By Mike Baños (as related by Patrick Roa)
After over a decade as a commercial airline pilot for Philippine Airlines (PAL), Kagay-anon Patrick Roa seemed to have attained his childhood dream of flying the friendly skies.
However, he chose to voluntarily retire from PAL just a few months shy of his 50th Birthday, to pursue flying that demanded more than the sedate routine of flying commercial airliners.
“This decision was driven by clarity. Having built a strong foundation in scheduled airline flying, I recognized that the next phase of my professional life needed to be intentional. I chose to redirect my career toward complex, high-responsibility aviation missions—work that demanded greater technical depth, adaptability, and a broader international scope,” the intrepid flyer explained.
Into the Wide Blue Yonder
What made his decision to retire even more remarkable was that it came at the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic, when global aviation was still reeling and many professionals chose stability despite salary reductions and economic uncertainty. The world was in turmoil—vaccines were not yet available, uncertainty was everywhere—and he was stepping away from a stable career to embrace risk and change.
“That moment marked less an ending than a recalibration. I was seeking a meaningful challenge and carefully evaluated the timing, risks, and potential rewards of such a move. For me, however, the timing felt right. It was time to pivot. It felt, quite simply, like jumping out of the boat and choosing to swim in the open water. I made the decision and formally retired,” he recalls. All this to the soundtrack of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”, which he was listening to at the time.
To facilitate his Strategic Requalification and Industry Engagement, he reestablish his global mobility by reactivating his FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) Airline Transport Pilot License by completing an Airbus A320 Flight Crew Transition Course in Florida.
To elevate his industry engagement, he also joined the Philippine Chapter of the Asian Business Aviation Association (AsBAA) as its Chapter Chair and was later nominated to the Board of Governors.
“Our advocacy efforts focused on securing extended quarantine bubble exemptions for flight crews, raising awareness of the safety risks posed by illegal charter operations, and strengthening industry education, he noted.
In partnership with WingBox Aviation, the Chapter launched “Bridging the Gap,” a free online educational outreach program which attracted more than 5,000 registered participants. Another of his major projects with the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) was the revision and implementation of a Helicopter Route System to enable Helicopter IFR Night Operations within the Manila Control Area—an effort aimed at improving operational safety and civil defense resilience.
In June 2022, he was elected as the first Filipino Director and Vice Chairman of the AsBAA that expanded his involvement from operational execution to strategic governance, policy engagement, and regional collaboration, particularly as the industry began navigating emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, hybrid-electric propulsion, and the commercial space economy.
Entry into Global Aviation Projects
With limited immediate opportunities in corporate aviation, Roa accepted his first post-airline contractual assignment as a ferry pilot in October 2021, delivering an Airbus A319 from Mississippi through Alaska and Russia to Taiyuan, China—followed by a 30-day isolation quarantine.
Shortly thereafter, he was contacted by Nomadic Aviation Group for another demanding mission into Myanmar. At the time, he was blissfully unaware that Nomadic—newly reformed from the merger of Jet Test and Transport and AviaCrew—was the world’s leading aircraft delivery and flight test organization, conducting approximately 300 to 400 flights annually in close partnership with major global lessors.
What he initially viewed as a transitional role quickly evolved into something far more substantial and he found myself immersed in a previously unseen dimension of aviation: international ferry operations, aircraft delivery, acceptance flights, and post-engineering modification flight testing—often in unfamiliar airspace, on unfamiliar aircraft, and with no margin for complacency.
Multi-Type Expansion and Leadership Transition
Over the next two years, he expanded his operational scope by adding type ratings on the Boeing 737 (all series), Boeing 757/767, and Airbus A330, significantly broadening his previous narrowbody and widebody capabilities in ferry and flight test roles.
“In March 2023, I was invited to join Nomadic Aviation Group’s Operations Management team and was appointed Flight Test Manager. In this role, I became responsible for overseeing complex international ferry projects, acceptance flights, and post-modification flight test programs across both Airbus and Boeing platforms. This marked a transition from performance-based demonstration test flying toward more formally structured flight test engineering methodologies.”
