alan booth
A man with an amazing background, Alan Booth used one of the latest projectors [it almost talked] to illustrate his talk about 90 year-old Christchurch Aero Club.
Alan has been a windsurfing instructor, a gardener, a salesman, and more recently found himself working for the Aeroclub as a cleaner of planes . During this time he noticed the software in use at the time was in need of upgrading so he applied his expertise to this .
Twelve months ago he became CEO of the Aero Club and the software is the latest Oracle Netsuite system, which has the ability to update data continuously.
Alan describes himself as an entrepreneur with vision and now the Aero Club has grown into a large organisation training pilots who go on to become controllers of such passenger aircraft as the huge 5oo passenger A380 .
Using sophisticated virtual reality systems, the students gain a thorough grounding [pun intended] in their chosen profession!
The environs of Christchurch airport provide real challenges for the students too , who find they have to fly over glaciers, mountains, and terrain with few landmarks, sometimes in very changeable weather, sometimes in cloud, and sometimes upside down. Major airlines love the Christchurch trained pilots because they have had this comprehensive experience.
An A380 flying to London requires several changes of three pilots per time resulting in twelve pilots on this long –haul flight.
‘Will there ever be pilotless aircraft ? Alan was asked. ‘No probably never,’ was Alan’s reply, ‘because who would want to fly in one?’