Bryan Webster: Man of many talents
Harbour Air pilot Bryan Webster has logged more than 11,000 hours in over 35 different types of aircraft, and owned two successful aviation-oriented companies. In fact, he still owns one of them—a flight safety school that was presented with the prestigious Transport Canada Aviation Safety Award in May 2007.
In his three decades of flying, Bryan has winged his way over most of the planet—including Europe, the Mediterranean, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Dubai, and more—and he has set foot in regions of the Arctic that have never been visited by another human being.
He’s also a published author and monthly columnist for the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association’s Flight magazine. The affable pilot is obviously something of a walking industry.
“I’m a one-man band, I guess,” he chuckles. “You see those buskers? That’s me. I’ve got the banjo and mouth organ goin’, the drums a’ poundin’, the monkey hoppin’…”
Bryan Webster holds safety award he
received for his company Aviation
Egress Systems (Byron Schultz)Like many of his peers in aviation, Bryan fell in love with flying as a boy, when gazing at the commercial jets gliding to and from Vancouver International Airport. His family home was directly beneath the airport’s flight path, and the obsession started early enough to distract Bryan from life’s more mundane matters. He confesses to being the proverbial “pain in the butt” to his teachers.
“If I put my heart and soul into it, I got good marks,” he continues. “Other than that, I did what was required to get through. When I was in Grade Nine, I decided I was going to be a bush pilot. That was my full intention in life, and nothing else mattered.”
On his eighteenth birthday, Bryan was awarded his commercial licence. He was quick to head north to fulfill his dream.
“I was really drawn to the Yukon because I loved the history,” he recalls. “Especially the Gold Rush. Going to Whitehorse was the cat’s meow, because I could fly airplanes. And there was the history, all the things that had gone on in these funny little towns. I’d come across old camps somebody had set up in the thirties or forties, and find things from those eras. It was home sweet home. The first ten years of my career in aviation, I couldn’t have done anything else that would have made me happier. Looking back, it’s a pretty good life.”
Bryan has been flying with Harbour Air for four years. Of his colleagues, he says, “These humble individuals have amassed so many years of coastal flight experience that it makes my personal skills look amateur in comparison.”
He concedes that there is at least one more thing that he’d like to do. Says the father of two, “I really want to try an open cockpit biplane. I’ve got buddies that own them, but I’ve never taken the time to go to the airport and jump in one. I will, inevitably.”
Considering his track record, you can probably count on it. For now, Bryan will hop back and forth between his various careers, perhaps play a song or two.
For more information about Bryan Webster’s aviation safety company, Aviation Egress Systems, see www.dunkyou.com.
