Returning home
Captain Scott Nantes from Kinkora partakes in missions around the world
Kinkora native, Scott Nantes, who now captains a Royal Canadian airbus, returned to Slemon Park where he first started flying gliders as an air cadet.
Scott Nantes has participated in missions around the world, transported high-ranking Canadian officials including the prime minister, and now captains a Royal Canadian airbus. What makes these accomplishments even more remarkable for the Kinkora resident is that he’s just 27 years old. “I graduated from Kinkora Regional High School in 2009 and straight away joined the military. I spent four years at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ont., and then began flight training after graduation,” explained Nantes, who displayed his airbus for the Air Show Atlantic in Slemon Park on the weekend. “I spent two years learning to fly, and another year flying an airplane before taking the controls of the airbus.” Nantes is captain of the CC-150 Polaris airbus, which can carry 194 passengers along with a crew of six to eight. “The book of my deployed experience is part of OP IMPACT (Canada’s mission to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), so it is based out of Kuwait, and it tours doing air-to-air refueling missions over northern Iraq and Syria. I’ve done three tours with them,” he remarked. “In terms of individual missions, I’ve been to China, throughout the Middle East, as well as countries in Europe, Africa, Australia – just over 20 countries so far,” he listed. “But coming back here to Summerside really feels like it’s brought my career full-circle. I’m standing right next to the air cadet gliders, and I first started flying with them 11 years ago as part of their program, so to be able to come back in this airbus A310 is really exciting. “Yesterday as we were coming to P.E.I., we picked up the families of the Snowbirds in Regina, Sask., and the Snowbirds warmed up with us for about 30 minutes. I got to fly over my house in my airplane with the Snowbirds in their formation and that will probably be one of the coolest things I’ve done.” Nantes acknowledged that his interest in aviation was sparked by his father, a skydiving instructor. “I spent a lot of my childhood around planes, pilots, and from a very early age, knew what I wanted to be. When I came to the Summerside air show as a young kid and watched the Snowbirds perform, it inspired me, so if I can give a sense of inspiration to someone here then that really means a lot to me.” Highlights of Nantes career include flying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to meet Donald Trump in 2016 after Trump was elected president. “I always want to make the landing smooth, but there’s way more pressure to get it right when the prime minister is onboard,” he grinned. “I also went with the Governor General, Julie Payette, to Beijing, China, last summer.” Nantes said although he sometimes experiences long days in the cockpit, whenever he’s cruising over the ocean and the sun sets across the horizon, he is reminded why he loves to fly.