for junior staff and teamwork.

About Mark Bouris

Mark Bouris is an Australian icon and successful entrepreneur.  He has built many disruptive businesses that challenge the status quo and provide alternative solutions that improve our lives.  (Mark’s WHY)

Mark is currently the Executive Chairman of the Yellow Brick Road Group, a financial services group in Australia.   He also launched Eagle’s Nest, his program that incubates and supports future entrepreneurs.

Your Highness Ms Universe by Coplu (Coplu.Com)

Mike asks:

Hi Richard,

Having read your book QF32 and a number of resources available online, please let me ask one question regarding  your video interview on youtube.

During the interview, you talk about the decision whether to follow the ECAM instructions to switch off the ENG 4 hydraulic pumps (“5 and 6″), and how you suggested that “everybody think about this for some seconds” before pressing the guarded pushbutton, to figure out if it makes sense to reduce redundancy on the still working yellow hydraulic system.

A380 Overhead Hydraulics Panel lit up in “test mode”.  Faults are displayed in amber font.  Push button actions are displayed in white font  (Photo RDC)

The journalists asks you whether, in hindsight, you have found an explanation as to why ECAM would prompt you to switch those pumps off, and your answer is somewhat along the lines of, you were not allowed to disclose those details at that time, but it would be in the final report, and we should be surprised when reading the answer.

Of course, I have also read the final report, but obviously I missed the respective answer (it is quite an overwhelming read; I cannot even imagine what kind of experience that must have been for you in the real-life situation).

So I would kindly like to ask, whether you could today share a few technical insights into that question (i.e. if it is legal for you today). Why was it sensible to switch off the ENG 4 HYD pumps?   ;-)

Thank you very much,
Mike from Germany

Richard Answers

Hi Mike from Germany,

Thanks for your question. I am now able to discuss two critical pieces of information that I was not able to include in my book.

Airline flying is a very professional business that is unforgiving of mistakes.

1. Background

The A380’s hydraulic system is called “2H + 2E”, meaning that is consists of:

• 2 Hydraulic Systems (Green, Yellow) (conventional hydraulics) (1.2 tons lighter than triple hydraulic systems)
• 2 Electro-Hydraulic Systems (for critical flight applications)

Andrew Eccles in the Concorde simulator at Brooklands, UK (Photo RDC)

The A380 has two independent hydraulic systems named “Green” and “Yellow”.  (Interestingly these colours were inherited from the Concorde over 50 years ago, that had three independent hydraulic systems named Green, Blue and Yellow, but that is another story).

• The 120 litre Green hydraulic reservoir is located in pylon 1, above Engine 1 on the left wing.  The Green hydraulics are powered by a total of four engine driven pumps on engines 1 & 2.   The green system contains 585 litres of Skydrol hydraulic fluid.
• The 120 litre Yellow hydraulic reservoir is located in pylon 4, above Engine 4 on the right wing.  The Yellow hydraulics are powered by a total of four our engine driven pumps on engines 3 & 4. The yellow system contains 545 litres of Skydrol hydraulic fluid.

A380 Overhead Hydraulics Panel during normal flight (Photo RDC)

Skydrol  (or an alternate fluid called “HyJet IV”) is a specially coloured hydraulic fluid that is authorised to be used in the A380.  Skydrol is dangerous.  It is so dry and acidic that it burns flesh-eyes.  Any hydraulic leaks in the A380’s 5,000 psi system is extremely dangerous as the stream of high velocity oil acts as a knife capable of cutting through flesh, bones and thin metal.   The good thing is that this fluid self ignites at a very high temperature of about 507 degrees Celsius (engine oil self ignites at about 280 deg C, so you might find it interesting to re-read QF32 at page 320).  Skydrol costs $25 per litre!

Oshkosh 2015

2.0  The Hydraulic Situation on board QF32

The hydraulic problems we faced on QF32 are described at QF32 page 200.

Engine number 2 had exploded.  The ECAM checklists instructed us to shut down the Green hydraulics.  It then told us to shut down half of the Yellow hydraulics.

Example A380 Hydraulic layout (Airbus)

Matt’s hand reached up towards the overhead panel to disconnect the drive shaft for the fifth and sixth pumps out of the total of eight pumps in the Green and Yellow hydraulics.   Pumps 5 & 6  were located on Engine 4.  If Matt pressed the disconnect push button for this engine, then the pumps would not have been recoverable and we would be left with just 2 engine driven hydraulic pumps on Engine 3 to power the entire aircraft.   (The A380 also has electrical hydraulic pumps at some flight controls but some of these were also inoperable.)

A380 Overhead Panel lit up in “test mode” (Photo RDC)

2.1 What we did

Uncontained turbine failure – QF32

“Stop!   Can we all please think about this for ten seconds?”   I called this to stop Matt irreversibly shutting down hydraulic pump s that might affect our destiny without first giving the ECAM and our situation more thought.

My reasoning was obvious.   Why are we shutting down hydraulic pumps on Engine 4 located at the extreme of the right wing when engine 2 exploded on the left wing?   It did not make sense!

I used a rapid decision making method to poll the crew for their thoughts, but the decision what to do with pumps 5 and 6 would be mine.   I was responsible for the lives of 469 passenger and crew.

2.2 Why we did it

I decided to have the two engine driven hydraulic pumps at engine 4 disconnected because:

• Perhaps metal filings or other contaminants or other problems had been detected in the engine 4 hydraulic pumps that might spread and damage the two pumps on engine 3.
• The engine 3 hydraulic pumps must be protected at all costs.

Matt completed the ECAM actions.   This left Nancy-Bird Walton with just two engine driven hydraulic pumps and a couple of small electrical pumps at a few controls.

3.0  What we later found out about the hydraulics

The ATSB report on QF32 had not been released when I wrote my book “QF32”.    Federal laws prohibited me from discussing the following until the ATSB report was published.  Even when it was released, this high level “consumer friendly” ATSB report omitted lots of detailed and fascinating information.  I can now explain two surprising facts.

3.1  The Green hydraulics reservoir was full

Hydraulics – How does the Sequoia tree (world’s largest tree) pump water to the canopy 300′ above the forest floor? Is there 8 atm (120 psi) of water pressure at the roots? Is the 300′ tree height limited due to hydraulic pressure?  (Physics for the Coffee Table)

This is fascinating!  All the pilots that day saw the ECAM checklists and watched the hydraulic System Display show the bleed air pressure in the green hydraulic reservoir (to stop pump cavitation) fail, then the hydraulic fluid level reduce to zero and then the Green Hydraulic system fail.

We discovered six months after the flight that the green reservoir was in fact full at the end of the flight, suggesting that the indications we saw and the ECAM warnings were wrong, and that perhaps we might not have needed to turn off the hydraulics on Engine 1.

3.2  The Yellow hydraulics system was operating normally

We did not need to disconnect the two engine driven hydraulic pumps on engine 4.   Again, the severed wires and quadrax cables limited our view, the ECAM’s assessment and our understanding of the aircraft’s status.   Engine 4 had degraded to an ALTerNate mode with its maximum thrust reduced as a consequence.   The severed-shorting wires (communications and logic)  probably reduced the ECAM’s ability to understand the Yellow hydraulic system.

Coral asks – are there extraordinary hydraulic pressures inside this large Sequoia tree (Sequoia National Forest, CA, USA)

The ECAM checklist instructed us to disconnect the engine driven hydraulic pumps on Engine 4.  I initiated a discussion amongst the pilots whether we should follow ECAM’s suggested  actions.

I ultimately decided that we did not know the status of the aircraft as thoroughly as ECAM did. So in this case, with acceptable hydraulic reserves remaining, I decided that we should follow the ECAM procedures and disconnect pumps five and six.

Our logic was that disconnecting hydraulic pumps five and six would protect the last two remaining hydraulic pumps on engine 3.

Today I still think that our logic that we applied on the 4th November 2010 was correct, based upon what we experienced and deduced.

Damaged forward wing spar & fuel tank – left wing

3.3 Why the confusion?

There is no explanation for this confusing and contradictory information other than my and the ATSB’s guesses that some of the 650 wires and Quadrax (4 aluminium wire duplicated twisted pair ) network cables were severed and shorting.  This meant that incorrect, reduced or no hydraulics information was delivered to the independent Hydraulic System Monitoring computers, ECAM’s flight warning computers, the overhead panels and schematic displays.   (We also received reduced or incorrect information about the brakes, fuel, engines and many other systems.)

I am not criticising  aviation certification standards, Airbus nor the A380.   Aviation learns through failures and we are fortunate to be able to analyse these failures with the intention to improve safety.

3.3.1 Very technical

First stop on the Jossie Harris & Clint Berry honeymoon – the A380 cockpit (VH-OQD) (Dubai 27Aug15)

Aircraft and engine manufacturers sometimes use the automotive twisted pair CAN bus and ARINC 429 (an aviation extension of the CAN bus) protocols for insecure computer-sensor communications.

Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines use the CAN bus for many communications to the A380’s Input/Output Modules.

These simple two wire twisted pair protocols might not be resilient to hacking or sensor and open circuit failures.  For example, earthed automobile engine oil pressure transducers connect via just one single wire to the oil pressure indicator.   These instruments cannot differential between an open circuit and a zero.   So a car’s oil pressure indicator will incorrectly display zero oil pressure when the engine is running if the wire is disconnected from the pressure transducer.

