It's a pleasure to fly, says superjumbo pilot
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In Dubai when Emirates airline's Airbus A380 touches down at New York's John F Kennedy Airport on its inaugural flight on August 1, it will be the airline's A380 Chief Flying Instructor easing the superjumbo in for a perfect landing.
For Captain Cliff Chetcuti, nothing can beat being an Airbus A380
pilot, let alone flying a section of Emirates' inaugural flight to New
York.
Captain Chetcuti, along with Emirates Airline's Chief Pilot Captain
Abbas Shaban and Captain Patrick De Roeck, will fly the superjumbo on
its inaugural flight to New York, before touring the West Coast of the
United States.
'It's the fact you're flying the biggest commercial aircraft in the
world,' he said. 'I've been flying for 22 years and it becomes casual
when I walk out to the aircraft.'
'I had butterflies thinking 'I'm going to be flying that in 10
minutes'. You really feel its magnitude. It's a pleasure to fly,'
Chetcuti said.
As Emirates' A380 Chief Flying Instructor, Captain Chetcuti has been
responsible for implementing the airline's training programme with 36
pilots now qualified to fly the A380.
He said the pilots' training generally involved a 15-day programme,
including simulator, theory and practical, preparing them to deal with
any scenario.
Chetcuti nearly became an engineer until he won a rare and competitive
position as a cadet with Malta Air. He recalls flying into Dubai and
seeing the Emirates livery and wanting to be a part of the airline.
'Even then we could see it was going places,' he said.
'I have to pinch myself sometimes. Am I really here, with Emirates and
the A380,' he said. 'People don't believe me when I go back to Malta.'
The plane's 80m wingspan means the pilots can't see the wingtips but
Chetcuti said it was a myth that the aircraft's size restricted it to
certain airports. 'The biggest challenge is its size, but we're trained
in techniques for various airports,' he pointed out.
The second batch of pilots will begin training for the A380 tomorrow with groups of eight progressing through every two weeks.
Source: Khaleejtimes
By Zoe Sinclair
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