Captain Jeremy Burfoot, author of The Secret Life of Flying

I’d always wanted to be a pilot from the time I realised that I’d never be an astronaut. There’s something quite magical about leaving the Earth and looking down on it from above. It’s not that easy to become a professional pilot though, and all the successful ones I know were driven from a young age to do it. They all talk of watching airshows as kids and building model aircraft. Even though my sons flew around the world with me, I knew they wouldn’t become pilots because they just weren’t invested in it enough.

There are quite a few pathways to becoming a pilot and all take a lot of dedication and hard work to reach the goal of a professional pilot career. If you are successful, it can be a very rewarding and satisfying career.

In my 37 years flying with Qantas, I never got bored with it. The feeling of hundreds of thousands of horsepower pushing you down the runway at 300kph on take-off never gets old. The slightly elevated stress levels of landing a giant aircraft like the Airbus A380 or the Boeing 747 is something that most pilots really enjoy too. It’s a challenge to land in any conditions and still do a good job, even when you are exhausted from being up all night. Even though the landing is only one part of a complex job, everyone seems to judge each other and themselves on how well the landing goes.

A good landing in a large jet comes from a combination of things. Some pilots tend to be consistently better at it than others. When you come in for a landing, you get visual cues from outside the aircraft as well as audible cues from the onboard computers. If your brain is very good at combining the incoming information, and converting it into the required actions with your hands, then you’ll get a good landing. Sometimes, it’s so good that it’s hard to feel the touchdown at all. Often the passengers will clap when they approve of the landing, but when you do a really good one, they won’t even know they are on the ground until the reverse thrust starts.

For more on this, see my new book, The Secret Life Of Flying.

The Secret Life of Flying by Captain Jeremy Burfoot

How does a plane stay up in the air?
Does the Mile-High Club actually exist?
When you flush the toilet, where does it all go?

Buckle up for some turbulence because nothing flies under the radar for Captain Jeremy Burfoot.

With more than 35 years of airline experience, the former Qantas pilot presents an Airbus-load of stories about unruly passengers and cockpit clashes, and expertly navigates the bizarre myths surrounding everyday air travel. He explains important details like why plane wings actually bend, which in-flight surfaces carry the most germs and how to make plane food taste better.

Jam-packed with hilarity, horror stories and honest insights, The Secret Life of Flying is part memoir and part guide to the skies – a razor-sharp and First Class read for anyone who has ever wondered who’s really flying the plane …