100s of cut belly wires, cables and air pipes

Severed belly Quadrax cables and pipes

More secure, advanced and resilient communication (such as Quadrax cables in an Airbus AFDX network) are used for critical communications.  These complex systems offer additional resilience to errors such as open circuit and sensor identification-presence, failures and hacking.  Unfortunately many of these quadrax cables were severed during the QF32 incident.

4.   Apollo 13 – Sensor Failure!

Let’s solve the problem, team … let’s not make it any worse by guessing”

My honour to meet and interview the NASA legend Gene Kranz (2015)

We were in a mind space during QF32 after the explosion that was similar to the mood of the controllers at Houston during the Apollo 13 mission.   The NASA controllers were making no progress after after the oxygen tank exploded.

The controllers were living in a “fog of war”.  Virtually every controller had problems and no one could see a pattern in it all.  Gene Kranz said it was like “living a bad dream”.

Gene told his team “Let’s solve the problem, team … let’s not make it any worse by guessing”.

The controllers looked at two of Apollo 13’s failing power systems.  They initially thought they had lost the instrument readings due to a high gain antenna alignment problem.  Eventually, with his team’s help, Gene Kranz made sense of the parameters.

Failure was not an option

Gene decided to permanently shut the reactant valves in two fuel cells to preserve oxygen for the third fuel cell.  It was a courageous decision and the best decision in the circumstances, and similar to our decision on QF32 to disconnect hydraulic pumps 5 and 6 to protect pumps 7 & 8.

In our case the remaining hydraulic pumps on Engine 3 worked faultlessly.  However in Apollo 13’s case the oxygen leak and confusion continued, and Commander Jim Lovell  was now facing a total loss of the electrical and oxygen systems  …

Commander Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, Bill Reeves (Apollo 13 Flight Controller) and Milt Windler (one of the four Apollo 13 Flight Directors) at Oshkosh 2015

Gene’s team had to quickly decide how to return Apollo 13 to Earth.  Failure was not an option.  They had the choice of a high-risk fast (U turn) abort that could get the astronauts home in 34 hours, or to conduct a rocket burn to rejoin the free return trajectory that would get them home two days later.    The fast return assumed the main engine would still function, something that Gene correctly resisted.

Gene’s low risk and conservative option turned out to be the correct choice and a great exercise in crisis management and decision making.  With the help of his team, Gene made the courageous decision just 57 minutes after the oxygen tank exploded to commit to the longer trip (around the moon) home.

5.  Back to QF32

You are a lucky man Clint Berry! Congratulations (see Jossie above)

There was confusion with QF32.  QF32’s aircraft communications, networks and computers were so damaged and disrupted that we could never have expected to fully appraise the hydraulics systems from the ECAM messages, the overhead panel displays, nor from the System Displays (that each normally use independent sensors).

Computers and automation:  A case of “Pearls in – Pearls out”, or “Garbage in – Garbage out”?

Faced with the deluge of warning messages being received at Mascot, the engineers on the ground thought that the ECAM had failed and that it needed to be reset.    But unlike Apollo 13, QF32 had lost its satellite voice communications.   Any decisions we had to make on the aircraft, we had to make on our own.

Mike, if you felt overwhelmed when reading QF32, then I can assure you that the pilots were also operating at their limits in the cockpit that day.  We were also living in our “fog of war”.

Solve the problem but don’t make it worse by assuming, presuming or guessing

I wrote in my book QF32 how the fuel system overwhelmed me, which is why I prepared for the Armstrong Spiral to mitigate a loss of all engines.   The ATSB investigators later told me that the Fuel Quantity Management System computers were so compromised that ECAM would never have made sense of the the fuel systems nor give us valid guidance about the fuel systems on QF32 that day.

The hydraulics systems however were a bit easier to understand than the fuel systems, and a lot more manageable.

6.  Did we do the right actions?

I am proud of the knowledge reasoning and calm that the crew exercised on QF32 when we faced the confusing sets of ECAM checklists, overhead panels and systems displays.

Airline flying is a very professional business that is unforgiving of mistakes.  Our handling of this ECAM checklist was an example of how we delayed actioning an ECAM checklist until we had analysed the system, the procedure and its consequences – whether it made sense and whether it was the right thing to do.  This was an example of why pilots must have a deep knowledge and understanding of their aircraft’s systems.

Ignorance is never an excuse. Know your machine inside out.

With the power of hindsight, the actions that we took five years ago still make sense today (based on what we faced in the cockpit back then).    None of this information that we received months after the flight makes me think that our logic was wrong on the day when we disconnected the hydraulic pumps for engines 1 and 4.

I am always keen to receive advice and learn from others, and happy to admit if I have made a mistake.  There are many armchair quarterback critics that have different views to mine and who criticised our actions. However if I was faced with the same black swan event today with the failures, displays and ECAMs today, that we had on QF32, then I would do the same actions again today.

7.  Summary

Mike I hope that this long reply answers your question.

I have equally complex answers to the questions of why we did not land quickly after the explosion, and why we chose not to order the passengers down the evacuation slides after landing.  These discussions are all food for thought.

Karl Stefanovic with Dave, Harry, me, Matt and Mark taken during a 60 Minutes interview (Photo: 60 Minutes)

QF32 was an example of team excellence, where 8 teams pooled their knowledge, training and experience working to survive a black swan event.

• I am proud of the pilots (Matt Hicks, Dave Evans, Harry Wubben and Mark Johnson).
• I am proud of CSM Michael Von Reth and his cabin crew

QF32 Customer Service Manager – Michael Von Reth

I think QF32 was a “successful failure” because all 469 passengers and crew were returned home to their loved ones without injury after a black swan event.  It was also a “successful failure” for the lessons learned.

Risk is the price of progress and discovery.  We have to have the courage to accept risk and to continually push against the boundaries of science if we are to grow and develop to become a wiser and kinder manager of our planet.  We also need the knowledge, experience and teamwork to conquer the unknown.

Finally, we need inspired leaders at the leading edge like Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Eugene Kranz who could identify, rate and work with risk and prove resilient in the Fog of Battle.

Many of the fabulous QF32 cabin crew. Thank you!

By definition, you cannot train for a black swan event.  However you can prepare for the unexpected.  Resilient people anticipate failures and understand how systems fail.  Because prevention is impossible.  So you will have to mitigate the failures and use your knowledge and teamwork to counter-attack.  Because when you have the confidence to make the courageous decisions, that’s when you will become intrepid leaders of intrepid teams, and that’s when you will become bullet proof and not gun shy and best able to survive the “unknown unknowns”.

Some of the professional, competent and handsome cabin crew from QF32

I have the highest respect for my airline, Airbus, Rolls-Royce and the A380.

• I have the highest respect and confidence for the Rolls Royce Trent 900 engine.
• I consider the A380 is still the biggest most comfortable, most quiet and greatest passenger jet aircraft in the sky.

Come fly with us and we’ll show you WHY!

A380 closing @ 1,800 kilometres per hour 4,000 feet above (RDC)

See also

• The Empirical Skeptic

With my suggestions for the Industry

Wonder (Painting by my friend Coplu (Coplu.Com))

Jaanus Torp writes:

A good picture of an uncontained turbine failure

Hello Richard,

I just finished your book and I might say that it is not suitable for before bed reading.  Even though I had read the final report and knew the outcome, I was still quite wired by the masterfully written gripping drama.

I have a question about matters that you might not want to discuss or have not enough information about but which were left in the air.

The ATSB’s Final Report on QF32 focuses mainly on recommendations to Rolls-Royce and touches only very lightly on Airbus’s involvement. Can you please give some insight into what Airbus learned from this flight and did they make any changes to the design and/or operations of the A380 systems/layout/automation?

Cheers,
Jaanus

Richard replies:

Hi Jaanus, thanks for your question.

Airbus learned a great deal from the QF32 incident.

RIP – Neil Armstrong, designer of the Armstrong Spiral (RDC)

I visited Airbus, Toulouse many times after the QF32 event.  I  delivered presentations about the QF32 event to the RAeS, engineers, test pilots and Airbus’ global leaders and executives.   We discussed Airbus philosophies, methods, practices and how aircraft operations might be improved.

I thanked Airbus for designing and building the A380, a remarkably resilient aircraft that in my case returned 469 passengers and crew home to their loved ones, and saved over 32,000 friends the grief that comes to others in the event of a disaster.  (a future story)

Here is a summary of my discussions and sugestions-predictions for change.

