Chocks In and Checklist Complete.
Chocks In and Checklist Complete. The sounds of the engines shutting down have faded. The final formal words of checklists have been book-ended with farewells. Now the Boeing 787 sits in relative silence until the next crew starts its drills to stir the jet into …
A World Away.
A World Away. Returning to flying after such a long absence has been an extremely motivating experience – in stark contrast to the preceding year of mixed frustrations. From taking those first tentative steps following surgery, it is almost surreal to be sitting at …
A Hawker Hurricane and a Pilgrimage.
A Hawker Hurricane and a Pilgrimage. There’s a place north of London that is special to me for many reasons. I first visited there decades ago but have returned time and again. It was the airfield where I launched my first book, “Down to Earth”, …
Fate is the Hunter.
Fate is the Hunter. In the classic aviation book, “Fate is the Hunter” by Ernest Gann, Gann says we must believe in our own personal fortune and destiny in order to have any chance of survival. Fate itself is indeed the hunter and when …
415 days.
415 Days.. It had been 415 days since I last strapped into the flight deck and it is difficult to put the emotions of my return into words – but I will try. The pandemic saw me grounded for even longer and yet that seemed …
A Privilege.
A Privilege. I have written books in the past but when I was approached by the Air Force to write about RAAF operations in the Korean War, it was an absolute privilege. My involvement with the subject dates back to my childhood when veterans of …
Road to Nowhere.
“I’m on a road to nowhere” was a line famously made famous by Talking Heads in 1985. Eight years later, I felt that I was on a road to nowhere as I sat in a small clearing on the Great Dividing Range, south of Katoomba. …
One Year On.
At the time that I last parked the brakes on my Boeing 737, there were two things to which I was oblivious. Firstly, that it was the last time that I’d park the brakes. And secondly, it was Halloween. In retrospect, the time of …
The Old Blokes in the Corner.
The Old Blokes in the Corner. I was fortunate in that the era in which I learnt to fly was populated by mentors with a wealth of experience. Back then, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) went through a series of name changes from the …
An Airport Comes to Life.
An Airport Comes to Life From my perch on the 8th floor I can see across the International Terminal at Sydney as the airport is coming to life. The rain on the window obscures the view slightly but the flashing lights of the ground vehicles …
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