E45: James Owen - 777 Pilot's Journey Through Life & Sport - Nourish Your Potential

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I'm back with the first episode of 2024, episode number 45 with James Owen,
a triple seven pilot with Air New Zealand.
As you will soon hear from James, I won't introduce him too much more,
but it was really awesome to chat with him and all the different hats he wears,
as well as his experiences in life, aviation and sport.

(00:23):
We cover so many different topics in this episode, with the first half focusing
mostly mostly on flying, and then getting into some really interesting topics
around imposter syndrome,
working to our individual strengths, and juggling health and training with more
challenging work schedules.
We really hope you enjoy our conversation.
Music.

(00:53):
Welcome to the Nourish Your Potential podcast. My name is Kushla Holdaway and
I'm a registered and accredited sports dietitian based in beautiful New Zealand.
I am so glad you have joined me on this podcast where we will discuss science,
sports nutrition, running and physiology alongside interviews with athletes,

(01:14):
experts and other health professionals.
Professionals whether you're listening to this podcast during your commute your
training session or whilst cooking up a storm in the kitchen you can be reassured
information is discussed in a thought-provoking evidence-based and easy to understand
manner so that you have more tools in your nutrition toolbox to be your best self.

(01:35):
Music.
Well, my name's James Owen. I'm originally from Wellington, but I've moved around
the place over the 36 years I've been around.

(01:59):
And I've settled in Christchurch, and I've been in Christchurch for about 10 years.
I live there with my wife and I in Sockburn, near the university.
And I guess first and foremost, I'm a husband, I'm a brother,
I'm a son, and when I don't spend time.

(02:20):
Giving time to those things. I'm an Air New Zealand pilot. I do endurance sports.
I like doing a whole host of different things.
And yeah, I like to live a full and active life and sort of get pretty curious
about all manner of different things.
So I'm not sure if you can put me in a box, which is kind of the way I like it. Yeah.

(02:43):
I've been keen to have you on the podcast for a while, actually for that reason
I feel like there's so many interesting things about you but particularly,
own interest of mine I'm really interested in aviation and
flying I think it's amazing and also I've known you for quite a few years from
the endurance space as well actually through Team CP initially and when you

(03:04):
were a coach there so yeah I've been really looking forward to catching up and
just diving into a bit more about you and being a pilot and being an athlete and everything else.
Yeah, well, it's very easy to go down rabbit holes.
So feel free to kind of take this in any direction that you like.
And hopefully we can find some things that people might find interesting,

(03:26):
whether it be about flying or coaching or study or just things that everyone picks up along the way,
because I'm sure you could have almost anybody on the podcast and you could
fill an hour talking with people about interesting experiences that they've
picked up in life along along the way so yeah let's do it.
Cool should we should we start the podcast or the first half or so with pilot

(03:47):
chat and getting to know about what it's like and how you got to be with Air
New Zealand because I think that's you know it's one of the best airlines in
the world so I think it's pretty cool to be where you are so yeah tell us tell
us a little bit more about your journey and and getting there and what it took.
Okay yeah well I guess getting into flying was one of those those childhood

(04:07):
things really that a lot of pilots would have experienced in some ways.
Very few people sort of, in my experience, fall into flying just because it
was something they thought they might have a go at.
But I remember when I was about seven, my grandparents lived near an Air Force
base in the UK and I was over visiting them when I was about seven and my grandpa

(04:29):
and I stood and we were watching the GR-7 Harrier,
which is a type of military jet, practicing for an air show.
And it was doing this bow maneuver where it sort of hovers and then it does like a bow at the end.
And that signals the end of the display. and I was standing watching with my
grandpa as I was seven and I just, I'm not quite sure what it was about that,

(04:51):
but I sort of remember standing there thinking and looking at that saying,
that's pretty cool. I want to do that.
And my grandpa didn't have any affiliation with flying or even engineering or
mechanics in any way, but he had sort of a little bit of an interest in that kind of thing.
So I remember talking with him and I said, Grandpa, could I do that?

(05:12):
I remember him saying, yeah, you could do that. and we talked about you know
what it might take to to get there so that kind of sparked an interest
and then really since since that sort
of time onwards i i've kind
of angled what i was doing at school and outside of school towards career and
aviation i've done sort of various other things along the way it hasn't been

(05:33):
like a straight beeline from primary school to an indy zealand career there's
been lots of segways in and out of other industries but all through my my schooling,
And like my other things that I've done, I've kind of had flying as this sort
of north star that I've been trying to work towards.
So I started out with doing a couple of trial flights and got involved in the

(05:56):
ATC or the Air Training Corps.
And I did a flight when I was, my first flight when I was 13 at high school.
And then my dad actually organized for me to go on a ride with a local pilot
in Wellington who had a charter company.
And he's quite well known in the industry. and a lot of people have been beneficiaries
of him helping them out in some way.

(06:17):
So I went on a ride with Peter Vincent in one of his airplanes and we did the paper run.
So we took the papers from Wellington Airport to Blenheim to Nelson and then
we were back home at Wellington by sort of half past seven in the morning.
I remember taking off with this load of papers in the back with Peter and just
sort of watching the sun come up and thinking, thinking, yeah,

(06:38):
this is definitely where I want to go with my life and what I want to do.
So as I kind of progressed through school, I continued with angling my studies
towards flying and then got more and more involved in the air training corps
and started working in a bakery and did a paper run and did student job search

(07:01):
and all of those sorts of things.
And those those little bits of money that you collect aside from you know paying
other little things I think I bought a stereo which was the first thing I bought
but also you know that that money was going towards some of my flying training
as well and so money kind of took on a bit of a.
A new meaning is and it wasn't just a way to have a good time it was

(07:22):
also buying the hours because every hour that you get goes in your log book
and back then it was how quick can i get to 10 hours and 10 hours like i do
that and that's less than one flight now but back then i was like oh my goodness
i need i need 250 because i need to buy an hour of flying or something like that so,
that that that was kind of the way i started building up so i ended up getting

(07:45):
a private private license when I was 17 at high school.
And I used to be able to take some friends flying.
So I'd take friends flying before school and we'd go to school and we'd walk
into class and you sort of sit there trying really hard to focus on the teacher
talking about whatever they were talking about, English or something.

(08:06):
And my head was sort of still out there thinking about, oh, I could have done
that landing a little bit better at Wellington or I should have fitted in with
that traffic a little bit better or something like that.
So that was quite an interesting way to kind of switch out of a flying headspace
into then going to school.
So that was an interesting time.

(08:27):
And then eventually did some jobs in film and theatre and worked in a gym for a while.
And then eventually got a commercial license in 2008 and got my first job up
in the middle of the North Island.
So I spent three, three and a half years doing scenic flights around the middle
of the North Island, the volcanoes up there.