1. Philosophies:

1. Photo taken by QF32 Passenger Kjell Ljungqvist

   Fly-By-Wire (FBW) flight controls, autothrust and flight management automation all  worked well and as expected. (no change)

2. Install a “LAND ASAP” push button on the ECAM control panel, that inverts the logic (QF32 p198) and gives the pilots the minimum essential instructions to land/ditch immediately.   (R&D)
3. Install my implementation of Neil Armstrong’s Spiral (QF32 p170)  into future Flight Management Systems.  (unlikely, due to accompanying airline costs to train the manoeuvre)

2. Practices:

1. The SOPs, role and task divisions for two pilot operations worked well.   (no change)
2. Include in pilots’ manuals a detailed description about flight control checks in fly by wire aircraft.  (commenced)
3. Pilot training to include Stress Free Deliberate Practice   (hopeful)

3. Aircraft:

1. Damaged to lift at QF32’s wing tips to streamlining ailerons (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

   Mount more cameras inside and outside the aircraft for pilots to view the cabin, cargo holds, electronics bays, wheels and engines from within the cockpit.  (unknown)

2. Modify ECAM displays to show the total number of pending ECAM checklists (i.e. 2 of 10).  (accomplished on the A350)
3. Selectively and progressively detune the attention-getting alarms if an ECAM checklist is in progress.  This will reduce pilot distraction.  (unknown)
4. Very technical: Improve some of the the sensors and the CAN busses for OEM systems to better discriminate between an open circuit and a zero.   (unknown)
5. I think some of the ECAM checklists produced incorrect logic (FUEL, HYD …) because of item 4 above.   This was a case of garbage (sensors) -in-garbage (logic) out.   The fuel systems were so confused by the sensor, pump,valves and duct failures  that the Fuel Quantity Management System (FQMS) computers probably needed an alternate program (like the flight controls “Alternate Law”).   I think the unusual ECAM behaviour on board QF32 was unavoidable under the circumstances, and an example of why pilots are still needed to resolve the unexpected.  (human controllers still required in High Reliability Organisations, See also:  Sully Sullenberger: Technology Cannot Replace Pilots)

6. A380 (Trent 900) fan blades, showing the wide chord, forward and aft sweep, and extensive washout. (Photo: RDC)

   Technical:  Include an ECAM advisory message (like that on the B787) to advise that the flight controls are saturated (pilots should make slow and deliberate inputs).   (unknown)

7. It was bad luck that the wires to the brakes and brake temperature sensors on the left wing were cut.  The system displays and ECAM could never have fully resolved the brakes’ situation (see item 5 above) .  (no recommendation-change)
8. Very Technical:  Include an ECAM advisory message to warn that the flight controls are out of phase with the pilot’s inputs (potentially-dangerously inducing rate-limited pilot induced oscillations).

Note: The damage to QF32, wing and fuselage was considerably worse than the damage reported at page 38 of this 2010 report by the AIA  on High Bypass Ratio Turbine Engine Uncontained Rotor Events.

4. Comments

Upper left wing, showing the effects of the significant vortices that are created upwind of the damage then spread-trail back to the trailing edge. (Photo Ulf M. Waschbusch)

4.1 Aerodynamic Damage

Matthew Orchard, Head of Design Wing (ESW) with the remarkable A380 wing at the Airbus Wing Factory, Filton (Photo: Airbus)

We discussed the:

1. damage to the wing, the flight controls, and its effects on the aircraft’s controllability,
2. incorrect performance calculations that produced approach speeds that were too slow and that gave insufficient margin to the stall (QF32 p259),
3. incorrect flight displays that resulted because of the aerodynamic damage to the wing, and the
4. “SPEED SPEED” and “STALL STALL” warnings that we heard during the approach.

Frank Ogilvie (former Aerodynamics Director and Deputy Head of Overall Design for the A380 project) in front of the top panel of the A350’s variable camber wing at the Airbus Wing Factory, Bristol, UK. The A350’s lower wing cover (32 m x 6m) is the biggest carbon-fiber part ever produced in civil aviation. (Photo: Airbus)

Technical:

1. Simulation of upper surface exposed to battle damage (T.W. Pickhaver & P.M. Render RAeS Journal Aug2105 p937)

   Many people have tried, but there is no easy way to predict the aerodynamic effects of damage to an aircraft’s wing.   In the case where there is a hole passing through top and bottom wing panels, wind tunnel tests (see image to the right) show a pair of horse-shoe vortices starting upstream from the hole, then broadening downstream on both sides to the trailing edge.  The flow separates behind the damage and there is significant reverse flow.  The lift and aerodynamic moments are significantly affected.

2. Frank Ogilvie (former Aerodynamics Director and Deputy Head of Overall Design for the A380 project) at the Airbus Wing Factory, Bristol, UK (Photo: Airbus)

   Remember that damage to one wing must be replicated (in reduced lift) to the other wing if the aircraft is to fly straight.

3. For aft loaded airfoils (such as all modern supercritical wings), their is a dramatic loss of lift when a trailing edge control surface (i.e. aileron) slipstreams.   (see the description after QF32 page 238)
4. Damage effects are amplified when the damage is located inboard on modern transonic aircraft wings (that have a triangular lift distribution).

Matthew Orchard, Head of Design Wing (ESW) shows me the A380 wing with landing gear attachment lugs.  Airbus Wing Factory, Filton (Photo: Airbus)

In the event of wing damage, I think the practical solution for predicting the effects of the damage, determining the approach speeds and then flying the approach lies more with the pilot:

1. knowing the key JAR-25/CS-25 aircraft certification standards and performance margins, and
2. know the “what”, why,” “how”, and “if-thens” of controllability checks (specifically for fly-by-wire aircraft).

Head-Up Display (Painting by Coplu (Coplu.Com))

4.2 Electrical  Damage

Part of electrical damage to the left wing

We discussed the extreme number (more than 650) of wires and network cables that were cut and the loss of systems that resulted from damage inside the left wing and the belly of the fuselage.  Even though Engine number 2 exploded, the damage extended to include Engine 1.  Four separate pairs of wires that took separate paths to two independent fuel shutoff valves for Engine 1 were all cut, rendering us unable to shut down Engine 1 until three and a half hours after we landed (QF32 p323).   Four pairs of wires to two fire extinguishers on Engine 1 were also cut, rendering the Engine 1 fire extinguishers useless.  (bad luck – no suggestion)

Electrical and forward wing spar damage to the left wing

This was very bad luck for us though it displayed the resilience of the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines to still control thrust after so many wires had been cut.

Technical:   I asked an ATSB QF32 investigator how many more wires we could have lost and still made it home.  He said “none to Engine 1”.  I’ll leave it to you to work through that interesting scenario.

Many of the fabulous QF32 cabin crew.

4.3 Airline Training

Many airlines have updated their training programs to incorporate lessons learned from the QF32 incident.  I believe cabin crew training at British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa, JAL, Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia have included discussions about QF32.

Another wonderful painting by Jaak De Koninck (www.jaakdekoninck.be)

4.4  Aviation Organisations

I have presented the QF32 story and my thoughts to the World’s most specialised aviation organisations (regulators, safety, security, pilot organisations, investigators, manufacturers, suppliers, financiers, insurers and airlines).

Summary

Jaanus, I maintain absolute respect and admiration for Airbus and the manner in which the A380 was designed, built and tested.

A380 – it’s not just a passenger magnet, it’s also a pilot magnet.

Only the most critical operational changes are ever made to aircraft after they pass certification tests.

(Graph: RDC)

Airbus aircraft are all designed with a common strategic and operational philosophy that extends from the first A320 FBW aircraft to its latest A350.   A philosophical change to how one aircraft type operates would by definition need to be retrofitted to the entire fleet of more than 8,000 Airbus FBW aircraft!

I am not disappointed that Airbus will probably implement few of my recommend changes.  It’s a lot easier for me to think of quick and short term narrow fixes to individual aircraft designs, than it is for Airbus to design and integrate these changes throughout all of their aircraft fleets.  I am confident that the critical changes will eventually be implemented.

Thank you Gelly Kalouta and the JW Marriott Marquis, Dubai  for your scaled A380!

Nancy-Bird suffered over 500 fuselage impacts from shrapnel. I wrote that the probability of this incident happening again is one in 10^-14, that is, one million times less probable than the most stringent certification standards.   The aircraft flew remarkably well, which is a testament to the Airbus designers, builders, testers and maintainers.

When I have the privilege to fly Nancy-Bird, I tell my passengers before the flight that they are lucky to be travelling on an aircraft that is dear to my heart. Nancy-Bird has been stress tested and case hardened more than any other aircraft in the sky – and it proved itself indestructible that day.

I provide the feedback and lessons above to serve as tools for your toolbox of solutions that you might need one day when you face the unknown unknowns.  Every incident is different.  Every incident has it’s own unique threats, risks and outcomes.  So these “Technical Lessons from QF32” should only viewed in their context as another case study and food for thought.

Don’t let appearances deceive you! This is a $400m and 4m piece Passenger and Pilot Magnet

To every Airbus employee, thank you again for designing and building such a resilient aircraft.

It is my life’s ambition to be a pilot, and my pleasure to fly the A380.  Come fly with me and I’ll show you why.

The A380 – it’s not just a passenger magnet, it’s also a pilot magnet.

(Photo RDC)

See also:

• QF32 Hydraulics and the Fog of War
• Photos – QF32 Damage
• Photos – QF32 Wing
• Photos – QF32 Repair and Return

Discussions:

• Evacuation vs Deplane with steps
• Airborne vs Land ASAP  (future)
• Aircraft Flight Control Checks  (the “what”, why,” “how”, and “if-thens”)  (future)
• Crisis management (my next book ….)
• Leadership & building resilient teams (my next book ….)

(Photo RDC)

The Airbus A380 registered VH-OQA, named “Nancy-Bird Walton” is a special aircraft.

Nancy-Bird was a remarkable woman.

Wherever you are on Friday the 16th October, lift a glass  and toast to the memory of one of Australia’s greatest adventurers and women.

My God What a Woman!

A part of my heart will always be reserved for Nancy-Bird Walton AO, OBE, DStJ.   She had a passion to fly:

• This was around the time of the earliest aviation services.  Australia’s first subsidised air service was the Adelaide/Sydney flight in 1924.  Flying took two hours longer than the train!
• Nancy-Bird had her first flight in 1928 at the age of 13, then four years later had saved 200 pounds to learn to fly.
• Her first lesson was with Charles Kingsford Smith in a Gipsy Moth.   Like all pilots of that time she wore a scarf to wipe the rotary engine’s castor oil from her goggles.
• She received her commercial licence at the age of 19.  She was the first woman to operate an aircraft commercially in Australia.   At that time pilots did not have radios, which would have been useless anyway because there were no ground facilities.
• This was around 1935 when passengers in KLM aircraft were equipped with a helmet, goggles and hot water bag!   The Australian Defence Minister H Thorby proclaimed: “Flying was not consistent with a women’s role in life”.
• Nancy-Bird later joined the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
• She founded the Australian Women Pilots’ Association (AWPA) in 1950 and was made its Patron in 1981.
• Nancy-Bird mentored female pilots.   She had an open house policy where pilots could come and stay with her for no charge.  She said: “the good things I have had in life, and the wonderful opportunities, have come through friendship, not through my bank account.”

