October marks National Safe Work Month, and this year's theme — Safe work is for life — is a fitting backdrop for our conversation. Work health and safety isn't only about preventing harm in the moment; it's about protecting a person's long-term health, wellbeing and future. Few careers illustrate that better than commercial aviation.

In this episode, host William Kerr sits down with retired Captain Hugh Windsor, a key member of AIPA's Welfare team, to talk about the realities of the pilot lifestyle — the one Dr Matt Thomas described in a previous episode as "not necessarily a lifestyle you choose, but one you end up doing because of the work."

Hugh reflects candidly on joining Qantas as a 23-year-old in the 1980s with no induction on how to actually live the life: when to sleep, what to eat, how to manage the social pressures of being away from home. He shares his own experience of losing his aviation medical, and how disturbed sleep and the demands of long-haul flying take a toll that can stretch across an entire career.

The conversation moves through mental health, the industrial and peer support that sits behind AIPA's welfare service, the HIMS program, New Zealand's Safe Haven model, and why reaching out early — before crisis point — is the single most important message for pilots and their families.