(08:48):
And then was lucky enough to go on a trip through the east coast of Australia
and up into Papua New Guinea, and I flew a little technical airplane up,
I say technical airplane, I said technical flying,
doing calibration of some of the navigation aids up there, so it was awesome.
It was a very high-powered and very capable machine, And the captain that I

(09:09):
flew with on that was really great at passing on a whole lot of knowledge.
And that really kind of paved the way for me to get into air ambulance flying,
which I got into after that.
Flew sort of charter work and air ambulance work.
And then eventually some chartered or some scheduled passenger work.
We were contracting for Air New Zealand. And then eventually the phone call

(09:32):
came and I went and did the job interview and moved to Christchurch to work
for Air New Zealand. in Mount Cook, and that was in 2014.
And then just recently, in the last sort of six to 12 months,
I've transitioned on to the 777 and I've started my international flying career.
And that's kind of where we end up now.
What a journey. Lots of different parts to that. Is 17 years old quite young

(09:56):
to get a private pilot licence?
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's certainly the younger.
And you have to be 18 to get a commercial licence, but you can be 17 to get a private licence.
And it wasn't sort of a, it wasn't a target. I wasn't aiming for let's do it
at 17 because that would be a cool thing to do. It just kind of,

(10:16):
it just kind of happened.
And I knew that I, that's what I wanted to do. And, you know,
my parents were really supportive in making sure that that was,
if that was something that I wanted to do and it was a career path that I wanted
to go on, that that's what we sort of worked towards.
And, you know, like working at the bakery and paying all that sort of stuff.
And one thing one of my first instructors told me was that when you're working

(10:37):
towards towards something like that, it's really important to be consistent.
And have a really focused period of intense kind of work towards whatever that goal is.
So, you know, usually if I was trying to gain hours, I might save up a couple
of hundred bucks and then I go once every month or something like that,
you know, just to sort of keep your hand in.
But when you're trying to sort of attain a certain standard, it's a bit like a race,

(11:01):
you know, when you're training for whatever it might be,
coast to coast or just a 5k run or whatever
in that period just before it you really want
a nice concentrated period of time where you're where you're
focusing on that so i had a nice little
focused period before i did the private license and then i got through so that's

(11:22):
how the journey kind of started but yeah 17 was definitely sort of at the at
the younger end of of the of the scale so i was lucky i was very lucky to be
able to do that because that's yeah that was it's a fortunate thing for sure.
And to get your commercial, is that where you have to go and do like your study at Massey or?
Yeah, so that kind of, that's all sort of changed since I did it.

(11:46):
When I came through, I came through what you might kind of describe as like
an aero club kind of way of learning where there's, it's like,
it is as it sounds, if people aren't familiar with that, that there's a club
at an airfield where there's little airplanes and you can become a member of that club.
You don't necessarily have to fly, but you can be a member of that club and

(12:07):
they have, you know, working bees or if you just have a general interest in aviation.
And then to contrast that, they have certainly these days big sort of commercial
stores, like as you say, like Massey Aviation or there was a really big one
in Hamilton before COVID called CTC.
And even down in Dunedin, there's a place called Mainland Aviation.
So I came through the aero club side of things.

(12:31):
I didn't go and do a big school.
I guess there were a couple of reasons for that. It was still quite a new thing
and I didn't really know much about it.
And I sort of had a relationship going with the instructor that I'd been training with at Wellington.
He knew me and I knew him. And I thought, well, let's just keep going with that.
And sort of just got different experiences by moving around these different

(12:52):
aero clubs rather than go to just one of the big schools.
So yeah, I don't know if there's any, often in my experience,
I'm not sure if there's any right or wrong way to do that. That was just the way I went.
And I think I had a pretty good experience out of it. Yeah, yeah. Cool.
Oh, thanks for giving us a bit of background there. So now flying the 777,

(13:14):
pretty cool plane. It's probably one of my favourites behind the A380.
Is it is the triple seven like was
that your dream plane to end up flying or what what
is your favorite plane yeah well when I
when I was first standing on that hill with my my grandfather I thought that
I wanted to fly military jets and I did actually have an interview lined up

(13:36):
at RAF Cranwell in the UK to go and do that but then just the way life turns
out in different circumstances and I got this private license and we spent money
on getting me a a commercial civilian licence,
I didn't end up pursuing that.
And, you know, I sometimes do wonder what life might have been like if I'd have
been a military pilot in the UK because I've got a British passport through my mum.

(14:02):
But, you know, there's no point wondering because we are where we are and you've
just kind of got to make the most of what you've got.
And I guess my other goal that I wanted to achieve was to fly a long-haul jet.
And to put it simply, I just wanted to fly an aeroplane that I could stand up
in without having to duck because all of the other aeroplanes are actually quite short.

(14:24):
So in the ATR, I sort of have to walk along with my head kind of bowed a little
bit because I have my head on the roof.
So I can actually do that now. I can stand up in a 777 and I don't have to duck. So it's dull ticked.
If nothing else happens in aviation, I don't have to duck anymore,
which is great for the neck. Because you're quite tall.

(14:44):
Yeah, that's right. I'm 6'3". So that's been a bit of an exercise over the years.
It's teaching my body to fold in the right places so that I can sit in these different chairs.
Absolutely. So flying long haul is quite a unique lifestyle.
So a typical month at the moment in the present, what does that look like for you?

(15:05):
Yeah, so I'm still sort of getting used to it.
I started training on this aeroplane in August and I've been out online for
three or four months now.
So we operate on a four-weekly roster.
So the roster comes out and it's got your flying on it for the month or for that four-week period.
So at the moment on the 777 fleet, we're mainly doing trips to North America.

(15:31):
We do a couple of trans-Tasman trips over to Australia and then a couple of
trips up into the Pacific Islands.
But the main trunk for us is San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Houston.
So at the moment, I'll probably do three of those trips a month in a roster
and then maybe one other trans-Tasman, like a day duty or something like that,
which might be a Melbourne return or it might be up to Apia to Samoa and then back in a day.

(15:55):
So that's what it's about, sort of averaging out about 85 flying hours a month
in that rostered period. period. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. When you say maybe, you know, was it full long haul and then trans-Tasman
or something, it doesn't sound like that much work, but then you forget how
much time those long haul flights take.

(16:16):
Yeah, that's right. And it's interesting. Some people have asked,
they said, how do you find it?
Because there's sort of, everyone's different when it comes to flying and what
their career goals and aspirations kind of are.
Some people, that's absolutely what What I want to do is go and fly long haul.
Some people are totally happy just being career flying instructors and,
you know, teaching people how to fly.

(16:37):
And there's kind of everywhere along the spectrum in between,
you'll find people happy with what they're doing.
And some people have kind of been a little bit sceptical or a little bit nervous
about going to try long haul because they're not quite sure,
or it seems from the outside, that you're away all the time.
It's really hard on families.

