A Jumpseat Journey..

It was a different day at the “office”. Rather than flying the Boeing 787, I was tasked as a “Safety Pilot” as a new pilot strapped into the front seat to fly their first sectors on the aeroplane. For my part, I was in a rear seat – a “Jumpseat” – without  a set of controls.

While this might sound a touch unsettling, it should be remembered that before a pilot flies their first sectors, they have spent weeks in ground school learning about the aircraft and its systems in depth. They then undergo around ten sessions in a procedural trainer and a dozen or more 4-hour full flight simulator sessions. These simulator sessions encompass both normal and non-normal operations and allow the pilot to see the full extent of the 787 in good times and bad. And of course, the training is topped off with the inevitable fun of a check ride.

Consequently, as I sat there, I was watching a proficient pilot put those lessons into practice. It is not like observing a fledgling aviator taking to the sky for the first time at a suburban airfield but a well-trained and experienced individual executing the theory they have absorbed in the preceding weeks.

The jumpseat offers a different perspective. While monitoring the operation it offers the capacity to draw in what it is that we do. The interweaving of tasks allowing the operation to flow smoothly and watching the hands of two pilots action switches in an intricate choreography.

For someone at the tail end of their career, flying as the safety pilot gave me a panoramic view of the vocation I have practiced for nearly forty years. I was sitting on the outside and looking in and in my quiet hotel room that inevitably evokes reflections and thought. In some ways I wish I could have sat back and watched myself in the early years of my career – operating not as a crew member but as a lone pilot.

Those dark nights when the rain the thrashed the windscreen on descent into some remote black hole in search of a regional runway. Or even before that, as I flew scenic flights and charters, weaving around the outback. Pilot, refueller, baggage handler and tour guide all rolled in to one. Every flight was the manifestation of my training while still providing an opportunity to learn. And that balance remains throughout a career in aviation, regardless of the size of the aircraft or the hours in one’s log books.

I also consider how regardless of the role – the system works. How, for the majority, training can take people with dreams and dedication from being kids looking through an airfield fence to navigating the stratosphere. And how six decades ago, that kid was me.