It started out as a hobby, but Thunder Bay-born Aaron Bidochka has turned his love of remote-controlled vehicles into a full-time job.

Bidochka, who now lives outside of Calgary, runs the RC Adventures YouTube channel through his RCSparks Studio, which features videos of RC vehicles.

Family-oriented

And RC Adventures recently hit a milestone — the 1,150 videos on the channel have accumulated more than one billion views.

"It really is family-oriented," Bidochka said of his channel. "No coarse language, you know. It's really about spending time together with friends and family, and if you're on your own, showing unique, creative ways to build and use your radio-controlled vehicles."

It's really about spending time together with friends and family. - Aaron Bidochka

Bidochka — who has a background in music and film production — initially got into RC vehicles, and making videos of them, as a hobby while he worked in information technology in the oil and gas industry. However, he was laid off in 2008, Bidochka told CBC.

So, he started making videos of RC vehicles and uploading them to YouTube for fun, but around the same time, he discovered YouTube's partner program. That allows content creators like Bidochka to earn a percentage of the revenue generated by ads that run with their videos.

Became full-time job in 2011

Bidochka signed up, and while earnings were slow at first, he was making a thousands a month within a couple of years, and turned it into a full-time job in 2011.

Now, his channel has more than 1.5 million subscribers, and only about 1,000 other channels have reached the one-billion-views mark, Bidochka said.

"I've been very lucky," he said. "Over the years, while we've all been going to work, I've approached this the same way — it's me going to work. Even though I'm enjoying my job, there's a lot to be done."

Hopes to inspire others

Bidochka said he's going to keep on creating for his RC Adventures YouTube channel, but he hopes to be an inspiration to others, as well.

"The one message I want to leave everybody is you don't have to do a job you don't want to do anymore," he said. "These days, there are so many things you can do to make your life better, and to really reach that passion that you have inside of you."