(16:58):
It's hard to have a social life. if it's hard on the body and all that kind of stuff so,
As part of me getting ready to go and do that, I make sure that I had a pretty
frank and honest conversation at home to say, hey, look, this is what life might
be like. Are we okay to do that?
And actually, so far, the transition has been not what I thought.

(17:19):
Like it's a challenge to get used to different roster patterns and commuting
to and from Auckland and all that sort of stuff.
But there are actually some really good strategies that you can put in place
to make it a lot more palatable. And I'm certainly finding that I'm probably
away from home for a longer period, but I'm home more, if that makes sense.

(17:40):
So when I go to work, I'm away for a week. But then when I'm home, I'm at home longer.
So it's the balances, if that works for you and your lifestyle,
it's actually pretty good.
So, so far, it's been a really nice, really nice kind of transition.
Still getting used to it, but it's, yeah, it's better than I thought it was
going to be, to be honest. And how long is the training process with the 777

(18:03):
until you're like, you know, a captain?
Yeah, well, that's a tricky question to answer because a lot of airlines,
most airlines around the world, operate a seniority system.
So the system is a line or ranks and positions are assigned to crew members in seniority order.

(18:27):
So I've come in as a, on this particular field, I've come in as the second officer,
but the most senior rank in Air New Zealand is a 777 captain.
So to achieve that, it's really a waiting game.
And at the moment, from the day you walk in the door until the time that you

(18:48):
become a 777 captain is probably in the order of sort of somewhere,
I'm guessing, 15 to 20 years.
And you can
you can certainly do that if you wanted to
go and achieve that rank sooner you could
go overseas and fly at another carrier where the
seniority system is such that you can be promoted quicker or or if you have

(19:11):
experience already doing that sort of thing you could slot into a direct entry
captain position but that's that's part of the the seniority and the the the
union-based system that we have in New Zealand is that it's a waiting game.
So you go in and it really is a career job.
So by the time I'm sitting in the left seat, I'll have a few more grey hairs, I reckon.

(19:32):
That's huge. When you said 15 to 20, I thought you were going to say months, not years.
No, no, yeah. And the good thing about that in New Zealand is that we don't
just have one fleet, we've got several fleets.
And you can, as your seniority improves and you become more senior up the list,
you can chop and change as your circumstances dictate or your interests dictate.

(19:54):
Like you don't have to just stay on one fleet through the whole 15 to 20 years.
You might decide that you want to go and fly more domestic so you'll you could
jump over and fly an airbus for a bit and then you think oh i quite like the
long haul then you could go and fly the 787,
and do the trips to to jfk or to chicago
or something like that and you might come back to the triple seven like there's
no one way to to kind of do it then you could take a command on the airbus there's

(20:18):
lots of different options so 15 to 20 years to get to the left-hand seat of
the the the heaviest white category jet that we have is 15 to 20 years at the
moment and maybe even even longer.
Oh, that was a guess, but it's still a long time. It's not tomorrow, put it that way.
And if anyone's flying on a 777 to the States sometime soon,

(20:38):
might we hear you over the speakers at the start of the flight?
Yeah, yeah, that's, yes, yeah.
When the crew gets together, so we all sign on and we do our flight planning
activity and all that sort of stuff,
part of that process is assigning different different roles so you have a pilot
flying you have a pilot monitoring and then everyone else kind of does different

(21:00):
jobs so yeah we all rotate around doing different things so i think i did a,
i did a trip to san francisco a couple of weeks ago where where i was the where
i was applying for that so i'd do all the pas and actually it turns out that
one of the people i used to coach was on board and he sent me a message and
i went down the back and sat and had dessert with him and then went back to

(21:23):
work and did all the PAs and stuff. So you're never quite sure who's watching.
That's so cool. Really neat. Oh, well, listen out for James.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, surprise. And flying to the States so far,
what's your favourite destination there?
Oh, I've only been to Houston once and that was on Christmas Day.
So it was all very quiet. I'm not sure I can fully judge Houston yet.

(21:46):
There's lots of great things to go and see and do in Texas. this and we spent
two nights up there so I'm going to reserve my judgement on Houston yet because
I think there's still more I need to see on that.
And I've spent most of my time in San Francisco, but I think LA,
down by the beach, is awesome.
Yeah, I'm heading back there in a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to that.

(22:07):
Yeah, Los Angeles is good fun.
And do you have a set amount of time, like after you do, say,
Auckland to LA, do you have a minimum time period you have to rest before flying again?
Yeah, so we have very, very strict contractual rules that our rosters are built on.
So when you get a roster it's already been pre

(22:29):
it's been pre-assessed basically and the
the roster builder will only assign flights
and tours of duty to you that meet those criteria so it's
kind of like flying a flying driving a truck where you
know drivers can only do a certain number of hours in a day and
they have to write that in their logbook essentially it's the same kind of thing
but on top of that because most

(22:51):
of our work is in the middle of the
night we have a really robust fatigue reporting
framework so if you are
at work and you do experience the effects
of you know excessive tiredness or something like
that it is encouraged and in fact i think it's even mandatory
that you need to report that and all of that

(23:12):
reporting data is collated and we can assess trends on certain routes and pairings
and and duties that may be more fatiguing than others And that then goes to
help rostering assign flights more effectively so that we're kind of avoiding
these fatigue circumstances.
Interesting. Okay. And with some of the other challenges, I mean,

(23:37):
jet lag itself is pretty hard at times to manage.
What would you say are other things that have cropped up in doing these long-haul
flights that have been maybe a surprise, more challenging than you would have thought?
Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm still learning about the effects of it.
Lots of people have, part of like doing your sort of, your due diligence in

(24:02):
a way and asking around, asking your colleagues, hey, what's it like? What should I do?
How can I manage this better? Like everyone's got their own little individual strategies, right?
So I'm not sure if you ever get used to fully feeling like you're in a bit of
a fog when you get back from a trip.
Somebody said that to me once. They said you won't get good at being tired,

(24:25):
but you'll just get used to it.
And it's, you know, you have a professional responsibility to make sure that
you aren't doing activities that will make you excessively tired or fatigued before work.
That's a no-go. But when you get back from a trip, having a discussion with
people at home, friends and family, hey, when I get back from this trip,

(24:48):
I'm coming home and I'm going to bed until midday.
So even though I'm arriving at home at 7 o'clock, you won't see me until 12.
So I'm going to go and have five hours sleep and then I'm going to get up.
But there's little really sensible practical things like no power tools on the
day that you get home, no intense admin discussions about stuff that's happened

(25:09):
at home once you get back.
So you can't talk about the car going and needing a warrant because that just
goes literally one ear and out the other.
Like it's quite hard to, you know, everyone's sort of been a bit tired,
but when that's your job and you've come home from work, and those sort of things happen.

