Finian Stronach (Class of 2008) – The Joy of Flying
Posted on October 15, 2025
For a year after he left Friends’, Finian Stronach (2008) worked casual jobs to fund a dream: to get his commercial pilot’s licence. Fin had known since primary school that he wanted to fly, and even though he went on to love and complete his degree in environmental science at UTAS, one of the best things about his studies was that, for almost five years, he could use what he was learning about geography and geology when he was piloting Par Avion scenic flights to south-west Tasmania’s World Heritage Area.
“I was that kid with remote-control planes or kites or balsa wood planes,” says Fin, who’s now a captain at Jetstar Airways. “I was the one always down at McCann’s Model World, looking to find the little MiG or DC-3 I hadn’t built yet to put on my shelf.” When he started at Friends’ in Year 6, and his teacher Jon Bath helped the class make rockets, “It triggered something inside me,” Fin says. “I wanted to do something with aviation one day.” He talked to Adam Chambers, another Friends’ teacher and a pilot. “The teachers at Friends’ are fantastic,” says Fin. “They never said: this is what you must do. It was more like: you can do whatever you want to do.”
Fin built up the hours flying light aircraft necessary to take on bigger planes, moving to the Torres Strait for a year. It was “a bit of a change” from Tasmania. “We’d fly mainly in the mornings to avoid thunderstorms,” recalls Fin. Some 20 pilots lived on Horn Island and would fly between the 10 islands big enough to have air strips. They’d transport the locals and the doctors, lawyers and crayfish. Living so remotely meant they developed strong relationships. “There was one pub on the island, and one supermarket, and the pilots would all play Ultimate Frisbee” says Fin. “On your days off you’d try to get to Thursday Island to see some civilisation. There was a restaurant there and another pub.”
Next came Hong Kong and his first job with an airline. From 2016 to 2018, Fin worked for Cathay Pacific flying ultra-long-haul. “But it messed with my sleep, which isn’t good at the best of times,” he says. He would return home after a three- or four-day shift, then not be able to sleep for another four days. “I lost my body clock, completely,” he says. “As glamorous as it is to fly to New York, London and all these beautiful places, long-haul flying just wasn’t for me.”
So he moved to Jetstar, and he still flies internationally, but for six or seven hours maximum. He flies to Bali, New Zealand, Fiji, Singapore and his favourite, the Cook Islands. “You arrive in the morning and watch the sunrise over the ocean and waves crashing to the shore,” he marvels. “You’ll be watching whales swim by your hotel-room window and know that in a few hours you’ll be snorkelling.”
Fin got his command (captaincy) when he was 32. But before that was COVID-19, when flights were cancelled and he and his colleagues were stood down. That’s when he decided to train for the Surf Ironman competitions. The annual Coolangatta Gold is his favourite race. He lives with his partner Skye in Bondi, where he volunteers with Bondi Surf Life Saving Club.
Even “boring” domestic flights still hold magic for Fin. “Last night between Melbourne and Sydney, at 37,000 feet, I could see the sunset on my left and down on my right were the ski fields of Falls Creek,” says Fin. “It was beautiful. I love my job.”