(Photo RDC)

VH-OQA was Qantas’s first A380.   This aircraft was named “Nancy-Bird Walton” at a ceremony in Sydney on September 30, 2008 where Nancy-Bird said:  “I’ve made it my business to stay alive for today’s ceremony – and I’ve made it!  I’ve made it!”

As the swinging champagne bottle approached the fuselage Nancy-Bird cried “don’t scratch my aeroplane!”.

Please click here to see the Nancy-Bird Walton (VH-OQA) Naming Ceremony .

“I’ve made it my business to stay alive for today’s ceremony – and I’ve made it!  I’ve made it!”

Nancy-Bird Walton (source unknown)

Nancy-Bird died three months later on the 13 January 2009 aged 93.  Her namesake A380 made a fly-past at Nancy-Bird’s funeral where below, AWPA members had turned out in pink and pearls to inspire more female aviators.

“No matter how foolish, it is not the things in life that you do, but the things that you don’t do, that you regret” (Nancy-Bird Walton)

On the 4th November 2010 I was flying “Nancy-Bird Walton” on Qantas flight QF32.  Engine number 2 exploded four minutes after takeoff, starting a chain of events that would change the lives forever for the 5 pilots, 24 crew and 440 passengers:

• “Nancy-Bird Walton” suffered over 500 fuselage impacts from shrapnel. I wrote that the probability of this incident happening again is one in 10^-14, that is, one million times less probable than the most stringent certification standards.
• The aircraft flew remarkably well, which is a testament to the Airbus designers, builders, testers and maintainers. Nancy-Bird would be proud.
• I wrote in “QF32” at page 294:  “Nancy-Bird had died a few months after the VH-OQA naming ceremony and now, two years later, here was her plane, deciding also to stay alive until she returned 469 souls to safety.  I’m not a religious person, but if Nancy was watching us from afar I am sure she would have been so very proud of  how her aircraft performed and to have her name emblazoned on that wonderful machine.”

OQA (Nancy Bird-Walton) taking off at Sydney Airport (2012) (RDC)

My God it’s a Woman!

Nancy-Bird wrote her biography aptly entitled “My God! it’s a Woman!”    This was a passenger’s response when he discovered Nancy-Bird in the action seat.  “My God, I’m not going to fly in that.  The pilot’s a woman!”

At page 13 she writes “A pilot has it in the head and hands, not just by flying off into the distance”.   Nancy-Bird had in the head and hands and she has pioneered into the distance, but she will never be forgotten.

STEM – Flight (Love) by the Mode Control Panel light (Photo: Richard de Crespigny. Title courtesy Meatloaf)

“Nancy-Bird Walton” lives on

Naming aircraft after famous people is a recent change for my company.   I had met Nancy-Bird before my QF32 flight. She was a short but tough role model, an inspiration and stalwart for female pilots.

 “My God, I’m not going to fly in that.  The pilot’s a woman!”

“Nancy-Bird Walton” was repaired after the QF32 event and returned to service.   It was probably the longest and most expensive repair in aviation history:

• Click here to read: Repair report for “Nancy-Bird Walton“
• The QF32 flight concluded, 535 days late, but still very welcome.   There was not a dry eye in the cabin when we touched down in Sydney.  Click here to view the video:  Welcome home Nancy-Bird Walton

Nancy-Bird walton (photo: Sue Stafford. Reproduced courtesy of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences)

Nancy-Bird, Matt Hicks and QF32

Nancy-Bird influenced the outcome of the QF32 event.

Nancy-Bird mentored Matt Hicks, my remarkable First Officer on board QF32.   Matt continues to excel and is now a Captain on Boeing 737s.   When he was a first officer, Matt Hicks made every captain look good and there is more to Matt’s story than my comments at QF32, page 333:

“Nancy-Bird Walton had  helped Matt, fifteen years earlier, by providing a character reference for him when he applied to join Qantas.  ….”

(Photo: Matt Hicks)

Nancy-Bird shared her love of flight with Matt, then helped him gain employment with Qantas.   Matt kindly writes:

Matt Hicks (Photo RDC)

My grandmother Dulcie Donkin (“My God! it’s a Woman!”  page 21) was one of Nancy’s friends growing up on neighbouring properties in St George, outback Queensland.   Even though they rode horses together and consumed stolen liquor together, my grandmother was not a fan of aviation! 

My mother is Nancy’s God Daughter.

Dulcie (Gran) went up with Nancy on one of Kingsford-Smith’s barnstorming trips to Wingham.  The pilot was Pat Hall, the aircraft was the Southern Cross Junior.   It was one of Nancy’s first exposures to the world of flying.  Gran funded part of the 200 pounds to fund Nancy’s flying training.

Nancy dropped into Wingham again much later while doing her training with Dan Collins her instructor.   Gran went up with Nancy again,  this time with Nancy flying.   The story has it that Gran was Nancy’s first passenger.

Nancy gave me the copy of her book and her photo at her house in 1990.   She also wrote my reference for Qantas on that day.

Nancy-Bird Walton with her namesake A380

Nancy and Gran remained friends up until Gran’s death at the age of 101.   Nancy unfortunately passed away not long after.

As a side note, Gran was also my first passenger when I gained my Private Pilot’s licence.  We did this as a laugh as Gran wasn’t a great passenger, however she talked it up with the best of them!

Matt Hicks in the A380 cockpit – December 2010 (Photo: The Australian)

Spirit of Australians

Nancy’s represents the best of the Australian spirit and our national culture.  Her memories endure for every passenger lucky to fly on board VH-OQA “Nancy-Bird Walton”.

VH-OQA, the namesake of a great Australian, has a special meaning for me that will live in my heart and mind forever.

When I have the privilege to fly “Nancy-Bird Walton”, I tell my passengers before the flight that they are lucky to be travelling on an aircraft that is dear to my heart.  “Nancy-Bird Walton” has been stress tested and case hardened more than any other aircraft in the sky – and it proved itself indestructible that day.

I walk the cabin and talk to the passengers – they share my emotion and pride.

Celebrate Nancy-Bird’s 100th Birthday

(Photo RDC)

Nancy was born on the 16th October 1915.

The Australian Women Pilots’ Association (AWPA) is celebrating Nancy-Bird’s 100th Birthday at a dinner on Friday 16th October 2015.

The 3 course Gala Dinner (with big band) is at Doltone House, 48 Pirrama Road, Pyrmont, Sydney, Australia.  A few seats are still available at $150 per person.

Please contact nancy.bird.dinner@gmail.com or Tammy Augostin (+61 409 868 380) for more details.

Wherever you are on Friday the 16th October, lift a glass  and toast to the memory of one of Australia’s greatest adventurers.

See also

• Photos – QF32 Repair
• Australian Women Pilots’ Association

(Photo RDC)

Today, 4th November 2015 marks the 5th Anniversary of the QF32 event.

Journey to the future (Painting by Coplu http://Coplu.com)

Good News

Photo: Carolyn Jones

QF32 is a story of team excellence, where eight teams pooled their knowledge, training, experience working in intrepid teams to overcome a black swan event.

I again wish to thank the 8 teams of more than 1,000 people who helped deliver 469 passengers and crew home to their loved ones.   The teams include:

1. the 5 pilots,
2. the 24 cabin crew,
3. Singapore Air Traffic Control,
4. Singapore Police,
5. Singapore Rescue and Fire Fighting Services,
6. Singapore and Qantas Ground Staff,
7. Qantas Crisis Centre (hundreds in four tiers), and
8. the 440 passengers.

Stories Five Years later …

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau writes: “Five years on:  how the QF32 investigation improved safety”

I have pleasure in publishing three stories from three separate groups of people who were drawn into the event.

QF32 by Jaak de Koninck

Adrian Freer

Story 1  – by Adrian, Maria Freer – QF32 Passengers – United Kingdom

It’s been 5 years – how time flies (excuse the pun) but QF32 is forever in our thoughts.

There’s not many days when I don’t think about the QF32 incident.  It will stay with us for the rest of our lives.  What the captain and crew did that day to bring us all home safely is nothing short of a miracle.

Time has moved on but Maria and I will always owe the crews of QF32 for keeping us safe .   We look forward to meeting you all and having a chat over beers we owe you.  Maybe then we can draw a line under it and move forward.

Maria Freer

We think of ourselves as fortunate to survive an incident that only a select few people in the world experience and few survive, so I guess it wasn’t our time to go.

Thanks again to Richard and to all the QF32 teams.  Without you I’m sure it would have been a different outcome and this message wouldn’t have been written.

(Adrian’s and Maria’s two children Luca and Leo were also on board QF32)

Story 2 – by Carolyn and Derwyn Jones – QF32 Passengers – United Kingdom

The odds were stacked against us.  We should not be here.

Carolyn and Derwyn Jones

The success of the QF32 endeavour has meant a lot to us personally.  Five years on from the event we have seen our children mature and achieve further professional success – our grandchildren grow and flourish.  We have led a rich and fulfilling life during these years.  The incident has motivated us to maximise every moment of the ‘More Time’ that we had been granted – not least by travelling to over 20 different countries in the last five years.