(25:29):
It's really hard. You want to be engaged, and you want to listen,
and you want to kind of be helpful around the house, but it literally just comes in and goes out.
They're just, sorry, I just need to go to bed. Little strategies like that,
and everyone sort of has their own little toolbox of things that they do to
try and help them get through.
It's like the same rule kind of applies in terms of what you wouldn't do under

(25:49):
the influence of after being medicated or alcohol.
Don't make any major important decisions in your life or do anything that's
like you said with a power tool because,
yeah yeah probably fair enough yeah that's
right yeah and it's just it's just a bit like we
all recognize that working in the middle
of the night isn't great it's not good for the body and

(26:10):
you know there's multiple studies about the the effects
of sleep deprivation i'm sure you're you know you're really interested
in that your line of work as well but we all recognize that
when you come home from these trips you've been awake and you're
alert all night and then then you get home the last thing
you want to do is pick up a drill because bad things can
happen if you're tired you're trying to do things with drills yeah or skills

(26:31):
or anything like lawn mowers even you know like it's just
about sort of being a bit more sensible with it and the lawn's
not going to care whether you mow it today or tomorrow it's still going to get
mowing you know yeah so taking that into consideration with the fatigue aspect
and things how do you manage that with your own training schedule because I
mean you're not going to go and smash it you know hard two our run or something

(26:53):
just before doing a long-haul flight. So how do you manage that?
Yeah, that's so true. And I must admit, I've been guilty of thinking I could do that.
And then the reality hits and you realize that that is not a good idea.
So when I was flying domestically, I was quite lucky in that when you get to
a hotel somewhere, you haven't got heaps to do. You're in a city that you don't really know.

(27:18):
You haven't really got commitments. So that was a great time on-the-go training.
But on this new schedule and the new roster pattern, it is a bit more of a balance. So.
When you get somewhere, so let's take San Francisco, for example,
so you arrive there about midday.
By the time you're in the hotel, I don't know, it might be quarter past one.

(27:40):
All you're really good for then is going outside and having a very light walk
and some fresh air and then having a couple of hours sleep just to sort of shake out a bit of jet lag.
But when it comes to sort of specific training sessions, I've
really tried to be quite specific and
quite sort of focused on what I'm

(28:01):
trying to do so you know training for training for
Ironman at the moment I could go
out and do a 45 minute jog but really what
is that achieving when I'm not when I'm
half awake like am I going to get any benefit out of doing a 45
minute jog or should I actually go to bed and have three
and a half four hours of sleep and a little bit

(28:23):
of a fresh air walk and then come back and do a proper more
focused session when I've actually got some wherewithal and
able to focus a bit more so it's about recognizing I
think that that sleep is probably the
most important thing that you can do a little run or a bike ride here and there
great but really it's sort of like falling on deaf ears really if you're tired

(28:44):
and your body can't do anything with it so that's really sort of been my focus
while I got used to this new lifestyle is if I'm sleepy and I'm tired,
just do that and maybe try and do the sleep well because everything else is
sort of a bit average really if you just try and put something on a tired body, it just doesn't work.
Very true, yeah. I often talk to people about that too,

(29:07):
you know, that are getting up at crazy hours of the morning to go and smash
themselves with high intensity exercise and I just say, you know,
you're so much better to actually just get better quality sleep for longer than
just being sleep deprived and then putting all this immense stress on your body with like HIIT.
And then being exhausted the rest of the day, you do need to weigh up the pros and cons there.

(29:29):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know whether, I'm not sure if it's scientific.
There may be some scientific stuff behind it.
But one thing I always used to like telling myself or talking with people doing
events is that you've kind of got a tank,
and every time you stay up too late or you exercise really hard,

(29:50):
you take away from that tank and that tank needs time
to refill so eventually you know like you might get away
with an early morning doing a really
hard hit session or like three hours of bike riding
before work you're gonna go down you're gonna go down then you're gonna go down
and eventually that needs to be repaid somehow i even in a way i used to apply

(30:10):
that to caffeine as well like if you have a cat if you have if you have a coffee
that's borrowing from that tank and it will only let you go so far before you
hit the bottom and you've got to repay that somehow.
And either that comes in the form of some sort of burnout or an injury or just
a feeling of blah, I've got nothing else.
So yeah, I'm really trying hard to build that analogy in my mind that I'm borrowing

(30:35):
from the tank all the time.
How do I repay that and refill that tank as effectively as possible?
That's an excellent analogy.
Cool. Yeah. It's a constant balance. Yeah, I'm not sure if you can ever sort of sit and forget.
It really takes a bit of revisiting.
Hey, how's the tank at the moment?
Oh, training peak says I've got an hour run.

(30:58):
Is that a good idea? How much will that nibble away at the tank today,
given that I've got XYZ coming up? Should we revisit?
So it's a constant sort of revisiting.
It's not a sit and forget. Yeah. I want to talk a bit more about your Ironman
training in a sec, actually, because that's cool. Is that March, Taupo? It is March, yes.

(31:19):
Awesome. Just a few other interesting pilot questions I had for you.
I'm not sure of exact numbers in terms of like the New Zealand population or worldwide.
I feel like maybe I've read a few things that 25% to 30% or more of people have a fear of flying.
Yeah, I'll just go with approximately that. So if people are listening,

(31:40):
a good chunk are probably nervous flyers.
From a pilot's perspective, is there any key tips or facts that you can share
that might just help ease people's nerves around the safety of flying?
Yeah, there's heaps. And everyone's got a fear of, or everyone that has a fear

(32:02):
is probably slightly different. Some people don't like turbulence.
Some people don't like being away from the ground. Some people don't like being
in control. Like there's a whole host of reasons why people might feel a little
bit kind of apprehensive about flying.
One of the things that has surprised even me, and I'm always really thankful

(32:23):
for the level of training that we receive.
So I started on the 777 on the 14th of August, and I didn't go anywhere near
an airplane until basically December.
So there's all of that time is learning about the systems, the way the operation works,

(32:45):
the different airspaces, the the components the the
whole kind of ecosystem and then we practice all
of these different scenarios pretty much anything you
can imagine we can replicate in a simulator it's a full motion thing for all
money your senses and your body is telling you that you're you are in an airplane
it's full motion and we can the first time i did a uh we do this we do this

(33:12):
landing in fog for for example.
So the system is so good and the simulator and training is so good.
The first time I'd done this landing in fog scenario was into Hong Kong.
Now, I've never been to Hong Kong flying an aeroplane before,
but here we are in a simulator and we've replicated zero visibility in this

(33:32):
new aeroplane all the way down to landing in Hong Kong.
And it's just, we can replicate all all of those things.
So with that in mind, the training that pilots receive is really very, very thorough.
So I think that's pretty widely understood, and maybe that kind of gives people
a little bit of comfort when they sit in the back of an aeroplane like that.

