View from the cockpit

25th March 2021 Zoom Meeting – View from the cockpit – Adrian Cresswell

Adrian started with some background of 15 years flying in the RAF preceding his move to commercial flying with BA, for the first 5 years taking on various aircraft, but moving to the 747 Jumbo Jet in 1995.

Once he had given some statistics on the 747 one wonders why he moved to the 747! Weighing 400 tons (same as a high speed train with all the carriages and passengers); 75 m. wide (wider than a football pitch and as long as the pitch, up to the far penalty area), a huge beast, but the most popular aircraft to fly and also liked by the cabin crews.

The photographs started flowing then from Mont Blanc, Venice, Africa and in particular Alexandria, Egypt, close to where Adrian’s grandfather had fought with ‘The Desert Rats’ at El-Alamein. The Pyramids at Giza, the fertile Nile, millions of ‘Crop circles’ in Saudi, the ‘tented’ airport at Jeddah, created to assist in Muslims attending the ‘Hadje’, the Sahara and other pictures where one could see the curvature of the Earth.

Huge Forest fires in Africa, and other examples of Nature’s weather challenges, lightning storms, heavy fog, volcano eruptions, typhoons, and hurricanes.

He had pictures of most of the “bucket list” sites: Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Fuji, Cape Town, Perth (most remote City), Sydney, Uluru, Himalayas, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, Iguazu Falls, Rockies and Vancouver, Chicago, Hoover Dam, San Francisco, Monument Valley, The Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls,, Cape Kennedy, New York and The Isles of Scilly.

He concluded with some statistics of his career: 208 different Airports, 58 Countries, 2/3rds of a million passengers, not to mention 30 years of flying small aeroplanes training Cadets at Newton and Cranwell, all the Jet lag and time changes his body experienced over his outstanding career, what a man! He confidently handled the numerous questions that followed, an indication of the attention he had captured with this well travelled audience.

David E. proposing a Vote of Thanks for Adrian’s very informative and beautifully illustrated presentation, echoed by President Derek, then well supported with ‘visual applause’                       AR