(Photo: Kjell Ljungqvist)

We fully appreciated the difficulties being addressed by the QF32 pilot and cabin crew teams (on our behalf), only incrementally and sometime after the episode.   Five years later, we now find ourselves in a pivotal position to explain the experience from our perspective.    As passengers who witnessed the entirety of the prolonged crisis,  we have the privilege to describe these series of serendipitous incidents.

Over the past five years we have endeavoured to raise awareness of the exemplary management of this prolonged critical event.  These efforts culminated in us initiating the Facebook group  ‘QF32 – publish globally’ three months ago with the intention of leading up to today’s 5th anniversary of QF32.  We created this Facebook group for two significant reasons: 

• Firstly, we felt it was important to raise global awareness of the quality of crisis management that was involved in this venture.  In this way, at a general level, the flying public would then be able to more fully appreciate the importance of the need for quality training and effective leadership in aviation.  We felt this was a  particularly important issue in this age of the proliferation of budget airlines, and the myriad of cost cutting measures which are so frequently being introduced within the public sector.
• Secondly, and even more importantly, we make the case to the new publishing company ‘Informa’  to produce QF32 in an academic format to document and enhance the already high standards achieved in aviation safety.  One of the ways this could be accomplished is in the form of a qualitative case study narrative.  A presentation of this kind would have the potential to benefit not only students and professionals within the aviation industry, but it could also assist others in high risk and dynamic industries who face similar challenges.  After all,  this text  was written by an expert witness – the lead pilot at the time – and it graphically demonstrates the value of the human (ingenuity and teamwork) and corporate (safety, risk and leadership)  factors that underpin safety in aviation.

QF32 passengers Carolyn & Derwyn Jones

Derwyn Jones

The media is replete with dramatic accounts of failures and disasters worldwide.  However a lot more could be learned from examining the the issues associated with success.  These are the elements of resilience that were managed so brilliantly on board QF32.  These are also the keys to our success for our personal and corporate lives.

So let’s celebrate and amplify the  successes of QF32  by spreading the QF32 story world wide.   We call upon ‘Informa’ to publish QF32  for the academic industry as a reference text on knowledge, experience and risk-crisis management.   You will have the support, energy and enthusiasm of over 2,000 members of our Facebook group ‘QF32 – publish globally’.

Publishing QF32 in Europe and the USA would be the best way to honour the endeavours of the pilots and cabin crew of QF32,  and the collaborative efforts of over 1,000 personnel from many countries who facilitated our safe return to Changi Airport on November 4th 2010.

First stop on Jossie Harris’ honeymoon – the A380 cockpit (VH-OQD) (26Aug15)

Story 3 – by Kelly Teo – Air Traffic Controller – Singapore

I was the tower controller handling your final approach back into Changi on that fateful day. Reading QF32 brought back so many memories.

No amount of Sim training for emergencies can ever prepare a controller for an emergency like QF32. On that day, while preparing for your approach, no one knew what to expect.

As the only approach rated controller in the tower that day, I was tasked to man the runway frequency when you were coming in to land. All the emergency procedures and RT were running through my head when I cleared you to land on long finals. You asked for a 20 miles final and as a tower controller, I knew I had to reassure you that all the assistance you need upon landing are all ready.

I can never forget how you told the firemen: “Qantas gives you permission to spray water into our engine to shut it down”. Thank you for a valuable lesson in handling this sort of emergency. Whenever I do on job training with a trainee, I will always relate this incident and your book to them.

Highest Respect for Airbus and (You’ve Gotta Love) the A380

I have the highest respect for Airbus.   The Airbus A300 in 1974 was Airbus’ first aircraft and the world’s first twin-engine widebody jet in commercial service.  Today, just 41 years later, Airbus has grown to become one of the world’s best airline manufacturers.

The A380 continues to be a passenger magnet:

• London Heathrow (Photo RDC)

  The A380 fleet has carried more than 100 million passengers in more than 2 million flying hours on more than 270,000 revenue flights.  (Interesting, that’s an average sector length of just 7.4 hours)

• Passengers I meet during my walks through the cabin love the smooth ride and overwhelming sense of calm that pervades the cabin.   The ride in our A380 seats during the cruise is no different to your seat in your lounge room at home.
• Click here to view the LoveA380 web site where you can tour the A380 and review passenger’s comments.
• Passengers are especially thrilled to fly in VH-OQA – Nancy-Bird Walton.
• I continue to update my blog about the A380, Storm Petrels and Sweet Spots

London morning December 2014 (Photo RDC)

Highest Respect For Rolls-Royce

Trent 900 Fan hub, cone removed, looking back inside and down through the N1 hollow (two shafts spline joined) shaft that transmits 82,500 shaft horsepower at 2,900 rpm from the 3 stage low pressure turbine to the fan (Photo RDC)

One of the 70 Trent 900 High Pressure Turbine Blades that mount to the High Pressure Turbine disk. Each blade extracts 900 hp from exhaust flow. 63,000 ph around the 1 metre diameter, 160 kg, 8,300 rpm disk. (Photo Courtesy Rolls-Royce)

I maintain the highest respect for Rolls-Royce.  I have toured the Trent 900 manufacturing plants in Derby (UK) and Singapore.  I have seen the technology, dedication and care that goes into making the most complex components on the Airbus A380 and A350.

Congratulations to Rolls-Royce for  designing, building and maintaining the most remarkable engines in the automotive, military, maritime and aviation industries for over 111 years.

I will write more about Rolls-Royce technologies in future posts.

43 nm (80km) left of track at 40,000 feet avoiding thunderstorms (Photo RDC)

Our four brains (RDC)

Recovery

Some passengers on board QF32 may have suffered some form of stress.   Many have addressed and resolved their issues.  I wrote in my book “QF32” how I resolved my stresses.

My next book (due 2016 ) includes chapters on neuroscience, the mind, the startle effect and post traumatic stress (PTS).

I remain available to meet passengers and to help them in whatever way possible.    Contact me below if you have outstanding questions or if you need my help.

QF32 Passenger Johanna Friis

Other News

Qantas Uniform 1940s (Photo RDC)

Here is last year’s blog on the 4th Anniversary of the QF32 event.

Qantas celebrates its 95th anniversary on the 16th November.   This will be a grand event with lots of celebrations.   The celebrations have already started with a charity flight to Longreach in Qantas’ 737 ‘Retro Roo’

I have great pleasure to continue my patronage to Disabled Wintersport Australia and other organisations.  We have exciting plans for 2016, so come and join us!

More Stories

There are still many stories to tell about the QF32 event.  I will publish more:

• Passenger “back stories”,
• Additional information that the publisher removed from my QF32 book, and
• Other stories relevant to the event.

Every pilot’s delight. (Photo RDC)

Phoenix

I am head down working on a tight deadline to finish my next book that has the working title “Phoenix“.   My book “QF32” explained what happened on the 4th November 2010.  Phoenix will explain HOW and WHY behind QF32 and resilience in general.    It will be published in late 2016.    Stay tuned ….

Most of the QF32 crew

Thank You!

The “Wind beneath my wings”

Thank you again to the 1,000 people who helped 469 passengers and crew return home.  This was a massive team effort, we studied and trained for this, we practiced for this.

The QF32 story – it’s not about me as the pilot in command of QF32,  the pilots, the cabin crew or even my airline.    It’s a story of resilience and team excellence where 8 teams pooled the industry’s knowledge, training, experience and worked together to survive a Black Swan Event.  It’s about aviation that for the last 110 years has shared their knowledge and experience to made aviation safer for the travelling public.

We should all feel proud.

Coral and I send you our best wishes.

The team

Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays / Happy Days where ever you are …

Merry Christmas from the QF9 crew Dubai-London 24 Dec 2015

Enjoy these two  photos taken from my office.  Here is a photos from the flight today over Turkey,

The cold 15,000 foot high mountain ranges north of Lake Van, southern Turkey (from 40,000 feet on 24 Dec 2015)

Etihad A340 “conning” at 42,000 feet

The world is indeed a small place when at just 40,000 feet we fly above 75% of the Earth’s atmosphere.  At a ground speed of 500 knots (926 kilometres per hour) we traverse half of the globe in just under one day.

What a giant leap this is for mankind when we consider that Bert Hinkler in 1928 took 16 days to complete his record breaking solo flight from the UK to Australia in his Avro Avian (without radios, detailed maps or support).  100,000 Sydney people turned out to welcome him chanting “Hinkler, Hinkler little star, 16 days and here you are!”

The following two cockpit photos were taken two days ago just to the west of Broome, Australia heading over the Indian Ocean on the way to Dubai.

Looking for Santa Clause (Photo RDC)

Underneath us lie continents, countries, economies, cultures, technologies and millions of wonderful people, families and loved ones.

From the vantage of 40,000 feet it is clear that more things unite us on Earth than separate us.

Etihad A340 “conning” at 42,000 feet.

This second photo includes the light switches illuminated by the Annunciator light switch in test position.  We sometimes use this switch position to ensure we identify the correct switch before selecting it during ECAM procedures and to also check that the lights work (though these are all highly reliable LEDs).

Looking for Santa Clause (Photo RDC)

Click here to download high resolution versions (7k x 4k) versions of these photos.   These are free to use for your private use.

For those who have enjoyed the images of Coplu’s wonderful paintings, here is a picture of my good friend taken last week in Sydney.  I hope to show you more of his works in future blogs.