(33:56):
And considering that, you know, I was saying to get to the left-hand seat of
a 777 takes 20 years, so I've been flying for 15.
The first officer might have been flying for 25, the captain's been flying for
nearly 40, add all of those and that's 70, 80 years of experience sitting at
the front of an aeroplane so there's.

(34:17):
Not a lot that you wouldn't have seen or one of us wouldn't have seen in that time.
So the experience level is really quite high when you get up into some of those bigger jets.
So maybe those two things, the experience level. And my wife,
Petrina, she's come for a ride before when I was flying domestically.

(34:38):
And we flew through some turbulence.
And she said to me afterwards, she's like, you guys didn't even move.
Move and we're like well yeah that that happens all
the time we and we know how to to deal with
those things and that's not to discount that turbulence is unnerving
for people but i guess from the public's
point of view you might say well the the pilots

(35:01):
have experienced and seen these conditions in so
many different ways that if they're feeling okay about it
you know that if things kind of turn a little
bit more sinister later on that they've got a plan and sort
of some way to deal with that so we're sitting
up there and we have tools and tips and tricks and
techniques to deal with those things but we're

(35:21):
certainly not kind of sitting out there waiting for a bit of bump of turbulence
and being like oh that feels a bit odd you know like we're we're we're relaxed
and confident in our ability and the the capability of the machine to deal with
the situation that unfolds it's probably a long-winded answer and i mean you
wouldn't fly if it was unsafe safe anyway?

(35:41):
Oh yeah, there's no question. Yeah, that's basically the underlining of everything
we do is safety first of all. So yeah, and the stats are out there.
I don't know the numbers, but it's
far, far, far safer to get in an aeroplane than it is to get in a car.
And we get in a car without thinking about it. So yeah. Exactly.

(36:04):
That's good advice. And as a pilot,
when you're, say, commuting, or I guess you'd be on an A320 going to Christchurch
most of the time, but in other circumstances, do you get any perks like getting
to sit further up the front of the plane or business class?
When when you're commuting in your own time no no that
you're just you're just a passenger like anybody else but when you do

(36:26):
when you do passenger for example
to to pick up an airplane somewhere else there are there are certain levels
of of of passenger class which you're required to travel and that's really around
fatigue mitigation because you're going to get to the other end and then you've
got to you've got to jump in the airplane and fly it so So, yeah,

(36:48):
you do travel in a class above economy.
I forget exactly what the rules are, but, yes, you do get to experience that,
which is, yeah, it's well worth it.
You do get to the other end feeling more rested, so you can jump in the plane
and do your job, basically.
That's basically what it's all about. Yeah, yeah. But yes is the short answer.

(37:09):
That's good. You deserve it, I think, with all that hard work.
Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Yeah. And alongside what you've been doing with flying
in more recent years, you've done some extra study through University of Canterbury.
So I'd be a little bit more intrigued to hear about that.
And also we were talking a bit
about Tall Poppy before jumping on the podcast. So, yeah, tell us more.

(37:31):
Yeah, well, it kind of came about when I've been sort of thinking about this for a while.
My brain loves learning new things and experiencing and experimenting and being curious with things.
So while flying is my career, I've always had sort of a bit of an extracurricular
interest in other things.

(37:52):
And we were sitting at home during COVID and lockdown.
And I was very fortunate that I got to keep my job through COVID.
But there was a period where I probably didn't fly for seven or eight weeks
just while we were in lockdown and all that sort of stuff.
So we were kind of sitting at home and I ended up enrolling in an MBA or Master's

(38:13):
of Business Administration at UC.
And the idea behind that was, well, again, to learn something new,
but also to kind of diversify my skills a little bit,
or at least try and find out what things I might
be interested in doing if I wasn't able to fly and that's
not because I think about not flying it's
more about what if I lose my medical or I my eyesight goes or something happens

(38:38):
and you know you at any one time in life you're only seconds away from something
drastically changing whatever that might be so just having something there that
kind of might It might sort of spark my interest in something new.
So anyway, I signed up to this program.
And it was at that point that I sort of really became aware of this feeling of what am I doing?

(39:04):
Like, who am I to think that I can go to this program and offer anything?
Like, what have I got that people might find interesting or valuable?
And when you go, we certainly found it in our cohort, when you front it up on
the first day, we go to the introduction sessions, people come mentally prepared

(39:25):
to these sessions with like a list of canned questions.
Hi, where are you from? What do you do? What do you hope to get out of it?
And sometimes that's really valuable because you've got a toolbox of things
that you can start a conversation with if you're not sure how to do that. Great.
But what also became apparent was that But that was a way, a mechanism for people

(39:47):
to kind of find where they fitted on the spectrum in relation to everybody else.
And what we all found, what a lot of us found, was that there was this real
feeling of, I don't really feel like I should be here.
Like, I don't have anything, I'm not experienced enough, I'm not able to contribute.
These are really smart, brainy people and I'm not.

(40:09):
And there's this really interesting kind
of psychological play going on
between all of these different you know really successful people
in their own ways coming together to to
tackle these these papers and learn these new things
so there was this real element of um of imposter syndrome
people feeling like they shouldn't be there and actually

(40:32):
to the course's credit that was one of of the things that was
addressed as part of one of the papers was was
recognizing this feeling of I'm not really
good enough but then what is good enough and going through
a process of understanding more about who
you are as a person your sort of strengths what makes you tick what what you're
interested in and then owning that and saying yeah that is me I'm I'm okay with

(40:58):
that and I'm comfortable with that and I'm going to take those strengths and
really maximize them because that's how I add value to the world and that's
how I sort of feel nourished as a person.
So while the MBA has been a lot about.
Learning certain topics, economics or finance or sustainability or something like that.
One of the really strong themes that's come through has been about the personal

(41:21):
development and personal journey that each of us in the cohort has gone on to
become more authentic and more grounded in ourselves so that we can contribute in our own way.
Interesting stuff. It's a long answer. Yeah, with the imposter syndrome,
I think it's quite common. Many of us feel like that.

(41:42):
You never feel like, you know, you're not enough or you're good enough or,
you know, that you're not meant to be where you are and it feels really awful.
Is there any advice that you'd give in addition to what you've spoken about
with how people could think of that, change their mindset around that a little bit?
Well, it's interesting because that paper was a leadership paper that we did

(42:05):
and it ran for the whole year and it started out with the two lecturers, two lecturers,
they started out with kind of delving into the theory of leadership and how
leadership has kind of evolved over the last couple of hundred years.
And then it kind of took a turn towards the end where it sort of became a lot more introspective.

