Erin grew up in London, Canada, a mid-size city located between Toronto and Detroit. She was quite a shy kid and spent most of her free time riding horses on a farm. While living in Asia for a couple of years, where she taught English, she learned to surf in Indonesia. Today, she travels the world during her holidays, searching for the best spots to ride small waves. Since moving to Cumberland, Canada, four and a half years ago, she has been mountain biking. “I like sports that require focus”, she explains.

While some children dream of becoming pilots from a young age, Erin chose to take to the skies almost by chance. « I didn’t grow up obsessed with flying”, she says. “I liked going to airshows and being around airplanes and helicopters. I remember, as a teenager, building a model helicopter and a model airplane that I hung from my ceiling, but that was it. After high school, I didn’t really know what I wanted to study at university. I was just brainstorming, and the idea of flying popped into my head. Then I thought: helicopters! I got really excited about it and then I told my parents, and then they said, OK, let’s go to the local flight school. So we did. Then I went and realized it was the coolest job I could ever come across.“ As simple as that…

After training five times a week for eight months, Erin managed to get her helicopter license. The hardest part of her career began right after getting her diploma: finding a job. Half of the pilots never end up flying professionally. To secure her first job, Erin took a road trip around British Columbia and Alberta for a month, personally dropping off her resumé at several companies. She then called them every week, persistently asking them if they had a job for her. One company finally offered her a chance. “You have to start by sweeping the hangar floor and cleaning toilets for a year or two before somebody will let you fly. It’s a tough industry to break into. You are getting paid minimum wage to do the cleaning, but I am quite stubborn. When I want something, I go for it.”

“I don’t like to think of it that way, but yeah, there are a lot more men flying than women”, Erin explains. “I think less than 10 percent of pilots are women. In the last three companies I worked for, there were no women flying. At my current employer, there are four of us among 70 pilots. But anyone who wants to fly can fly. It doesn’t matter if you are a woman or a man.”

“I find helicopters a lot more interesting than airplanes because they’re much more dynamic”, she says. “With them, you can land wherever you want, and fly backwards or sideways. They’re more fun because they offer more possibilities. I especially love the Air Crane I pilot now. It’s so big, but it flies like a small helicopter. It’s very agile and so powerful—it’s really fun. And you have to be more careful, when you’re landing it, because you could blow another airplane over on its side…!”