Coplu in front of his painting (www.coplu.com)

Wherever you are on our small shared planet Earth – Coral, Coplu (who is spending summer in Sydney) and I wish you and your families a Merry Christmas, safe and happy holidays and a successful 2016.

Rich

Side by Side: Two “birds in a gilded cage” (by Coplu, coplu.com)

I am honoured to present the inaugural Nancy-Bird Walton Lecture on behalf of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS)  at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Headquarters Assembly Hall, Montreal from 6 pm on Monday, 25th January, 2016.

Nancy-Bird walton (photo: Sue Stafford. Reproduced courtesy of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences)

ICAO was created in 1944 to provide administration and governance for 191 UN Member States and industry groups.

ICAO is the pinnacle of aviation organisations.  It will be my career highlight to present to friends and representatives from organisations that include:

• IATA, Air Canada, WestJet, Air Transport Association of Canada – airlines,
• IFALPA, Air Canada Pilots Association, Retired Airline Pilots of Canada  – pilots,
• RAeS, GAPAN aviation organisations,
• NASA, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics,  Canadian Space Agency – space
• FSF safety organisations,
• FAA,  EASA, CAA, CASA  regulators ..
• NTSB, ATSB, BEA , ISASI accident investigators  ..
• Royal Canadian Air Force,
• NASA, DARPA, ODG, McGill University–  researchers,
• CAE – industry
• Airbus,  Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer – aircraft manufacturers,
• GE, P&W, Roll-Royce engine manufacturers, and
• many more …

Nancy-Bird Walton Lecture

I will talk and take questions about:

• QF32
• Resilience  (the focus of my next book)
• Nancy-Bird Walton
• and my life’s love of aviation..

Australia Day 2016

Fortunately the 25th January in Canada will be “Australia Day“, the 26th January in Australia.

I hope everyone will be able to mix and enjoy refreshments after the presentation.

Register

Come and join Coral and me in Montreal to celebrate aviation and Australia Day.

Click here (http://www.raes-montreall.org) to view details and register for the evening.

.

QF32 by Jaak de Koninck (https://www.jaakdekoninck.be)

Nancy-Bird Walton

“My God, I’m not going to fly in that. The pilot’s a woman!”  (My God it’s a Woman p214)

I applaud ICAO for honouring Nancy-Bird Walton, one of Australia’s most iconic aviatrices.  Nancy-Bird is a role model for any pilot.    The “Nancy-Bird Walton” named lecture” is the second of just two named RAeS lectures at Montreal.  The “Assad Kotaite Lecture” is the other.

Passengers in KLM aircraft at that time were equipped with a helmet, goggles and hot water bag!  (My God it’s a Woman p124)

Australia’s first subsidised air service was the Adelaide/Sydney flight in 1924. It took two hours longer than the train  (My God it’s a Woman p196)

Sydney Nancy-Bird Walton International Airport

Australia could follow the RAeS and ICAO’s lead and honour Nancy-Bird Walton.

OQA (Nancy Bird-Walton) taking off at Sydney Airport on her first commercial flight after repairs (2012) (Photo, RDC)

I have proposed that the new Western Sydney Airport be named “Sydney Nancy-Bird Walton International Airport” (to honour a great Australian aviatrix) that would sit beside “Sydney Kingsford Smith International Airport” (that honours a great Australian aviator).

The Honourable Warren Truss MP, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and the the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development has acknowledged my proposal.

Why am I doing this?

• Many airports are named after famous people,
• Nancy-Bird’s name lives on as a proud part of our heritage,
• It’s time Australia recognised a role model aviatrix
• Nancy-Bird Walton and Charles Kingsford Smith airports should be situated side-by-side, and
• From Nancy-Bird herself:

No matter how foolish, it is not the things in life that you do, but the things that you don’t do, that you regret  (My God it’s a Woman p174)

Another wonderful painting by Jaak De Koninck (www.jaakdekoninck.be)

I am happy, honoured and surprised to have been appointed as a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia, by the Governor-General His Excellency General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Retd) for “significant service to the aviation industry both nationally and internationally, particularly for flight safety, and to the community”.

Five years after QF32,  I am still very proud of the positive experiences that have come from that remarkable team effort.   It’s my privilege to travel and talk about personal and corporate resilience and safety in our new and future world of high tech change, risk, perfect storms and black swan events.

Nancy-Bird Walton

Today Coral and I are in Montreal, Canada as guests of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS).  I have been asked to deliver the  inaugural RAeS “Nancy-Bird Walton Lecture” as part of the Australia Day celebrations.  I am very proud to present to the absolute pinnacle governing body for the World’s aviation and to talk about one of Australia’s greatest aviatrices.  Australians should be proud the RAeS’s second of two named lectures is dedicated to Nancy-Bird.

Coral and I are proud to give service to the community.

We are honoured to be the Patrons of Disabled WinterSport Australia (DWA).   DWA is a remarkable organisation that provides inspired programs, services and opportunities on the snow for people with disabilities to realise their full potential.   With the help of thousands of volunteers  and your support we hope to improve DWA’s services to help even more people.

I am also the Patron of the Uiver DC2 Memorial Community Trust that is trying to restore the Uiver DC2 and give respect to the crew of the Uiver of 1933, KLM and the people of Albury, New South Wales.

Coral and I assist the Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security (AGSPS), Charles Sturt University where we discuss leadership, crisis management and post traumatic stress.

Andy Green discussing his 1997 ThrustSSC world record.

I am also a passionate Ambassador for STEMnet UK, supporting Andy Green and his 130 percent world record breaking  Bloodhound Supersonic Car.

I do not do these activities on my own.   Many people in many teams help me along the way.  These people deserve recognition before me.   Nevertheless I feel extremely fortunate to receive this award.

Thank you Australia.

Today, Valentine’s Day, Coral (the wind beneath my wings) asks you to tell those close to you that you love them.

Reach out and touch …. by our friend Coplu.   Coplu’s art always expresses love, companionship and caring.  (coplu.com)

It’s easy to dismiss Valentine’s Day as commercial hoo-haa.  There’s no doubt it’s a revenue earner for florists and chocolate manufacturers.

Hopefully Valentine’s Day reminds us to take the time to tell those we love that we love them.

I just called to say I love you …

Time is a precious commodity. Our lives can change on the flip of a coin.  Sometimes, without knowing or warning, we suddenly find ourselves with less time than anticipated.

Tell those who mean the most to you that you love them.  Tell them they make a difference to your life, they enrich you and that not having them around would really hurt you and so many others.

It takes confidence to tell people that you love them.  Reaching out and extending your hand first always comes with the risk that it will not be reciprocated.  Don’t be timid.  Whenever I expose my vulnerability and give first, honesty and friendship is always reciprocated and we are all richer for the experience.

There is no downside.  Problems shared are problems halved and making someone smile gives a greater reward than just making them happy.  Love props you up, boosts confidence, inspires, makes you strong and reduces stress.  Immune systems and health flourish when you welcome others into your circle of friends with respect, loyalty, trust and care.

Don’t wait until it’s too late.  Just as Mike and the Mechanics said in their hit “The Living Years”, I didn’t get to tell him, All the things I had to say……   I just wish I could have told him in the living years.   (Lyrics)

Carpe diem, Today, Valentine’s Day

Just do it.  Say it loud and clear from the bottom of your heart.  Do it while you can.  No hesitation or vulnerability.  No regrets.   You’ll brighten someone’s day.

Happy Valentine’s Day,

from Coral.

With a sad heart today I learned that aviator and test pilot Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown died aged 97.

Eric Melrose Winkle Brown (21 January 1919 – 21 February 2016)  (Photo: Twitter)

“Winkle” Brown was to British aviation what Chuck Yeager is to the USA aviation.

“Winkle” Brown was the recipe for the right stuff.   He tested and flew almost 500 types of aircraft.  His knowledge, flying skills, experience and wisdom proved his resilience in his extraordinary high risk profession in which many perished.

When you read his life story, it makes James Bond seem like a bit of a slacker (Kirsty Young)

“Winkle” Brown gave back.  I viewed presentations he delivered in the UK up to about a year ago.  He could hold an audience spellbound for more than an hour without written notes.   He recalled designs, horsepowers, speeds and incidents of the last century as clearly as if he was still in the pilot’s seat.

You will hear and read a lot about “Winkle” Brown over the next few months.  It will all be extraordinary and true.

Thank you Eric “Winkle” Brown for your contributions that made the sky safe for the billions of travellers on planet Earth.   You were a teacher to many you never met.  You made a profound difference.  Your legacy will endure to inspire aviators world wide.

Please read the BBCs tribute here.

Summary

• “Sully” is a story of personal and team resilience.
• Sully made a difference for his passengers, crew, company and their friends.
• The real Sully Sullenberger and Jeff Skiles are larger in life than their characters in the movie.  Their values, words and actions provide life lessons for us all.

Islands of human resilience like the crews of Flight 1549 remain our only refuge in every industry that is inexorably forced forward to surf the edge of chaos in seas of disruptive complexities and failures.

Review

To understand Sully the man, we must first appreciate the difference between good, great and exceptional leaders:

• Good leaders have the following attributes: clear values, acceptance of responsibility, courage, smart risk taking and initiative.
• Great leaders also have personal humility and an intense personal will.
• Exceptional leaders have a fearless spine with the ability to communicate to our emotional cores.  They don’t tell us what or how to do things, they tell us why.  They craft passionate messages mixed with empathy and care that resonate in us.  They call us to action, not to maintain or transform the status quo but to disrupt it.