(42:25):
And I must admit, for the first probably three quarters of the year, I just didn't get it.
I was like, no, no, I understand what a good leader is. I've seen good leaders.
I know how I kind of act in certain leadership situations.
But it wasn't until we did this last stage of the leadership development plan,

(42:48):
we called it, where we did this quite a detailed.
Detailed sort of survey that we gave a lot
of information about ourselves and we got a report back that
identified five key strengths and it wasn't
until I kind of did that and went through this process of
putting these strengths into action and understanding like literally what they

(43:10):
meant for me and how I how I can interact with them and make them stronger that
I that the paper clicked so I'm not sure if I can give a tip or trick to someone
but all I could probably say say from my experience is that if you know,
if you understand more about yourself and what you are good at or what really

(43:31):
gives color and brightness and vitality to your life, just maximize that.
So if you love seeing people laugh, that's a really, really important skill.
And it's not to say that you're a joker, but it's
to say that you have the ability to bring brightness and happiness
and positivity to a situation and really own that because some of the studies

(43:54):
which we talked about and the lecturers kind of exposed us to was that you get
far more bang for buck maximising what you're really good at than focusing on
the two or three things that you might not be that good at.
So basically maximise what you're really good at and don't spend that time getting
bogged down too much on what you're not good at.

(44:15):
I like that. That is good advice.
Yeah maximize your strengths yeah because we often think oh I'm not good at
this so I'm just going to try and keep working on that and you know personal
development and my weaknesses but actually yeah change the rate of and work
on whatever you're already naturally good at and maximize that,

(44:35):
Yeah, that's right. I don't know the names of the studies, but I've got all
of the notes on my computer.
There's some of the science and the literature shows that if you do that,
and if you do maximize your strengths,
you can actually improve the level of the other things which you're not so good
at just by being better at what you are good at. So it kind of drags everything up.

(44:57):
Whereas if you spend more time on the things that you're not good at,
you can drag drag the things that you are good at down.
It's kind of like a sunk cost in a way. You're sort of putting effort into something
where you're not really getting the best return. Interesting.
Yeah, it was really, and that's the sort of thing that has really been great
about the MBA is learning that sort of stuff.

(45:18):
Yes, it's great to learn about balance sheets and income statements and all of that,
but it's the psychology of how people kind of behave and interact and learn
and sort of work with the world around them.
That's been the biggest kind of learning, I think.
And you said you only luckily had to have a couple of weeks off with COVID from flying.

(45:42):
When you did the NBA, were you still juggling that with flying or how did that work?
Still going, yeah. So I started in 2021, I think. Yeah. 22?
22, yeah, and I'm still going. I've got a research paper and my final consulting
project to do. So hopefully this time in about eight or nine months,

(46:02):
I should be finished. Good stuff.
Yeah. I'm on the lookout. I'm on the lookout for it. Yeah, it is. It is a juggle.
So, but again, that's another part of the challenge is how do you work,
how do you study, how do you be a good person in your life and with your friends and with your family?
It's just a, it's not a set and forget, just keep revisiting.

(46:25):
Amazing. So we've had the pilot hat, we've had the NBA hat. Why don't we talk
a little bit more about the sporty hat in Ironman?
So yeah, you really alluded to the fact that you're doing Ironman in a few weeks' time.
So tell us a little bit more about what you've done previously and how things
are tracking for a few weeks' time.

(46:46):
Yeah, well, I guess when I was in high school, my sporting really started out with basketball.
I I didn't play sports when I was at primary school. I got into basketball when
I was at intermediate, and it was really just because I was tall,
probably been about this height since I was about 12.
So I immediately kind of got railroaded into the post, and I just sort of stayed

(47:10):
there through most of my basketball career.
But I played through intermediate and high school and got to a regional level
in high school and then sort of started playing in some national teams.
And eventually, a few years ago, I kept breaking my hands. I was playing in
Christchurch for a club, and I kept breaking my hands.

(47:31):
And I thought, oh, man, this has been long enough. And I just gave it away and
got into something else. So basketball was kind of my background.
I had some really great coaching experience there.
And then I got into running just for something different. I thought,
oh, I'll have a crack at running. and Oscar from the front runner,
his words are ringing in my ear. He says, if you run, then you're a runner.

(47:53):
So, you know, at the beginning, it was a shuffle at best, but Oscar saying what
Oscar says, if you run, you're a runner.
So I got sort of chipping away and my brother and I entered the Queenstown Marathon
and we had a crack at that in 2015, I think.
And I remember crossing the line and I thought.

(48:15):
Yeah, I'll be open about it. I cried. I was like, what have I just done?
It was hectic. My mum was there. And I think just the physical effort,
I hadn't done something like that before.
And it was really, like, it was a really eye-opening experience.
And, you know, everybody cheering you on. And to think you could put your body
through that and get to the end of it.

(48:36):
There were tears of joy, I hope. I don't even know.
Probably not. It was probably joy, relief, pain, the whole lot.
It was 20 miles of hope, six miles of truth. I think that's what it was,
something like that. And all the truth came out at the end.
It was, yeah, it was a really great moment. But it kind of started me on this

(48:56):
journey towards running.
And then eventually I bought a bike and got back into biking, which is such a joy to do.
I don't know why I put my bike away.
You know, when you're a kid, you ride your bike and it's so fun. you
go and play with your neighbors and you go up and down the street on your bike
but then you kind of it goes away somewhere in your early teens and it doesn't

(49:20):
really come out again unless something kind of catalyzes that but anyway I got
back into biking and had a really good time biking and thought why not throw
swimming at it so then I went saw Dan and got some got some swim coaching,
and thought well why not Andrew and I man so got involved in in long distance
triathlon and sort of I've been in and out of that ever since, really.

(49:44):
Awesome. That's cool. So how many Ironmans or triathlons have you ticked off?
My first Ironman was Challenge Wanaka when they had the old full-distance course, the long-distance,
and then I did Taupo and I'm signed up for my third full one,
but a handful of half Ironmans, a number of Olympic and sprint-distant ones,

(50:06):
and went to the New Zealand Age Group team in the Gold Coast and race sprint
in the Olympic distance over there, which was a wicked experience.
Really, really cool. And it takes up far less time to train for that than it
does for an Ironman, which is also a plus for the responsibilities at home. Yeah, that juggle.
So with that first Queenstown Marathon you did with the tears of joy and everything

(50:29):
else, do you think that was one of your proudest moments ticking that off or
what would challenge that?
I was thinking about this question, and one of the things that really sticks
with me is when I was playing basketball, we were in the under-16s, and we had a coach.
You know, we've all had various coaches through the years that you'll remember and some that you don't.

(50:50):
But this particular coach, we had a really great team.
We had a number of guys that played for Mana College and Bishop Viard and a
couple of those schools in Wellington were really strong basketball schools.
And we ended up in this team together. was the Wellington team.
And I, being the tall guy, I was, you know, 15 and I was still stuck in the post.

