Airbus A350 Chief Test pilot Peter Chandler (extreme right)
Toulouse, France:
Hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs were riding on it. The world's media and his firm's top bosses were scrutinising his every move.
But it was all in a day's work for Peter Chandler, the former RAF pilot in charge of Airbus's newest plane on its first test flight.
"I got up and came in to work almost as usual, but it wasn't quite as usual," the former RAF pilot said Friday as he relaxed with a glass of champagne just minutes after the new A350's successful maiden trip.
As Airbus's chief test pilot, Chandler was given the honour of taking control of the new long-haul airliner for its first take-off before handing over to his French co-pilot, Guy Magrin, for landing after four hours in the skies above southwestern France and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain.
Also on board on Friday were four other engineers and all six men were kitted out with helmets and parachutes - just in case.
"I've spent half of my life flying airplanes with a parachute strapped to me so it's nothing unusual," Chandler said, still wearing his orange jumpsuit after landing the next-generation plane at Toulouse airport in southwest France.
"Test flying is the job I've always wanted to do, it's the job I love," he said.
"But in general it is all very well planned, all safety precautions, 'what-if?' questions get asked. And generally once we've actually started flying the airplane, we know what we're looking at, where there may be problems, where there won't be.
"I wouldn't say it's mundane, but it's relatively predictable," he said.
Chandler joined Airbus 13 years ago, and was one of the test pilots allocated to the company's much-mediatised, double-decker A380 superjumbo.
Likening the A350 - a plane that Airbus hopes will help catch up with rival Boeing in the lucrative long-haul market - to a horse, he said the aircraft had been raring to go.
"For the last week or so, it's been quite obvious the plane is ready to fly and wanting to fly," he said of the airliner, which makes extensive use of composite materials that reduce fuel consumption and costs.
"That was obvious this morning as it was clearly much happier in the air than it has been running down the runway and stopping all the time."
Chandler said he knew as a teenager that he wanted to fly for a living, and after doing an aeronautics degree at Southampton university, he joined the Royal Air Force (RAF), for whom he flew Tornadoes and
Hunters.
He was then trained as a test pilot for the military, and later left the air force to fly for Virgin Atlantic for a few years, before joining Airbus.
He said test-flying commercial planes and military jets was much the same.
"The difference is things happen so much more quickly (for commercial airlines)," he said.
"Here, because there is commercial pressure to make sure you sell an airplane that's going to be delivered in two or three years' time, you have to do it. That doesn't seem to be the case so much with the military."
But it was all in a day's work for Peter Chandler, the former RAF pilot in charge of Airbus's newest plane on its first test flight.
"I got up and came in to work almost as usual, but it wasn't quite as usual," the former RAF pilot said Friday as he relaxed with a glass of champagne just minutes after the new A350's successful maiden trip.
As Airbus's chief test pilot, Chandler was given the honour of taking control of the new long-haul airliner for its first take-off before handing over to his French co-pilot, Guy Magrin, for landing after four hours in the skies above southwestern France and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain.
Also on board on Friday were four other engineers and all six men were kitted out with helmets and parachutes - just in case.
"I've spent half of my life flying airplanes with a parachute strapped to me so it's nothing unusual," Chandler said, still wearing his orange jumpsuit after landing the next-generation plane at Toulouse airport in southwest France.
"Test flying is the job I've always wanted to do, it's the job I love," he said.
"But in general it is all very well planned, all safety precautions, 'what-if?' questions get asked. And generally once we've actually started flying the airplane, we know what we're looking at, where there may be problems, where there won't be.
"I wouldn't say it's mundane, but it's relatively predictable," he said.
Chandler joined Airbus 13 years ago, and was one of the test pilots allocated to the company's much-mediatised, double-decker A380 superjumbo.
Likening the A350 - a plane that Airbus hopes will help catch up with rival Boeing in the lucrative long-haul market - to a horse, he said the aircraft had been raring to go.
"For the last week or so, it's been quite obvious the plane is ready to fly and wanting to fly," he said of the airliner, which makes extensive use of composite materials that reduce fuel consumption and costs.
"That was obvious this morning as it was clearly much happier in the air than it has been running down the runway and stopping all the time."
Chandler said he knew as a teenager that he wanted to fly for a living, and after doing an aeronautics degree at Southampton university, he joined the Royal Air Force (RAF), for whom he flew Tornadoes and
Hunters.
He was then trained as a test pilot for the military, and later left the air force to fly for Virgin Atlantic for a few years, before joining Airbus.
He said test-flying commercial planes and military jets was much the same.
"The difference is things happen so much more quickly (for commercial airlines)," he said.
"Here, because there is commercial pressure to make sure you sell an airplane that's going to be delivered in two or three years' time, you have to do it. That doesn't seem to be the case so much with the military."
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