I’ve been with Cathay Pacific for nearly 10 years on the Boeing 747 fleet. Prior to that I was flying regional jets for a company called Air Wisconsin, close to where I live in Oshkosh. Before then I flew float and ski planes in northern Canada.
I’m based in Chicago, so most of the flying that I do is with the freighter fleet. In my time, I’ve had some nice entries in my log book, including the flying the heaviest cargo consignment – some mining equipment from Houston – and I was delighted to be on the flight deck when we flew into Oshkosh for Airventure on 30 July.
During the show, the tower handles more air traffic than any other in the world. We flew from Chicago and climbed to 20,000 feet and stayed in the cruise for all of 40 seconds before we started our descent. The flight time was about 20 minutes.
I’ve been flying my own aircraft out of Oshkosh for the past 20 years. Flying in on a state-of-the-art 747-8F was like being given a Lamborghini to drive around your home town. But the most impressive thing was the people within Cathay Pacific and Boeing who made the event happen. It was a complex operation and that teamwork was essential. It was also great to meet our customers.