(51:14):
So I was kind of always around the basket rebounding and doing all that sort of stuff.
But this coach, Jake, his name was Jake Cameron, he, we used to front up to
training and he would give us an A4 piece of paper laid out to the minute,
how our 90 minutes of training or two hours of training was going to go.
This is how we're going to warm up. this is what our drills were going to be

(51:36):
this is what our focus is and these are the outcomes,
and he started giving me latitude to get
a little bit further away from the basket which for
a big man that was always stuck around the basket was made me feel
like I had some sort of other purpose on the
team and I remember we were playing in
we were playing in a final and for

(51:58):
the I think for the national championship and jake put
me on and he said just do
do what you need to do you know find the thing and i remember
i i shot three pointers which for a big guy is
not not not usually what you do and i ended up shooting them and they just kept
on going in and he he said i ended up with this nickname bomber and it was it's

(52:22):
such a silly thing but the coach calling me bomber and And then the other players
saying, oh, put Bomber on.
It made me feel like I was part of something.
And we won the game, but it wasn't about the winning of the game.
It was about me feeling like I was, again, that imposter thing.

(52:42):
Big guys don't shoot threes. Get in the post, stay where you're supposed to be.
But I was like, I feel like I'm part of this team. I can play with these guys.
And the fact that we won the game and these other really good players who I
looked up to were calling me bomber because, like, shooting these threes.
I don't know how they were going in, but I was really lucky.
So that, for some reason, a 15-year-old James playing basketball,

(53:05):
that really stuck with me.
And I think it was probably because of the way Jake was able to coach us.
And that really, really stuck with me about kind of empowering your players
to do what they need to do.
And the other thing that comes to mind is probably just finishing Challenge
Wanaka, which is another story, but a really, really hectic week professionally at work.

(53:30):
And that was a very long list of things that had to go right for me to finish
that race and eventually finishing it and getting across the line thinking,
oh, I can't believe that I've quite finished that after everything that's happened.
But that's a story for another time.
Yeah. Yeah. So those are probably the two things.
I love that basketball story. That's really nice. And

(53:52):
it just goes to show the power of having the
right coach to challenge you in
a different way that can just like unlock your potential do
you do you think any experience from coach jake
like because you had a short stint of coaching some athletes yourself
like how did you try and tie in some of maybe your
experience with jake in your younger years to coaching your own athletes

(54:14):
yeah yeah it's interesting
jake yeah jake is certainly one of the coaches
that i look up to as as someone that's provided some
real direction and I think what he what
he did there was was as I say empowering empowering the athlete to to use the
skills that that they have or either just to explore the skills you know you

(54:36):
might not you might not have mastered them but you're certainly never going
to master them if you don't know that you have them in the first place.
So that was a really key thing.
And the other real thing that I think is important with coaching that I've always
tried to share with my athletes is that you never really know what's going on.

(54:58):
Like you're only ever a guest in someone's life when they talk to you.
You're a guest there and you're privileged when they tell you things about their
life and they share things.
Things so it's coaching first
and foremost for me is about people and building a genuine and honest relationship
with somebody so that when times are tricky or tough or when a difficult conversation

(55:26):
needs to be had that you can have that and it's coming from a place of understanding,
on both parts so the coach understands the athlete and the and the athlete also
understands the coach on a greater level than just a transaction.
I've done a run, my heart rate was this or I ran this fast.
But what about all the other stuff behind it? So, you know, building that relationship,

(55:48):
I think, is really important.
It's about as much about what is said about as what isn't said because some
of the things that aren't said are key little pieces of gold that,
you know, as a coach you know to push a button or know to back away from.
On so yeah some some it's about it's about people first and foremost i think

(56:12):
and yeah that's some of the coaches that i've worked with and certainly jake
was really really good at doing that and are you coached at the moment or do
you just make your own plan and training peaks.
Yeah, I do. So I'm just coaching myself and that's going okay.
It certainly highlights the benefit of having an external person looking over your shoulder.

(56:34):
I'm sure you know and everyone else that has a coach knows that the coach is
responsible for facilitating the training and for prescribing at certain times.
Sometimes it's directed, sometimes it's hands-off. and
I'm certainly noticing that having only me

(56:54):
looking at my training program does make me think about it
from an external point of view somebody else coming in what would
they look at this and think is this effective is this athlete getting the most
out of this hour or an hour and a half or that swim like so it's working okay
at the moment and I think it would be a real tricky ask if I brought somebody
in to look at my training program I've got this roster and saying by the way

(57:15):
I'm learning this new job a new way of life and I've signed up for an Ironman here yeah,
make me go and do it in 10 hours or something. You know, that would be a pretty big ask.
Yeah, you have to do what works for you at different stages of your life.
But, yeah, there are pros and cons to being coached or not coached.
And, you know, I myself could, you know, go off and make my own training plan,

(57:36):
no worries, but I purposely don't because I prefer having the external,
you know, someone looking in and checking in and, yeah, just –.
Making sure everything's going okay and you're always learning something off them as well so,
yeah yeah that's that's right yeah that's right
learning something off them and it's it could be
something as simple as tweaking an interval

(57:58):
or changing a day like the session might be the
same but how about if you change it to that day that means
you've got all of this other recovery time or you take your stress out
of your life in these ways and just having that external
person look over it makes it what it seems simple but sometimes simple is beautiful
and you just need someone to do that for you yeah something less to do on my

(58:21):
to-do list and they can do that and every time you go in and i've built you
next week you're like oh what's in this week.
That's right yeah what's my life look like like a little parcel yeah Yeah.
Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it. It's cool. So any big goals for Ironman?
Is it just to finish? Do you have a time goal?
Yeah. Well, I did. I've got this, and I don't want to start out by sounding

(58:46):
like I'm making an excuse, but I've got this little hamstring tendon problem,
which I've had off and on.
I had it a few years ago, and now it resurfaced in August when I started on the 777.
And it's just, it's there all the time and if I put too much power or effort

(59:07):
through it, it gets really grumpy and we haven't been able to find a proper fix or remedy to it.
Previously, I had some intervention with glucose, with glucose shots and I haven't
gone down that road this time.
So I'm working with a physio and we've kind of come up with ways that I can
manage it and get through day to day without being sort of too uncomfortable. comfortable.

