Tariq Lynch-Wade is living out a childhood dream.

The 36-year-old pilot recently got a job with a commercial airline in Hong Kong. He started flying passengers all over Asia this week. Japan, China, Vietnam and the Philippines are all points of landing.

It’s a goal he achieved through years of hard work and dedication.

“There were definitely some hard times along the way,” he said. “At one point after graduating from flight school I was working for a domestic airline based in Atlanta, but when the recession hit I was laid off.

“I was unemployed for a few months and no one was hiring so I went through a period of questioning myself over whether or not I should consider flying because it seemed hopeless and depressing at times. Letting people know I was struggling and facing certain challenges and bouncing ideas off of them — that’s what kept me rooted and kept pushing me to keep going.”

He was fascinated with flying from a young age.

“It was such a thrilling experience as a kid taking off and feeling the power of the engine going down the runway or just the view from out the window,” he said. “I think subconsciously I knew that’s what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

He joined the Bermuda Police Service after he graduated from the Berkeley Institute. He saved every cent from his paycheque and took classes at Bermuda College. “One summer I remember I was a park ranger, pizza delivery guy and also worked security at one the clubs,” he said. “I did whatever I could to follow my dream.”

At 20 he was able to enrol at Jacksonville University in Florida where he earned a bachelor of science degree in aviation management and flight operations.

He got his pilot’s licence right before his 21st birthday — and took his mother and brother on a flight to celebrate. “That was my gift to them for supporting my dream,” he said. “It’s something that meant the world to me. There are so many children out there who aren’t that fortunate, who don’t get to realise their dream because they don’t have the support, so having them sit in the cockpit with me was amazing.”

Mr Lynch-Wade got a job as a flight instructor at his university and later worked here, as a flight operations technical assistant for the Department of Civil Aviation.

“I was the quiet boy in high school, afraid to take risks and this teacher at graduation gave me a note that said, ‘You’ll never be able to experience the joys of the ocean standing at the shore’. It was by reading that over and over I realised you have to step outside your comfort zone and remain driven.

“On the flip side, I also had people telling me it wasn’t possible to become a pilot [because I was] Bermudian. We live in bit of a bubble on the Island at times and it’s very easy to become closed-minded. Some people would say, ‘Why don’t you do things that everyone else does, like become a policeman like your dad?’ But that just pushed me even harder to just go for it.”

One of the perks is getting to travel and meet people from so many different countries. “The travel aspect only represents a small piece of the joy that flying brings to me,” he said. “As a pilot you go to a destination and you may stay for a few hours or a day so you don’t always get a chance to engulf yourself in the city or location, but you do get a little taste or what it is like there by interacting with the ground staff and the passengers that get on and off the aircraft.

“I’ve been able to interact with people from China, the Philippines, West Africa and the US and what I’ve found is everyone has the same goal — to work hard to put food on the table. To be able to have that opportunity to see that first-hand and not have to rely on the media to shape my understanding of the world around me, it’s very nice.”

He admitted it is difficult to be so far away from loved ones, especially his seven-year-old daughter Kamaya. Mr Lynch-Wade’s current work rota keeps him off the Island for four months. He then gets a month-long break. His ultimate goal is to build up enough experience to become a flight operations instructor in Bermuda.

“I’ve learnt that continued discipline truly pays off in the end,” he said. “Sometimes you get knocked off your path a little bit, but if you keep staying on the path then you find that discipline and hard work does pay off.

“My advice to young people is, regardless of what you want to do, don’t be afraid to step outside the comfort zone because that’s where growth will happen. Also, seek out mentors and don’t be afraid to ask others who have done it before ‘how’. It’s our responsibility as professionals to pass on the knowledge and experience we have learnt to others wishing to come aboard.”