It's been exactly fifteen years this week since I first sat behind the controls of the Boeing 747.

Fifteen years of flying the Queen of the Skies across the Earth, the last five from the left seat. A quick glance through my logbook reveals the prominent role the Jumbo Jet played in my entries: 5,020 hours on the 747-400 and 2,640 hours on the 747-8, 7,660 in total, next to the few thousand I flew on other aircraft types. Just a few more months and I will have to celebrate my 7,474th flying hour on the 747, I reckon.

Leaving the safe confines of familiar European airspace and the 737 behind, I decided to follow my dreams and venture into the slightly more adventurous world of cargo flying aboard the Queen of the Skies. Crossing oceans, deserts and mountain ranges that once existed only as exotic features on the globe in my childhood bedroom gradually turned into the daily panoramas outside the windows of my office.

I recall so many moments, both mesmerizing and some slightly less so. African destinations on the verge of being overrun by local rebels while we were offloading. Fighting fierce snowstorms towards barely lit runways. Interesting low fuel situations and complex technical failures. But also peacefully floating through the night sky with the dancing aurora bursting into view above us, or watching the Milky Way in all her grand poetic splendour while crossing the endless Pacific in total solitude. And everything in between.

Always with a camera in my flight case, documenting unique perspectives, one photograph at a time.

Knowing I make a living flying the most iconic aircraft ever produced, a complex machine that quite literally transformed aviation and global travel, remains a privilege, and one I refuse to take for granted.

Let’s go. Cleared for takeoff.
Setting takeoff thrust.