(59:29):
So I do have a time goal.
I'm going to keep, I'm going to sit on that one.
I think what I want to do now is I've got little
sub goals for each discipline and I
just want to execute those so I want I know
how I want to feel when I get out of my swim and it's it's more
about kind of the objective objectives of

(59:52):
how I'm going to feel rather than sort of metrics long like I
want to get out feeling like I've been able
to sight properly when I swim I want to get off the the
bike feeling like my hamstring is intact so that
I can go running and I want to run so that
I know that I can get to the finish line as opposed to I want
to ride 240 watts for five

(01:00:13):
and a half hours I could do that but but
I also want to have the flexibility to say if
the hamstring doesn't like 240 watts for five hours I
need to back that off because then the runs out the window so it's
a bit more of a kind of a of a subjective how does
the body feel manipulate the plan on the day sort of thing
so the goal is to finish and I just want to do it

(01:00:36):
faster than I've done it previously yeah the
sub goals are probably more important too because if the sub goals are achieved
you'll likely achieve the overall goal so yeah yeah exactly right yeah yeah
and I just want it to be I just want it to be simple one of the things that
I really like working in various various different fields that I've worked in, in flying or not,

(01:00:58):
is that if you can't explain something in one sentence, you don't understand it well enough.
And I constantly try and tell myself that when I write a training program,
what am I trying to achieve out of this?
And when I'm trying to do this Ironman, what am I trying to get out of it?
Have I got a long-winded answer, or is it something short and simple that I
can explain in one sentence?

(01:01:18):
And if the answer to that is yes, then I've probably got the priorities aligned.
That's what I'm trying to do.
Good stuff. Cool. I'll come to the quickfire to finish soon.
But of course, this is actually, believe it or not, a nutrition podcast.
But I just love the fact that I could talk with anyone on this about anything.
And it's just, it's fascinating learning about what the people do.

(01:01:40):
So I'll tie in a little bit of a nutrition bit here.
With flying long haul, I mean, like you said at the start,
it's really a minority of the time you're on a plane each month
in the scheme of things but what would you say
some of the pros and cons are with relying on
plain food and then you know being in america around different
food options does that produce some challenges yeah

(01:02:03):
it does and it probably comes back to some of those individual strategies as
well but things that i'm noticing and sort of common themes that some of my
colleagues have talked about is the importance of hydration particularly in
the triple seven we have in In the flight deck, we have a flight deck humidifier,
so that tries to humidify the air to make it less dry.

(01:02:23):
But if you've been on those long-haul flights, you know how dry it can get.
So I'll probably go through six to seven bottles of water on a 12-hour flight
and lots and lots of water. So just water, water, water, water.
And some guys have got these interesting concoctions of things that they drink,
cranberry juice and all sorts of bits and pieces, but just keep the water coming

(01:02:46):
in because dehydration just makes everything feel worse.
And because you're working through the night, you'd know the science of the
spa more than I do, but you know at certain times in the night you're more susceptible
to reach for the sugary treats.
So when it comes to meal timings, and this goes for working,

(01:03:08):
but also when you get to the other end, is try to stay on New Zealand time as much as possible.
The the west coast of the states at the moment
isn't too bad it's a sort of around between sort of three and
four or five hours of difference in time
so you can kind of manage that but we
rotate through rest up in the fly deck so

(01:03:30):
you have dinner and then you're kind of
expected to go and lie down and have rest for two hours so what
can you eat that's going to make
you feel like you've had something to eat but then also allow you
to at least get some sort of rest rather than
trying to digest like a i don't know some big hearty
piece of meat or something like that what what what else could you do to kind

(01:03:51):
of help you rest but also give you something that makes you feel like you've
eaten so those are probably that the three things is water water water keeps
the hydration two is stay on new zealand time and three when there are options available.
What are you trying to get out of that? What's happening immediately after you eat that meal?

(01:04:12):
And if I am really going to eat that ice cream, is that going to help me go
to sleep straight afterwards or is that sugar going to make me awake at 3 o'clock in the morning?
That's a real, yeah, that's an occupational hazard, the ice cream at 3 a.m.
In the morning. It's tricky, yeah.
And in terms of other people flying long haul with that hydration point there,

(01:04:34):
would you say like that something could really hammer into people and just feeling
well for long-haul flights is hydration and probably minimizing the risk of
like respiratory illness as well.
Yeah, I did some reading on that recently. That's interesting you say that. Yeah, about the saliva.
Is it saliva acting as a bit of a barrier for some of the bugs?
And if you dry out through dehydration, well, then you're kind of hindering that line of defense.

(01:05:00):
Yeah, absolutely. I'd say hydration. And I know it's something that we're all
at times probably guilty of not drinking enough water, but it just becomes exacerbated
when you're at altitude.
And the more you can get in, like I'll still go through six or seven bottles
and you can still get to the end of the flight feeling like you're a bit dried out.

(01:05:21):
So just keep it coming, keep it coming in.
And, you know, they might offer, oh, do you want a lemonade or something like that?
You kind of do because you want the sugar, but you really know that at the end
of the day, just getting the water in is probably the best thing to kind of
keep you feeling better with everything really, with your fatigue,

(01:05:43):
whether you're trying to stay awake, whether you're trying to digest food because
you've eaten it, all of those things.
Just keep the water coming in. It helps. Great advice.
You're welcome. Now, to surprise you at the end, I've got the quickfire.
And, of course, I know quickfire is always hard because you always question yourself after.
But just first thing that comes to mind. So number one is what's book or podcast

(01:06:07):
maybe that you've loved recently?
I'm reading a book called Exactly, which is about the history of precision engineering
and a whole lot of stuff that came out of the Industrial Revolution, including words.
So some, like, cool words that are in our everyday language now came out of

(01:06:29):
people building stuff in the Industrial Revolution. So, exactly.
A favourite Christchurch restaurant or cafe? Oh, King of Snake.
Favorite work destination, although you can't judge Houston yet? Los Angeles.
What's a bucket list race you want to tick off?

(01:06:50):
Oh, I want to say the Great Naseby Water Race.
Yes, that's a goodie. Yeah, don't bury yourself in 100 miles.
That would be something.
And lastly, one of your proudest moments. Now, we already talked about this
with your sporting, but maybe this can be just in general, like life or anything
else, or another super proud moment for you?

(01:07:12):
One is probably getting married. And the second is probably a recent one.
When I came back from my first trip to Los Angeles, my mum and dad had conspired
to meet me at international arrivals.
And I came out of the door just in a fog, haze of tiredness,
and they're both standing there. I was like, oh, that's nice. That's lovely.

(01:07:32):
It's probably one of the most recent ones. Yeah, I'm sure. It's hitting me and
celebrate that. I'm sure it was one of their proudest moments as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, lots of photos and everyone's looking and it was
all, yeah, I felt like a school kid trying to sort of hide out and,
you know, oh, mum, this isn't cool.

(01:07:53):
Yeah, very good. Well, thank you so much for your time, James.
It's been a real pleasure to catch up with you and hear all about what you do
and, yeah, the different hats you wear. So thank you so much.
No, thanks for having me. I hope people find a little bit of what I was able
to talk about interesting in some way.
And as I said, everyone has a story, and I'm sure you could talk to anybody

(01:08:16):
and hear some amazing things that people do just in everyday life.
So, yeah, thanks for coming on. Good to catch up with you.

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E45: James Owen - 777 Pilot's Journey Through Life & Sport

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}E45: James Owen - 777 Pilot's Journey Through Life & Sport