When he was only four years old, Sheridan Smith would beg his parents to take him to Clearwater Beach after school so he could watch the aeroplanes coming in.

And when all his friends wanted cool wheels for their birthdays, the young Sheridan wanted a model plane.

Two decades later, Mr Smith has realised his lifelong dream by qualifying as a first officer to fly for commercial airlines.

At 25, he is one of the youngest to qualify in Bermuda’s history and is now working with Republic Airways, which operates for three major airlines in the US — American Airlines, Delta Connection and United Express.

He qualified as first officer on December 8 and is now at the helm of planes flying out of LaGuardia Airport as far west as Salt Lake City and as far south as Baranquilla in Colombia.

Reminiscing about his childhood infatuation with planes, Mr Smith told The Royal Gazette: “I remember it like it was yesterday, we would get out of school at 3.30pm and we would have after-school care and then my mom would come and pick me up at 5.30pm and we would go home and change our clothes quickly. Then we would get to the beach just in time for British Airways’ take off to Gatwick, American Airlines coming in from Miami and then JFK. My dad always remembers me saying, “one more, one more!”.

“It was just magical to watch these 650,000lb pieces of metal come up off the ground — it is pretty awe-inspiring. That was it, I was infatuated with it from day one.”

Before flying for commercial airlines, Mr Smith was flying corporate flights for a small private management company out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida for almost two years.

He gained his first licence to fly small planes when he was 17 in 2010 from Palm Beach Flight Training and then went on to study Aviation Business at London Metropolitan University.

From there he took a gap year in New Zealand before moving to the US in 2014 to finish his commercial pilot’s licence. He got a job the following month flying for a private management company.

Asked what skills he had needed to become successful pilot, Mr Smith said perseverance was of the utmost importance.

“It is a big thing because people get downtrodden very easily, like when you make a bad landing or you don’t know your way and you get criticism from your instructors.

“You go through dozens of instructors throughout your training career and you take all of their criticism on board — you almost become a clone of each one of them. You take on little bits and pieces and each pilot becomes a product of their instructors.

“You also have to have the stomach for times like when you are flying in bad weather. Some of the manoeuvring — things you are never going to have to do in a commercial aeroplane — can sometimes be intimidating like flying at a 90-degree angle making a steep turn where the wing is pointing down to the ground and the other is pointing towards the sky.

“The other part is just studying — it is the only way you can get through this stuff. They will catch people out before anything bad can happen but you have to keep on top of yourself in terms of staying up to date with regulations and techniques and any relevant information to the field because things change all the time — they are finding out new things to do with flying more efficiently, routing and drones are a big issue now.”

Asked how it felt to have qualified as a commercial pilot, Mr Smith said: “For me it is a 20-year dream come true. I am here wearing the uniform and greeting passengers. After getting a windy approach into Washington Reagan, people come up and say ‘great landing’ — it is very rewarding.

“We were dropping people off to Mardi Gras. Everyone was super excited saying ‘this is my first time in New Orleans!’.

“It is a thankless job 90 per cent of the time but it’s nice to see little children want to come and take pictures with you and wear the hat. I don’t think there is any better office in the world to sit and look out on 45,000 feet on a sunrise over the East Coast or sunset out west when you are flying in places like Austin, Texas — it is just unbelievable.”

Asked what advice he would give to young people interested in becoming a pilot, Mr Smith added: “I always try to help people who are interested in flying to find flight schools. People say they would love to do it but it is too expensive or too difficult. I say don’t give up on it if it is something you really want to do and the US is the way to go. You are going to have to pay your dues like everyone else and work your way to it.

“There are reasonably priced ways to get to this point. Do your research because all it takes is pricing out flight schools. We are a small island and this is a career that can get you out there and see the world. It is within anyone’s reach.”