John Howard, OM, AC – Prime Minister of Australia (1996-2007)

John Howard, Australia’s former Prime Minister said, “The most important attributes in leaders are their values”. Simon Sinek continues this discussion with the WHY, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. What you do is just proof of what you believe. So when you tell people what you believe and you’ll attract those who believe what you believe”.

JFK, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Dr Martin Luther King were all exceptional leaders. People would give their life for these leaders.  Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk took leadership to the extreme.  In their search to be better, they disrupted themselves.

Sully is an exceptional leader.  His WHY was simple and clear – to ensure the surviving passenger count equalled 155 – everyone onboard. Life was more important than everything else. When Sully identified his WHYs the HOWs became obvious. When you know how to think, act and communicate, the WHATs flow naturally.

It’s easy to be critical of movies today. Script writers and directors add fear, doubt and uncertainty to entertain the viewers with an emotional roller coaster ride. Actors said and did things in “Apollo 13” and “Sully” that did not happen. Substance lies beyond the criticism, so you need to be tolerant of the Hollywood factor and enjoy the bigger picture.

The scenes where Sully imagined his plane crashing into the buildings were not illusionary fantasies. I wrote in my book how I also became self-doubting after QF32, consumed by thoughts and dreams of “what-ifs” that ended in disaster.

Sully Sullenberger – 2012 (RDC)

The perspectives of Sully and his First Officer, Jeff Skiles, being on trial for everything they had accomplished in their careers and did on Flight 1549 were accurate. However, the reality in the cockpit was far more dramatic than the movie.

Although the actions of the crew were channelled and controlled, they were surrounded by a sea of chaos. Their peaceful cockpit erupted with piercing sounds of warnings, bells, and alerts. Calm was replaced with Gatling gun fire of commands, decisions, announcements and procedures. This was Sully’s and Jeff’s reality, however it was too complex to fully capture on the screen. Be under no illusion of the risks that faced Flight 1549. They were outside the protections of certification that define aircraft safety – no pilots are trained for these events.

Sully said “I had to synthesise in seconds my lifetime of knowledge and experience to solve problems that I’d never seen before. And I never knew upon which 208 seconds of flight my entire career might be judged”. One of the investigators observed, “That guy has been training for this his entire life”.

Tom Hanks did not capture the depth of Sully’s bravery, leadership and resilience. Many, if not most, pilots would have felt they were done with their responsibilities the moment the passengers were rescued. But Sully never relinquished command of USAirways 1549, not at the ferry terminal, not in the subsequent days of media frenzy, nor throughout the lengthy investigation. Sully is still the Captain of Flight 1549 even today.

there are no such things as heroes, only heroic (team) actions.

Carbon Fibre Composite fan blade for CFM Leap engine for A320neo and 737-Max (RDC)

“Sully” shows us a better way to investigate safety.    Safety officials generally only research events where things go wrong. The answers uncover ignorance, inadequate training or lack of experience. Rarely do the positive influences emerge.

“Sully” captured the successes of Flight 1549.  When we look into Sully’s career, we discover the ingredients for personal resilience. These skills did not just protect the passengers of Flight 1549; they saved the lives of every passenger who flew with Sully over his 42-year career.  We should bottle the essence of Sully’s values and behaviours, and use it as an elixir for resilience and success.

CFM Leap engine (undressed) (RDC)

It takes skill to keep calm when others are panicking. It’s a skill to make split-second decisions to protect hundreds of lives and equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars. When disaster strikes you must maintain your free mental space, and keep a clear mental mode and situational awareness so that you make correct decisions and survive.

The passengers on board US Airways Flight 1549 were most likely startled. They probably remember their breath shortening, heart and breathing rate increasing, muscles tensing, becoming deaf as their senses narrowed. At the peak of their stress their options might have narrowed to flee, fight or freeze. Only those who have experienced this emotional state fully appreciate the skills of the resilient who stay calm and act decisively to protect us.

Leap (dressed) (RDC)

Lorrie Sullenberger and the passengers were short changed. Nothing can prepare your family for the avalanche of media that invade your property and blind you with their flashes when social media and the networks television crews strike. Coral and I could not return home until the media dispersed four days after QF32. Nothing will prepare you for your need to find information and privacy. Nothing can prepare a spouse to welcome home a loved one shut down by PTS. The emotional trauma Sully felt also extended to his crew, passengers and their families. It’s a pity those stories were not told.

Sully would probably agree with me that there are no such things as heroes, only heroic (team) actions. Any one of us could be put into a situation where our actions might save hundreds of lives. Great things happen when preparation meets opportunity.

Coral with Sully and Jeff and other aviation diehards at Oshkosh 2015

Coral and I sat silent and exhausted after watching “Sully”. We were in the first row of the cinema, the screen filled our view. I was in Sully’s cockpit. Coral was with Lorrie at home. Every thought, word and action had resonated in us loud and clear. We were proud of the air traffic controllers, passengers, rescuers and people of New York. We stayed to watch the credits at the end. This was a gem as we experienced the side of leadership that is seldom discussed; full disclosure, empathy and care.

Sully and Lorrie Sullenberger met the passengers US Airways Flight 1549 many times after the flight. The pair answered their questions, allayed fears and helped people recover from PTSD. I could see in the eyes of the passengers and crew that these were cathartic events and everyone appreciated the full disclosure.

Personally, the “Sully” movie reinforces the values of exceptional leaders. Sully has a passion for aviation, safety and leadership. He espouses a lifetime of continuous learning and was driven by core values to put others’ safety before his own. These are the first ingredients for success.

Technically, the “Sully” movie reminds us that well trained and experienced flight crews are your best defence during black swan aircraft events.

Bush fires north of Alice Springs, Australia from 35,000 feet. (RDC)

High technology and security is an oxymoron. Technology and security are enemies of each other. Whilst technology is the enabler, security is the technology brake that is always trying to stop things from happening. That’s why technology can’t synergise with security the way it does in other spheres. That’s why over-reliance on technology often leads to bad security and increased risks.

Islands of human resilience like the crews of Flight 1549 remain our only refuge in every industry that is inexorably forced forward to surf the edge of chaos in seas of disruptive complexities and failures.

Sully and Jeff are lifetime members of the world’s resilience club

The “Miracle on the Hudson” was a team success. Though Sully Sullenberger was the pilot in command, he was fortunate to be supported by co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles, himself a captain on a previous type. Jeff is one of the most respectable persons I have ever met. Jeff is genuinely modest of his skills, which is why Sully acknowledges him at every opportunity. Sully and Jeff were supported by flight attendants Donna Dent, Doreen Welsh, and Sheila Dail. Together they were exemplars for aviation safety.

Sully, Jeff Skiles and former Airbus Test Pilot Terry Lutz in the Airbus A350 cockpit at Oshkosh 2015 (RDC)

Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks did a great job in “Sully”, a human testament to leadership, teamwork and resilience. However, the real Sully Sullenberger and Jeff Skiles are larger in life than their characters in the movie.

The world needs heroes now, more than ever before. Heroes show there can be growth from adversity and we should always strive and be prepared to take risks to become better than we are. Heroes don’t just do great things, they do them altruistically, empathetically and instinctively. Men like Sully and Jeff wear their hero titles honourably and justly. Our faith in their values should never be diminished.

Sully and Jeff Skiles – Oshkosh 2015 (RDC)

Sully and Jeff are lifetime members of the world’s resilience club. We are fortunate to have them show us how to prepare for the unexpected, deliver our highest duty, and make a difference.

Navigating the Edge by Coplu (Coplu.com)

See also:

• Reply by Jeff Skiles
• Royal Aeronautical Society interview with Clint Eastwood re the Sully Movie

Summary

“The Uiver: A Photographic History” is the title of a forthcoming exhibition of photographs to be held from Saturday, 1st October to Sunday 13th November 2016 at the Albury Library – Museum, Albury, New South Wales, Australia.

Lost in Space (Painting Jaak de Koninck – http://www.jaakdekoninck.be)

A .- L .-.. B -… U ..- R .-. Y -.- –

The Flight of the Uiver is one of the great aviation stories of all time.

Capt. Parmentier, taken shortly before his tragic loss in the crash of his Lockeed Constellation (Photo: AlburyUiver.com)

The story of the Uiver flight over Albury on 24 October 1934 brings together the thrill of a world air race, the best aircraft of their time, risk, precision flying and the teamwork of a small country town.

I am the Patron of the Uiver DC2 Memorial Community Trust.

Uiver historian Noel Jackling has compiled a photographic exhibition that charts the history of the Uiver, from its purchase by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in November 1933 to its eventual crash landing in the Syrian Desert in Iraq in December 1934, and the 1984 re-enactment flight.

Noel collected over 40 photographs from various sources, that tell the story of the Dutch-crewed Douglas DC-2 airliner Uiver, and the role Albury residents played in its rescue in 1934.   It’s a fascinating and important event in the city’s history.

The Albury Library-Museum has an outstanding collection of Uiver-related artefacts, currently the subject of nomination for State heritage listing.

The Uiver after making an emergency landing at Albury Racecourse, 1934. Albury City Collection (ARM 84.086).)

The Uiver in the restoration hangar.

Another wonderful painting by Jaak De Koninck (www.jaakdekoninck.be)

Other Events

The Uiver event, and the 1935 visit to the Netherlands of the Albury mayor, Alderman Alfred Waugh, are a significant part of the heritage that is shared by Dutch and Australian people, starting from the arrival of Willem Janszoon on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, in 1606, and continuing with the arrival of Dirk Hartog at Shark Bay, Western Australia, on 25 October 1616, almost exactly 400 years ago.