Transition to Test Pilot
To formalize this trajectory, Roa applied with the National Test Pilot School (NTPS) in Mojave, California, fully aware that the Technical Pilot Course only admits a maximum of four students annually and maintains a multi-year backlog of qualified candidates.
“I first focused on qualifying for acceptance, knowing that timing would ultimately be beyond my control,” he admits. “In May 2023, while having lunch in São Paulo, Brazil, I received an email informing me that a seat had opened for the February 2024 class. The news was unexpected and overwhelming. I accepted immediately, and only later realized what I have just gotten myself into.”
Flight Test Specialization
With less than ten months to prepare, he immersed himself in extensive academic pre-study covering aerodynamics, physics, algebra, calculus, differential equations, and certification flight testing criteria under U.S. FAR Parts 23 and 25, along with their European EASA CS-25 counterparts. Preparation became a parallel discipline to his operational responsibilities.
Large-Scale Program Leadership
In January 2024, Roa assumed operational leadership of Airbus A320 ferry flights supporting LATAM Airlines Group’s On Air WiFi project involving their fleet of over 200 Narrowbody aircraft.
This included establishing a dedicated Nomadic Aviation Group South American crew base in São Paulo, Brazil; managing a multinational pilot workforce operating under FAA, ANAC, DGAC-Chile, and Cayman licenses and validations; and expanding the scope of operations to include LATAM’s Boeing 787 and 767 freighter conversion, ferry, and experimental modification programs across five continents
Defining Milestone
In February 2024, Roa attained a career defining milestone as he became the first Filipino to earn certification as a Technical Flight Test Pilot after completing the NTPS Technical Pilot Course in Mojave, California, formalizing his extensive experiential knowledge. Through structured training and data-driven methodologies, he transitioned from being a pilot who performed test flying to one trained with a deeper understanding of the discipline behind it—risk management, repeatability, and engineering intent.
High-Performance and Supersonic Training
By April–May 2024 he achieved a long-time dream when he completed his Supersonic and High-Performance (HIPer) Jet Upset Prevention and Recovery Training with Flight Research Inc., a division of NTPS, and flew legacy military jet trainers, including the Northrop T-38 Talon and Aermacchi MB-326 Impala.
“This phase of training proved particularly demanding. Conducted under the close supervision of a former Space Shuttle astronaut, the margins for error were minimal-if any,” he stressed. “My instructor was former Space Shuttle astronaut Bill Oefelein. Bill was a former Top Gun instructor and Naval Test Pilot prior to joining NASA.”
“Test pilot training involves flying different unfamiliar aircraft that demanded total presence and respect. Extracting good data, evaluating handling qualities and performance. The experience was both physically and mentally exacting, reinforcing the principle that growth remains inherently uncomfortable—as it must be.”
He relates how he never imagined that leaving the airline was the best thing that happened to him.
I went back full circle to the things I only dreamed of doing but gave up on. Even getting accepted into Test Pilot School is a crazy story-waitlist is at least three years, only 4 students max, they will select qualified applicants, and you’ll also need a US DoD ITAR Clearance, the “short, fast course” is only offered once a year or three times every two years. I went almost a year not watching any inflight movie or even Netflix!”
Present Day Perspective & Purpose
Today, Roa operates as a globally deployable technical flight test pilot and aviation project manager, with over 14,000 flight hours, experience across more than 60 aircraft types, along with experience in board-level industry leadership and governance.
“My career now sits at the intersection of flight test, fleet transition programs, safety governance, and international aviation strategy,” he noted.
“The milestones and numbers matter less than the perspective they have provided. I have learned that mastery is never static, credibility is earned daily, and the most meaningful careers are shaped by deliberate, risk-conscious choices—not inertia. This chapter of my life has been defined by intention: choosing challenge, embracing responsibility, and continuing to learn long after it would have been easier to stop and simply watch the sunset.”
“If my story can show anything, it’s that success is not reserved for the few—it’s available to all who are willing to put in the hard work, to push through the challenges, and to hold onto their vision, no matter how daunting it may seem.”
“I lived it and I made it. And I know others can too!”
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