CHARLES OLIVIER-TALBOT
Gatineau-Ottawa Executive Airport, Oct. 12, 2016.
“Flying is my thing right now. It’s my job — my passion job. I love it. It’s a really fun job. But I have a lot of other passions, too. I’m really into skiing, windsurfing and surfing. Those are my sports. In the wintertime I ski a lot at Mont-Tremblant. I’ve got my season pass there and when the snow is there, I’m always down there with a bunch of friends. I’ve been skiing there for more than 10 years.
“I’m 29, and this is my fourth year in skydiving. I had a pop-up tent here for three years. It’s kind of cool to live on your job site, although not at night sometimes. But I had so much fun here; it’s probably the best thing to happen in my life since I’ve been old enough to work.
“It’s really intense here in the summer, like 500 hours flying. Sometimes I’d do two full loads a day. My max is 25. That’s pretty fun.
“I also work for Air Inuit. I used to be loadmaster for the company, strapping in all the cargo and off-loading in all the little villages. That was super cool. Right now I’m waiting for a call to go back and work for them.
“A lot of guys are like, ‘I always wanted to be a pilot.’ It wasn’t that way for me. I was always thinking of it a bit, but I tried different things. I started working at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport and had a lot of work in aviation. I worked in hangars, I was a luggage guy, driving the little trucks with the train of luggage. I marshalled the Air France 747s at Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
“Then I thought that being a pilot would be cool so I started doing my licence. The more I worked in aviation, the more I liked it, and right now I wouldn’t do another job. It’s the best way for me to be stoked at work and earn some money for the other stuff I really like. There are other guys who always wanted to be a pilot, and it’s their life. It’s their job and their passion and it’s their hobby. It’s like everything. With me, it’s my job, it’s my passion, but I have other stuff that I do.”