Regional perspective

Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (VARA) Captain Nick Sofield flies the venerable Fokker 100 on services across Western Australia. Chris Frame spoke with Captain Sofield to gain insight into the life of a regional airline pilot.

What path led you to VARA?

I did my initial training in 1995 in a Piper Warrior through the University of Newcastle flying program.

My first transport category command was on the Embraer Brasilia. It was a great feeling to command my first turboprop as it had been a hard road to get to that point and I had seen more periods of performing non-flying work than flying work just to make ends meet. Flying the Brasilia was great fun and it was at this point I began to use my instructor rating to get involved in flying training.