Biography

Olivier grew up in an aviation family in Normandy France, soloing at age 15 and quickly moving on to warbirds. He had the opportunity at a young age to fly T-6 and Stearman over the D-Day beaches, while also participating in French airshows in a 3 Chipmunk demo team.

Moving to the US to further his education at GeorgiaTech, Olivier was able to keep his passion for aviation going by rebuilding a wrecked Extra-300. Thanks to his employer Dassault Falcon Jet who has a facility based in Reno Tahoe, he has been exposed to Reno Air Racing for the last 10 years. While he had hoped his Extra would be slick enough to chase the Metal Mafia on the Sport Medallion track, he came to realize that the ever increasing performance of the racers would not give him a chance.

It’s with the early retirement of the TB-30 Epsilon from the French Air Force that Olivier finally found his weapon of choice. While not as fast as the purpose built racers, the TB-30’s 281kts VNE gives a lot of room for growth and Olivier has already been able to improve the qualifying speed by 16 mph over his first two seasons at Reno.

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