CHAPTER 10

The Far Side

Many commercial pilots have backup skills and qualifications that they nurture should the day ever arise when they don’t want to fly anymore, or they fail their licence checks or annual medical.

My interest in personal computers developed through my military career. I ordered the very first Compaq Portable PC in 1984 while I was on assignment in the Sinai Peninsula. The name ‘portable’ was tenuous since it weighed 30 kilograms, was as big as a suitcase and had no battery backup – but it did have a handle!

I read piles of books on software development and was soon able to write computer programs for the RAAF in my spare time. Once I joined Qantas, I visited the offices of a leading software company in Sydney to see about a part-time job as a programmer and started writing code for them.

Coral and I started Aeronaut Industries in 1985 to manufacture ‘The Flying Kneepad’ for fighter pilots in the RAAF and, later, civilian pilots. In 1987 we decided to expand Aeronaut into a software company. The next three years were very enjoyable. I spent time off at home and overseas writing code.

We’d always wanted to have an extra stream of income as a backup should something go wrong at Qantas. We’d already had our first child, Alexander, born in July 1989 and, although we always planned to have two kids close together, the next pregnancy six months later was a wonderful surprise. There is nothing like children to focus your mind on financial security.

It became clear the future lay in importing, distributing, supporting and supplying training tools for software developers, and we realised I’d need a year off flying to make it work. Economists declared Australia was going into recession and Qantas requested pilots to take leave of absence. What an opportunity! I got my leave and included a new requirement that Qantas would keep my simulator checks going and my licence current so I could return after the break and slip straight back into the seat. Qantas agreed.

The business grew so fast I needed a second year off to get things under control. We were selling to some large organisations and the word was spreading: we had great tools and offered good advice.

In 1990, to stay current for my Qantas licence I not only had to do the 747–400 simulators every six months, but I also had to do an annual route check. A route check is when you fly a sector and a check pilot sits behind you, remaining silent, and assesses you on how well you fly, manage the aircraft and your crew, and comply with SOPs. If you fail the route check, your pay stops and you cease flying for Qantas.

So in September 1990, after having taken six months off, I flew to Singapore to do my route check. I was to land at Changi, go to the hotel for a sleep, and then fly back to Sydney the next day. The whole sector would be 36 hours. Our daughter was due at this time, but Coral said, ‘Go, I’m not close.’

But when I arrived at the hotel in Singapore, Coral called me from the hospital delivery room. She continued to call me between contractions, until the fourth call when she cried and told me we had a daughter, Sophia. Talk about lousy timing! I had set aside just 36 hours in an entire year to do my route check, and that’s when my daughter was born.

I remember announcing this to the passengers as I flew out of Changi on Father’s Day, 1990.

Coral began working with me full-time in the business at Aeronaut. I found the technical side easy, but I was useless at the back office accounting, clerical and marketing side. I needed Coral and we made a fabulous business team.

Aeronaut grew rapidly with Coral at the helm. To this day, Australia’s largest retailer and half of Australia’s hotels run on our databases. We’d built ourselves a secondary source of income, we gave ourselves a very good standard of living and were able to send the kids to good schools and take them skiing every year. It was fun to be in the computer business, but Coral had taken over and I needed a physical challenge. I wanted to get back to flying and Qantas was expecting me to return.

In 1992 I returned as a first officer on 747–400s, and it suited me to stay in that position. When on long layovers in overseas ports, I took every opportunity to meet with the leaders at the best software companies – an opportunity I wouldn’t have had if I was stranded behind a desk in Australia – and I’m sure most of the IT executives I spoke with had no idea I was a Qantas pilot fronting for my wife’s company back home.

My plan was to remain as a first officer on the 747–400 until I had sufficient seniority to get a 747–400 command course. I loved the 400 and didn’t want to operate any smaller, low-tech alternatives. I also didn’t want to fly short sectors within Australia. So I let pass the opportunities for 737 and 767 command, and flew the more challenging long-haul routes to US and European destinations. All was going to plan: Qantas was expanding, I had been cleared to commence command training and I expected to start my training in 2004. These plans would be thrown to the wolves when Qantas blocked ‘vertical pro­motion on the 747–400’.

The block was to stop people flying the 747s as a first officer and then captain. There was a worry that complacent first officers might be promoted to become complacent captains. Qantas thought the best 747 captains were those that had streamed through multiple aircraft types on their path to command.

I had been kneecapped. I had delayed taking a command on minor aircraft so I could simply move from the right-hand seat to the left-hand seat and retain knowledge for the wonderful 747 and long-haul operations. But now I had to move to another aircraft to get my command – which one?

Airbus was the new boy in the aviation industry – the maverick. Its heritage started with the Concorde (the first commercial aircraft to have fly-by-wire flight controls and digital computers), through the A300, A320 and the A330. The company intrigued me, not just as an aviator but also as a software developer. Airbuses were crammed with computers – they ran the plane – and I was curious how the software was designed and how it worked. Qantas had traditionally been an all-Boeing company, but in a surprising shift Qantas ordered ten Airbus A330s and twenty A380s. The A330 would arrive in 2002.

I started reading up on the A330 and getting really enthused. But I was also very sceptical of Airbus; I’d heard all the stories of the unfortunate accidents that had beset the manufacturer, and if I were to be comfortable flying Airbus aircraft I’d have to drill down into the reasons for these ­accidents and know how I would prevent similar mishaps. The more I read, the more excited I became. The A330 is a remarkably advanced aircraft. My scepticism evaporated; here was my route to a Qantas command.

Gaining my command on the A330 would not be easy. I would be changing from long haul to short haul, from Boeing to Airbus, from first officer to captain – and all at once. I’d be dumping the Boeing philosophies I’d learned over the preceding eighteen years and replacing them with Airbus’s entirely new philosophy, almost tantamount to learning how to fly again. I would be flying sectors in regions and to airports I’d never visited before. It would be particularly hard making the Airbus conversion as well as stepping up to commanding the plane. I asked Murray Crockett, the management pilot in charge of the A330, if I could make life easier for myself and Qantas if I converted to the A330 as a first officer for the first six months to get used to the aircraft, then undertook my command course. Murray said no – there was no protocol in the training department for this process. I was the first to undertake conversion and promotion courses at the same time.

So it was A330 command or nothing. My colleagues called me crazy, and I thought perhaps I was a little bit crazy, but the thrill, challenge and the rewards of commanding the world’s most advanced aircraft were too good to knock back. I saw Airbus as the future of aviation. So, I thought, why not?