Category QF32 Story

Flying Approaches for Dummies

Version 4, May 13, 2021 TECHNICAL – FOR PILOT’S EYES ONLY QF32 follower Riccardo Parachini writes: Hi Richard, I’d like to ask a curiosity. Cadet pilots starting their career on a big jet (say A320, A330) sometimes have trouble in energy management on approach. Airbus publishes some diagrams which are very good but specific for […]

Turn It Off!

The perils of automation – Aviation, Tesla and the Australian Open The Australian Open Tennis Championship has fallen for the same automation trap that that the aviation industry has been suffering for the last ten years. The problem is with technical human-machine systems that are not resilient. The problem boils down to this – the […]

Considerations – How to Flare and Land a Big Jet (v5)

Question Ricky recently asked me the following question on the QF32 web site: Good evening Richard, I read all your books and have been huge inspiration during my training to become a pilot. I read you have flown nearly all airplanes and in the book you also mention a technique used on Caribou airplane. Now […]

4 November 2019 – the 9th Anniversary of QF32

Today, the 4th November 2019 is the 9th Anniversary of Flight QF32, an event that changed my, Coral’s, our passengers’, crews’ and many others’ (Second Victims) lives. Nine years after QF32 event, I continue to fly the A380 to many destinations around the world. During each long-haul flight, it’s still my pleasure to walk the […]

Intrepid and Resilient

Click here to see my posting about Apollo 11 on the FLY! website

Apollo 11 (Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins & Kranz) – Tough and Competent

From FLY-theBook.com Apollo 11 50 years ago today, as Apollo 11 completed its Trans Lunar Injection burn to accelerate and position into a Free Return Trajectory on the way to the moon, it’s worth remembering how long and fragile the early chain of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo operations were and how, if the culture […]

Personal Resilience – Distractions Kill

  This is a challenging video.. WHY you must not text and drive This post is hosted at the FLY! web site.   When you are at the FLY! web site, please select the “Follow” button underneath and to the right of the page header to subscribe to posts in the FLY! website https://flythebookcom.wordpress.com/…/10/24/distractions-k…/  

FINALLY- FLY! IS AIRBORNE

I am pleased to announce that my next book called FLY! –  Life Lessons from the Cockpit of QF32 is available NOW in Australian book shops, just in time for Fathers’ Day. Purchase autographed paper copies of FLY! (with optional personal messages) world-wide from FLY-TheBook.com On Monday, FLY! will be also be available at: Paper:  Australian […]

Technical – ATSB Report – “QF32 – The story behind the story”

My book “QF32” was published in July 2012, about one year before the ATSB published its report into QF32.   Because of this mismatch in time, I was not permitted to publish information discovered by the ATSB that was not already available in the public domain.  Information I included in the “Stub Pipe” chapter was therefore limited […]

Happy New Year

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 International Airport became choked when visibility at three of the five available airports reduced to just 100 metres.  Scores of aircraft arriving from […]