James May - How to Land an A330 Airbus: And Other Vital Skills for the Modern Man

JAMES MAY

www.hodder.co.uk

Neither the author nor the publisher can accept any legal
responsibility or liability for any harm arising from the techniques,
advice or situations described in this book.

First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company

Copyright James May 2010

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has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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from the British Library.

Epub ISBN 978 1 848 94229 5
Book ISBN 978 0 340 99456 6

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To Dad, for forcing me to build my own bicycles.

Chapter 1
How to Land an A330 Airbus in an Emergency

Chapter 2
How to Escape from Butlins

Chapter 3
How to Fight a Duel

Chapter 4
How to Deliver Twins

Chapter 5
How to Drive the Peppercorn Class A1 4-6-2 Pacific Locomotive Tornado

Chapter 6
How to Invade and Occupy the Isle of Wight

Chapter 7
How to Prepare and Eat Your Best Mate

Chapter 8
How to Defuse an Unexploded World War II German Bomb

Chapter 9
How to Play the First Movement of Beethovens Piano Sonata in C-Sharp Minor, Opus 27, No. 2
Quasi Una Fantasia (the Moonlight) with No Previous Experience

Yes, there have been plenty of other books about so-called man skills, but theyve all been a bit too bow-tie and light-a-barbecue for my liking.

This, I hope, is different. There are only nine topics, but they are not, as far as I can discern, covered anywhere else. That makes this book indispensable in a sea of duplicated how to manuals; the one tin of fortifying Spam in the post-apocalyptic corner shop of putrefying groceries.

The chances that you will ever meet with the circumstances outlined here are, frankly, very remote. But youre still better off knowing this stuff than not knowing it. One day, there may well be an A330 Airbus wandering pilotlessly over the Atlantic, and someone will have to land it.

Life is a lottery, and maybe, just maybe, it could be you. But only if youve read this.

This is one of the most compelling hero fantasies the world has to offer. The crew has been murdered or laid out by manky prawns from the in-flight meal, and the aircraft is at 38,000 feet, pilotless. It can stay there until the fuel runs out and it falls to earth, or you can seize the controls from the limp grasp of the expired captain and bring it in to rapturous acclaim and probably a refund on the price of your ticket.

And why wouldnt you? The airliner crisis is a unique proposition, because its audience of potential victims is a completely captive one. You can wait for a ship to sink and possibly swim to safety; you can turn your back on the drowning man or the blazing apartment block; and you can hide in the stationery cupboard during the late-night office petty cash heist and never have to admit to having been there. But theres no way out of the runaway aeroplane. So even though, ostensibly, youll be saving the lives of everyone on board, in reality, youll only be saving your own skin. The rest of the world, however, will not see it that way.

He should have known never to have the vegetarian option.

Because the other enduring truism of airline dramas is that everyone involved is always a hero. If a seasoned captain of twenty years experience, fully versed in emergency procedures and regularly practised in discharging them, so much as lands an aircraft with a slightly bald nose wheel tyre, he will be proclaimed the saviour of all women and children. Even before the investigation into a forced landing or crash has begun, the face of the bloke who was in the hot seat at the moment of impact will be emblazoned across the front of the Daily Mirror along with citations from air traffic controllers and survivors confirming how calm he remained. And if, later on, it emerges that he simply made a bit of a cock-up, everyone will be too polite to mention it. This is why you never see newspaper headlines like:

DAFT BUGGER CAPTAIN
SHUT DOWN REMAINING GOOD ENGINE

Or

I FORGOT,
ADMITS PILOT IN WHEELS-UP
RUNWAY INFERNO TRAGEDY

Headlines you never see. You can only come out of this well.