[The Uiver] .. brings together the thrill of a world air race, the best aircraft of their times, risk, precision flying and the teamwork of a small country town.

King Willem Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands will be visiting Australia from 31 October 2016 to 5 November 2016 as part of the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of Dirk Hartog’s visit to what initially became known as Eendrachtsland.

Buzz Aldrin visited Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra in November as the guest of “National Geographic Live”.

Mars is no longer Science fiction.… it’s now science fact (Ron Howard)

Jason Crusan, Dr Katherine Mack, Prof Mark McCaughrean, Ray Martin and Buzz prior to the Canberra performance 7th November 2016.

During the evening:

• Ray Martin interviewed Buzz Aldrin live on stage.
• Buzz was joined by Astrophysicist Katherine Mack (Research Fellow, Astrophysics Group, University of Melbourne), Jason Crusan (Director, Advanced Space Exploration, NASA) and  Professor Mark McCaughrean, Senior Science Advisor, European Space Agency, who all discuss the methods, threats and opportunities for humankind going to Mars.
• I introduced National Geographic channel’s new television series ‘MARS’, directed by Ron Howard that premieres worldwide on 15 November 2016.
• Q&A

Message

Knowledge, experience, teamwork, risk, decision-making & crisis management.  These were some of the skills employed by the pilots and crew on board Flight QF32.  They are also the Elements of Resilience for every person who faces high-risk unknowns.

Buzz said, “It’s easy to see further when you are standing on the shoulders of giants”, referring to the 400,000 people in the Apollo program who worked over 12 years with a budget of $104b to put 12 men on the moon.  Apollo was a 60s dream.   It was the greatest show for Earth.

Forty seven years after Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed the lunar module Eagle on the moon, it’s now time to continue the journey to Mars on our intrepid pathway to the stars.

Every effort, every possible endeavour, is in place for humankind’s mission to MARS, boldly taking humanity again where no one has gone before, featuring the best disrupters of our time:  NASA, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

The risk and dangers are great, but so too are the rewards, to:

• discover new worlds, to
• push STEM to its limits, and then beyond, and to
• mitigate existential risks.

Ron Howard, the Series Producer said it best:  “Mars is no longer Science fiction.… it’s now science fact”

The Code Cadets with Buzz (Canberra Nov 2016)

Outcomes

• Space exploration requires new technologies that help planet Earth
• Australia should build a space agency as soon as possible.
• Children born after 2000 will crew the first mission to Mars.
• Children should develop STEM skills so that they can join the space industry.   The Arts are also a vital part of STEM, translating the complex to the masses.

Behind the Scenes

Buzz with the presenters and support team

Buzz – fact checking details for my next book.

Beauty and the Beast. Makeup by Miss Dodo Divine

Below find a link to the High Stakes video, a one hour SBS Insight program in which I join many people discussing how people make high-stakes decisions in the face of life and death.

Decision Making is an extremely complex topic.  Jenny Brockie hosts the discussion, surfacing decisions that many people made and how these decisions changed their lives (for good and bad) forever.

Summary Decision Making

I’d loved to discuss the neuroscience and theories behind decision making – but there wasn’t time.  So I provided SBS with a summary for decision making, the briefest overview of a chapter in my next book.

Post Traumatic Stress (PTS)

This SBS program would be an excellent segue into another program on post traumatic stress.

The atmosphere during the live interviews was was more emotional than portrayed in this video.  One of the guests explained with emotional detail how he still suffers 14 years after an event during which he made critical decisions and saved many lives.

Please believe a person who tells you they are suffering PTS.  PTS is real.  Sully suffered PTS after US Airways Flight 1549.  I suffered  PTS after flight QF32. Both of us sought professional help and returned to full health.

Be empathetic to people who tell you they are suffering PTS.  Care and try to guide them to professional (psychological) help.

There can be growth from trauma.   In the same way that we learn, adjust and improve through failure, there can be growth from PTS.

Verbal Overshadowing eases mental trauma.  So talk to those who suffer and share their grief.  You will speed their recovery.

Happy New Year!  (Thanks to my dear friend Coplu for the rights to display his beautiful art (Coplu.Com))

My last day of 2016 ended with a twenty four hour long tour of duty flying from Melbourne to Dubai International Airport on board my favorite Airbus A380 named “Nancy-Bird Walton“.

Dubai under morning fog – 31 December 2016

Dubai and the 2,800 foot high Burj Khalifa

Dubai International Airport became choked when visibility at three of the five available airports reduced to just 100 metres.  Scores of aircraft arriving from around the world filled a vertical “air park” holding pattern in the sky awaiting their approach.

Technical Alert:   Dubai Airport makes “Low Visibility Procedures (LVP)” effective when the visibility or Runway Visual Range (RVR) reduces below 600 metres or the lower cloud ceiling falls below 300 feet.

The RVR was 100 meters and the vertical visibility was 100 feet (ceiling = zero) in fog at the time of our arrival.

Modern Category 3B equipped aircraft with trained crews have no problem conducting automatic landings in these conditions.  However, LVP introduces extra separations and precautions that reduces aircraft movements at Dubai from an average of about 46 down to 30 aircraft per hour.  This reduced rate is the cause for the extensive holding and delays.

Short flights from the UAE were cancelled to give priority to the larger aircraft to depart and thus make their parking bays available for arriving aircraft.

Pilot’s view of Sydney Runway 34 with simulated 125 metre (minimum takeoff) visibility. A380 operators permit landings with just 75 metres visibility. (RDC)

Diversions were inevitable.  We diverted to the “newer” Dubai Al Maktoum International Airport.  This airport has five runways on 55,000 acres under construction that when fully operational in 2027, will handle 160 million passengers a year.  This airport is situated just 20 miles to the west of the “older” Dubai International Airport (the World’s busiest airport (passenger count) comprising two runways that support 78m passengers/year).

Within an hour of landing we were refuelled and ready to depart and fly twenty miles to the Dubai International Airport.   Unfortunately we  again joined a lengthy queue to depart from our gate.  We had to stand ourselves down and call for a replacement crew when our forecast tour of duty reached the (Australian Civil Aviation Order #48) limit of 20 hours.

150 metres Runway Visual Range

The co-pilots and cabin crew performed with excellence. The 450 passengers remained calm.  A competition (with the prize of a bottle of champagne) to write the best limerick about our diversion inspired about one hundred submissions.

Thirty children submitted A380 drawings in response to their competition.

Drawing prizewinner Eliza Freidel – 31 Dec 2016

Dubai’s shipping terminal under fog – December 2016

We must all be empathetic and caring for our customers, because we never know the full circumstances of those who entrust their lives to us.    Two separate passengers were informed during the delay the family members they were travelling to farewell had passed away during our flight.   One woman told me the delay would cause her to miss her own wedding.  One man would miss the proposal he had planned for New Year’s Eve.

The spirit in my airline is the foundation for our great culture.  We turn up to work with the right attitude, present ourselves to the customers and plan to make their day.

Everyone clapped when the replacement crew arrived in a bus at the base of the aircraft stairs.  The recovery flight from the Al Maktoum International Airport 20 nm to the Dubai International Airport was probably the shortest A380 flight.

We finally arrived at the Dubai terminal twenty three hours after leaving Melbourne.

No one enjoys being involved in a weather diversion, however in our case the passengers appreciated our efforts to provide full and open disclosure and my personal guarantee to ease their stress.  They smiled as they disembarked Nancy-Bird Walton.

Four days after the event I have only received one request for assistance (that I will honour) from the 450 passengers.

113th year of powered flight

It is an honour to be an aircraft commander in the twenty first century.  We have the privilege to operate the most advanced technologies operating over varied engineering, atmospheric, political and geographical landscapes.  We work in companies that espouse the best corporate and human safety management systems and cultures.  We work with knowledgeable, highly trained and experienced crews, teams and professionals.

The best pilots make flying look easy – but it’s not.   Great pilots like Sully and Captain Aux have a chronic unease for the status quo and know their limits. They know the idea that you can study and then have a career in one area of technology is out of date.   They commit to a lifetime of learning and strive for excellence and resilience.  They have an internal motivation from which they derive satisfaction, purpose and meaning while sharing the same aim – to keep their passengers and crews safe.

My honour to meet and interview the NASA legend Gene Kranz

I extend my thanks to all aviation organisations, airlines, their pilots and crews who build, audit and maintain safety.  Aviation is a High Reliability industry that pivots on the values of Gene Kranz, “failure is not an option”.

Despite aviation industry doubling in size every fifteen years, 2016 was the second safest year ever to fly.  Your chance of being in a fatal airline accident is now about one in 3,200,000 (or one flight per 913 years of continuous flying*).

It is an earned privilege to fly.  Pilots and crews will continue their lifetime of study, learning and practice to hone and develop their skills.   I will be checked and recertified seven times in 2017.

Happy New Year!

With 2016 behind us, 2017 opens with more challenges and opportunities.

Coral and I think 2017 will be a great year.  What we get out of live is commensurate with the effort we put in. Seize every day.

Coral and I extend our best wishes to everyone for a loving, safe and productive 2017.

• based on 2.5 hr average flight time.    ie. 1 / 2.5 (hr) x 3.2m (flt/yr)  / (24 x 365)  (hr/day) (day/yr)

Diversions for a Diversion

I am very sad to hear of Gene Cernan‘s passing.

Gene Cernan (owenscollections.com)

Coral and I saw Gene speak in Sydney just a few months ago. We hoped to see him at the International Astronautical Congress in in Adelaide, Australia in September 2017.

Gene Cernan

Gene’s eulogy for Neil Armstrong