Inspiring Biography of Petter Hörnfeldt (Mentour Pilot) (Wiki)

Petter Hörnfeldt is a pilot and a popular YouTuber.

He has more than 1.4 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, ‘Mentour Pilot’.

Introduction-

Petter Hörnfeldt was born on 22 September 1981 in Billsjö, Örnsköldsvik, Sweden.

His mother’s name is Lena Hörnfeldt and he has four siblings.

At 8, Petter was inspired by the Indiana Jones film series and wanted to grow up to become an archaeologist and as a child, he loved playing football.

Love for aviation-

His father was working as an Insurance Manager in northern Sweden and when Petter was 13, his father got his private pilot license as the insurance company had offices in different cities in the vast northern Sweden.

At 13, he started accompanying his father on the trips and interacting with the flight instructors, and thanks to all these, he fell in love with aviation.

Flying a Cessna at 14-

For his 14th birthday, Petter’s parents decided to give him a test lesson to fly a Cessna 172 aircraft.

He, along with his father’s flight instructor, Mats, flew a Cessna 172 for 50 minutes.

Petter was allowed to start the engine, handle the controls, and finally land the aircraft with the help of the instructor.

At that moment, he ditched his plan of growing up to become an archaeologist and decided to become a pilot instead.

Putting in the hard work-

After researching different ways of becoming a pilot, Petter decided to utilise a government sponsored aviation program.

At the time, he learnt that the minimum age to apply for this program was 17 and only 30 spots would be available in this program per year nationwide.

At the time, Petter was 14 and was studying in 7th grade and was an average student securing average grades and as he set himself a goal of getting into the aviation program, he started studying hard.

And in four semesters, he vastly improved his grades.

Petter studied the Natural Science Programme from Nolaskolan, a senior high school in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden and completed his schooling in 1998.

College-

In his senior high school, Petter scored the highest average of 5.0 and this helped him to clear the interview and tests of the government-sponsored school.

In 1998, he secured admission at Aviation college of Sweden (Hässlö gymnasium) in Västerås, at a 100 km distance from Stockholm and availed the integrated government sponsored aviation program.

At the time, Petter was 17, and got selected by passing several tests conducted by an aviation psychologist company.

At the college, he was taught flying and Natural Science subjects.

Here, Petter flew Cessna 172s and Cessna 152s aircraft and at the end of his first year, got his Private Pilot License (PPL).

At the end of his second year, he attended CPL, IR and ATPL frozen exams and cleared them.

In 2000, Petter passed out from the college with good grades.

Career-

In January 2000, Petter worked as an insurance salesman for Länsförsäkringar.

Then, in January 2001, he worked as a ramp personnel at Sundsvall–Timrå Airport.

As a part of the mandatory military service, Petter worked as a ramp personnel and firefighter at Stockholm Västerås Airport from January 2001 to January 2002.

Then, he joined a school for an 18-month government sponsored course involving multi-engine training and Multi-Crew Cooperation (MCC).

Joining Ryanair-

Unfortunately, Petter passed out from the college just at the time of one of the biggest downturns of the aviation industry.

Luckily at that time, Ryanair was rapidly expanding and was in need of cadet pilots and one of his friends working at Ryanair suggested his name.

At 20, Petter had the required licenses, so got invited to an interview and got selected.

At the time, he was nine months into the government sponsored course and left this course to join Ryanair.

He started type-rating on a Boeing 737-800 in Stansted, London.

Then, Petter was selected as a Synthetic Flight Instructor (SFI) in his airline’s simulator centre in Nottingham, United Kingdom.

At Ryanair, he worked in various roles, First officer, Base Type Rating Examiner, Line training captain and Type Rating Instructor Boeing 737 300-900.

Since February 2007, he has been working as an Airline Captain at Ryanair and flies Boeing 737 aircraft.

YouTube channels-

In 2015, while working as a pilot, Petter had a lot of free time and his wife suggested he start a YouTube channel as a hobby.

He decided to start his channel as he has been interested in social media.

And at that time, Petter was saddened on seeing a lot of exaggerated negativities especially on forums regarding the pilot occupation, discouraging people into becoming pilots and so, he decided to start his YouTube channel and share his personal experiences and perspectives.

So, on 5 March 2015, he started his YouTube channel, ‘Mentour Pilot’ and started doing videos in front of his iMac.

On 7 March 2015, he published his first video, ‘Life quality as an airline pilot, pro’s and con’s’.

He also launched aviation apps and a Discord server.

Petter co-founded The Airline Pilot Club and founded Mentour 360SL, a social media company.

He has a couple of other YouTube channels namely, ‘Mentour Now!’ and ‘Mentour Shorts’.

Petter also has a website.

A successful YouTuber-

As of April 2023, Petter has 1.47M subscribers on ‘Mentour Pilot’ YouTube channel.

And has 217K subscribers on ‘Mentour Now!’ channel and 188K followers on Instagram.

Petter earns from a variety of sources, advertisements and ‘Super Thanks’ on his YouTube channel, merchandise, affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and accepts donations on Patreon.

He has a team for helping him out with his website and YouTube channel.

Petter manages his online ventures on the side of working as a pilot.

In September 2022, he quit working as a line training captain, type rating instructor and type rating examiner to focus on his YouTube channels.

Personal life-

Petter is married to Sandra Garcia and this couple has two sons, William and Lucas.

Sandra worked as a junior cabin crew.

His son, Lucas, is also a YouTuber and has a YouTube channel, ‘Lucadicrous’.

Petter is a dog-lover and a polyglot as he knows Swedish, Spanish, and English.

He is a foodie and loves travelling, and Saab 37 Viggen combat aircraft, and his favourite destination is Malta.

He lives in Girona, Spain.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Petter Hörnfeldt?

Share with me in the comment section below.

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