![]() Speaking of movies, Hughes delights in dissecting Hollywood’s flight-deck and aviation footage. “I either had to rely on my friends or use the online forums - and honestly, they made me feel like I was in a scene from ‘Mean Girls,’” he said, referencing the 2004 high-school clique comedy. “When I went through flight school there weren’t really any channels addressing some of the things I was dealing with,” Hughes said. “I hope I never have to use it because it’s a long way down,” he said. Among Hughes’ pre-flight duties: checking the flight deck’s emergency exit hatch, installed above the cockpit on the six-story-tall plane. A hinged tail section allows for loading oversize and awkwardly shaped items. The Dreamlifter, a bloated 747 freighter - there are only four - can transport mammoth aerospace components, including the fuselage for the Boeing 787. Said Hughes: “My airline knows about my channel, but I can’t mention them specifically in any press because I’m not a PR rep for them.” The air carrier he works for operates 747 cargo planes and Dreamlifters, those specially modified 747-400s that got a makeover the mid-2000s. Hughes has been a frequent flyer to and from Paine Field, his home base for a year. Her life has truly come full circle as she is now a 747 First Officer for Atlas based out of JFK, the airport where she landed after that first magical flight.His twice-monthly broadcasts offer a peek inside the big rig he pilots, explanations behind hard landings and cockpit maneuvers, and reviews of aviation sequences in movies such as “Sully,” “Flight” and “Wonder Woman 1984.” “When I had the opportunity to come fly for Atlas, I told them it had to be on the 747.” “I always worked toward my dream to fly the 747,” she said. During that time, she often would visit the jet bridge to watch the 747s on the runway. Kennedy Airport (JFK) was that I was going to be a 747 pilot.”Ĭommitted to her dream, Diane took a position as a gate agent at JFK to earn money while pursuing flying lessons. The first thing I told my father when he met me at John F. “The flight attendants and the crew treated me wonderfully I even got to meet the Captain and First Officer and tour the flight deck. “It was the first time I ever traveled by air, and the entire flight was magical to me,” Diane recalled. ![]() She was traveling as an unaccompanied minor for her transatlantic move from Birmingham, England to Brooklyn, New York to join her father and grandmother, who were already living in the United States. “We flew over the Himalayas in the morning, and it was a clear sky with no clouds,” he said “We were so high, but it felt like you could reach out and touch the mountains from where I sat in the cockpit.”įirst Officer Diane Pencil boarded a 747 for the first time at age 11. It’s an empty expanse of sky.”Īnother amazing flight took him from Afghanistan to Kazakhstan. “I had never flown to that part of the world before,” said Edul. His favorite memory is flying from Santiago, Chile to Tahiti for a DHL charter flight for Cirque du Soleil. He said his favorite thing about flying the 747 is not the cargo it holds, but the places he has had the opportunity to fly to in his 11 years with Atlas. I thought the 747 was just amazing.”Įdul’s childhood dream is now his reality. “She used to take me to the viewing gallery, and we’d stand there to watch planes for hours. “My mother was an accountant, and her office was near the airport,” said Edul. ![]() The pilots were flying the aircraft together to Incheon International Airport (INC) in Korea.Ĭaptain and Check Pilot Edulji (Edul) Banaji dreamed of flying the 747 when he was a child. (L-R) Captain and Check Pilot Edul Banaji, Captain Joe Masone, Captain Gina Buhl and First Officer William Spencer Barker pose in front of one of the new 747s on the Boeing ramp in Seattle.
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