About Me

I began flying at the Genoa Aero Club in Italy in 1967. Since then I have worked as a corporate pilot in Trieste, an instrument flight instructor and corporate pilot in Genoa, and as an airline pilot at various bases throughout Europe, the Middle East, India, and the Far East. I hold an FAA airline transport pilot licence and I am type qualified in the Boeing 727, Lockheed L1011, and Boeing 747/400 series aircraft.

My teaching experience in aviation was gained at Qantas Airways in Sydney, where I taught normal and non-normal procedures in the Boeing 747 Classic and Boeing 767 flight simulators. I also taught aircraft performance in the classroom on these aircraft types.

Qantas ground instructors received extensive emergency procedures training, including the use of portable oxygen bottles, megaphones, evacuation and ditching procedures, deployment of slides, slide rafts, and fire fighting. This training was identical to the training required of Qantas pilots and flight attendants.

In addition to emergency procedures training we were locked down for a weekend in a Sydney suburban hotel. There we received theoretical and practical training in the relatively new discipline of CRM, or Cockpit Resource Management, which is designed to prevent aircraft accidents. Qantas, since its inception in 1920, has never had an aircraft accident or incident resulting in loss of life.

After I lost my first class medical certificate I needed to add a ‘second string to my bow’, so I enrolled at Chiang Mai University in their TEFL Certificate course. There I studied linguistic theory and communicative language teaching methodology.

I have worked as a teacher of English as a foreign language in two periods for a total of five years. On both occasions I was privileged to teach university students and young working adults at the American University Alumni Language Center in Bangkok. In addition to working at A.U.A., I organized in-house English courses for several Thai government departments including the Department of Lands, the Local Administration, and the Department of Public Prosecutions, as well as eight corporations in the private sector.

More recently I have been involved with preparing aspiring flight attendants for interviews with Thai and foreign carriers. I enjoy teaching very much and I derive a great deal of satisfaction from my students’ success in achieving their objectives.

My interests are sailing, reading, music, art, and flying.