Nunavik-raised pilot sets a course for Asia

Richard Simon poses in front of one of Air Canada’s Boeing 787 Dreamliners, where he worked as senior flight instructor. (PHOTO COURTESY OF RICHARD SIMON)

Air Canada pilot Richard Simon out on the George River this past summer, near his family’s outfitting camp at Mt. Pyramid. (PHOTO COURTESY OF RICHARD SIMON)

Richard Simon used to spend his summers along a stretch of the George River in the southeast part of Nunavik, where his family owns a handful of outfitting camps.

As a child, from the camp at Mount Pyramid, or Ulittaniujalik in Inuktitut, Simon used to stare up at the sky and watch jets fly by, imagining what it would be like to see the world from above, looking down.

Decades later, he had the chance: as an Air Canada pilot returning from Frankfurt, Simon first saw Greenland, and then the familiar coastline of Ungava Bay.

“I knew we’d be flying over Mt. Pyramid, but it was overcast,” Simon said. “All of a sudden, a hole opened up in the clouds and I could see the camp. Which was pretty amazing from up there.”

That’s one of a few moments that stands out in Simon’s mind from the last 25 years of an illustrious aviation career, the seed of which was planted at that very outfitting camp.

Established by Simon’s grandfather, the late Bob May Sr., May had stocked the kitchen clubhouse at Mt. Pyramid with books.

One was called From the Ground Up, a classic pilot’s training book that grabbed Simon’s attention.

“I loved reading it,” Simon recalled. “It was probably by my early teens I had decided that I really enjoyed aviation and wanted to be a part of it.”

And Simon came by his love of flying honestly.

Raised in Kuujjuaq, he was surrounded by pilots, like his grandfather, and uncles Billy and Johnny May, who often flew Simon around in the family’s Super Piper Cub or de Havilland Beaver.

His mother Mary Simon’s political career eventually took the family South, where Simon enrolled in a Montreal high school.

Simon got his private pilot’s license at 16 — before he had even earned his driver’s license.

Simon trained in Peterborough, Ont., where the Kativik School Board focused its pilot training program at the time. He then went on to complete a Bachelor of Science in aviation management and earned his commercial pilot’s license.

By 1989, Simon had landed a job with Air Inuit as a co-pilot on a Twin Otter, which took him across the Nunavik region.

Once he put in his flying hours, Simon moved to Yellowknife to fly Gulfstream I and King Airs for Ptarmigan Airways — which was eventually purchased by First Air.

From that base, Simon flew all over the North, from the Yukon to the Eastern Arctic.

In the winter months, Simon said he’d leave Yellowknife in the morning darkness and then see the sun rise once he was airborne. The sun would set as he landed in a community and then rise again during the next leg of his journey.

“Some days you’d get to see the sunrise six or seven times in one day,” he said. “It’s not something that everyone gets to see.”

By the mid-1990s, Simon had met his wife, another pilot, and accepted a job with Air Canada in Montreal.

That was a major career change, Simon said, remembering that he called his mom to tell her he’d “won the lottery” that day.

Simon started flying as a first officer on a Canadair regional jet, gradually working his way to captain and then chief flying instructor.

He later travelled to Brazil to test Embraer jets for the airline; he also spent some time as a senior flight instructor on the Airbus A340.

Last year, Simon worked as the flight simulator instructor for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which finally joined Air Canada’s fleet earlier this spring.

Starting this fall, Simon will start a new stint flying the Boeing 777 to Asia.

Like his grandfather’s and uncles’ generation, aviation runs in Simon’s blood — his brother Louis is also a pilot, with Air Inuit.

And the same goes for many other young Nunavimmiut, he said.

“There are lots of opportunities out there for youth across the North,” Simon said. “But first, you have to want to do it, and you have to stick to it.”

Simon knows that aviation — like many other fields — sees a big “wash-out rate” among students who struggle to keep up with its demanding hours.

“You have to do well in all aspects of your education,” he said. “If you can get into that mentality, you’ll succeed.”