Distance vol libre was founded and incorporated
in 1985 by Richard Roussin,
André Lemieux and Jacques Fontaine.
Back then, Jacques Fontaine was a passionate about cross country flying, and long distances which inspired the name
« Distance vol libre » to the company.
In 1990, DVL was sold to Philippe Thibodeau.
Philippe flew his first solo hang gliding flights in 1982 and then went on to
be a senior instructor and tandem pilot. He started teaching his favorite sport
in 1985 and wrote in 1988 “the free flying pilots manual” during
his direction of the instructors committee at the AQVL. One of his noticeable
contributions was the creation of a flight simulator which was set up at the
Olympic stadium in
Montreal
during the « Salon des sports et
plein air ». This gave the chance to hundreds of people to discover
and feel hang gliding flying within the stadium over the exposition area.
François Thibodeau
In 2000, François Thibodeau, Philippe‘s
brother, took over the school. François started flying a year after his
brother in 1983 and started teaching in 1987. On top of being a certified hang
glider and paraglider instructor he also holds a instructor
rating in Ultralight aircrafts and paramotor, a private pilots license, he’s
an aeronautical engeneer and obtained his MBA.
Vincent Vaillancourt
In 2002, Vincent Vaillancourt and his partner Éric
Olivier bought Distance Vol Libre. Vincent started free flying in 1997 and started
teaching in 1999. Vincent is a certified hang glider and paraglider instructor,
certified tandem hang glider and tandem paraglider pilot and a certified paramotor
instructor
Éric started flying in 1989 and
then teaching first in hang gliding then in paragliding. He holds a tandem pilots
license and he’s a paragliding and hang gliding instructor. In 2006,
Vincent became the unique owner of Distance Vol Libre.
Today,Distance Vol Libre is the most important free flying training center
in eastern Canada and the most established in Quebec . More then two thirds of
all Quebec trained pilots come from DVL. Security and quality of training is
our main focus.
