Interview with Instructor Dominique Cotte

Dominique Cotte joined Flight Experience Melbourne within a month of it opening and became the first female instructor to be employed at any Flight Experience franchise around the world. Dom really enjoys working with the team, saying it feels like a big family as they all get along so well. She also says that the best thing about working with Flight Experience is seeing customers come in who have had a passion for flying since they were young but never got around to doing it. Dom says it’s really rewarding that everyone who comes in for a flight has fun and walks out with a smile on their face.

Dominique began flying when she was 16 in her home town of Albury, New South Wales. Her friends purchased an introductory flight session for her at Zauril Aviation and she was hooked. Deciding that flying was going to be her life, Dominique worked six days a week at abattoirs to build up enough money so she could go flying on her day off. Now that’s dedication indeed!

Realising that Dominique was serious about making a career out of flying, her parents enrolled her at Swinburne University’s Bachelor of Aviation degree. During her final year, Dom wrote a thesis on the topic of women in aviation, focusing on Deborah Wardley (aka Deborah Lawrie), the first female airline pilot in Australia.

On her graduation, Dominique won a scholarship to fly Metro III freighters with Pel-Air. After two months studying the aircraft’s systems, she was told that Regional Express had purchased Pel-Air and were replacing the Metro III with the Saab 340. Unfortunately any further progress towards becoming a Saab pilot was put on hold with the recession and the resulting downturn in aviation.

Shortly after this, Dominique started working as a jump pilot flying Cessnas for Australian Sky Dive and Sky Dive Melbourne, where she was recently promoted to chief pilot.

With over 300 hours in her log book, Dominique has already had a number of memorable flying moments. One such moment was when flying a Cessna 182 back from maintenance to its home base. With thunderstorms in the area and lowering clouds, Dom was forced to land in a paddock when the engine failed due to a fuel blockage.

Other experiences include getting her Multi-Engine Command Instrument Rating in a Piper Seminole and some aerobatic flying in a Decathlon. Dom claims that flying the Seminole was some of the best flying she’s ever done and that although the aerobatics were great fun, they did make her sick.

Having written her thesis on Deborah Wardley, Dominique’s most amazing customer experience was when Deborah came into the store to see the simulator. Dominique showed her the sim and had a great long chat with Deborah before getting to be her instructor for a flight.

Recently Dominique had the opportunity to fly on the jump seat of a Virgin Blue 737-800. Dom said that walking into the cockpit was just like being at work in the simulator but with slightly better scenery out the windows. Because of her work in the simulator, Dom was allowed to program the Flight Management Computer on the aircraft and found it to be just the same. Dom notes that when airline pilots come to visit the Flight Experience simulator, they all comment on how realistic it is.

Dominique must really enjoy a challenge and flying around mountains as she says that her favourite locations to fly to in the simulator are Innsbruck in Austria and Queenstown in New Zealand. Dom also likes to fly to Mauritius, where her father is from, as well as taking off from JFK in New York, flying past the Statue of Liberty and then landing at La Guardia.