José “Pepe” Salvo Schmitz was born on April 2, 1965 in Luxembourg.
Pepe’s passion for aviation was inborn. While children his age played at the park, he would ask his parents to take him to the airport so he could watch planes go by. He collected all sorts of aviation memorabilia and could identify a plane just by looking at a part of it.
At the age of 22, he pursued his career as a private pilot in Sabadell (Barcelona) while he worked for Lufthansa Airlines as a ground employee. Having a secure and stable position did not stop him from fulfilling his dream. He quit his job, packed his bags and headed to the USA. He obtained his commercial pilot’s license, accumulated flight hours and met his wife, Corine.
Now married, he and his wife moved to Barcelona and made a life there. As he was multilingual, he was employed immediately by non-aviation companies until he got a phone call from his friend , Manuel Collados, also a pilot. He gave him the opportunity of his life.
Pepe started flying for a corporate jet company based in Madrid called Sky Service Aviation as a Lear jet pilot. His dream had finally become a reality.
Sadly, a few years later, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and was forced out of the cockpit.
Pepe’s positive attitude and love for aviation did not end there. Fernando Gomez contacted him to join Global Training Aviation as an Aviation Consultant.
He dedicated the last 10 years of his life to his GTA family. Inspite of his inability to fly, GTA made him feel like an accomplished professional.
In 2014, We named our first simulator, the ATR 500 full flight simulator, after him
