Fulfilling My Dream of Becoming a Pilot! | Aviation

By Tristan da Cunha

Monday, July 17, 2023, is a day I vividly remember. The VFR flight conditions were textbook perfect. It was on this day that I flew my first solo in a general aviation aircraft, a 1978 Cessna 152 (C-GMZW). I completed my solo at Pitt Meadows Regional Airport (CYPK) in the lower mainland of British Columbia. This day was several years in the making; from attending multiple aviation and ground school courses through the Air Cadets and doing a lot of self-study, I was ready to take to the sky by myself.

Unlike the near utopian conditions of my first solo flight, getting to this point was certainly fraught with many challenges, and lots of uncertainty, all of which increased my resolve and determination to go for it! Rather than being a final destination, July 17 marked a waypoint in my long journey to earn my airline transport pilot license.

Becoming an airline pilot has always been a dream of mine. I had my first taste of flight when I was 6 months old, flying on a British Airways Boeing 777-200 (G-VIIN) between Toronto (CYYZ) and London Heathrow (EGLL). Several hundred flights later, I experienced the exhilaration of flight in a general aviation aircraft when I participated in my EAA Young Eagles flight with Mr. Bob Schauber and his classic 1967 Piper Arrow (C-GYWD). We took off from Brampton-Caledon Airport…