Flight training guides
The decisions that shape what flying costs you and how long it takes to be paid for it — from choosing a school to your first application. None of them is which school has the nicest website.
Before and during training
Anyone about to book a trial lesson or a course
How to choose a flight school
The eight things that cost student pilots money, and the questions that have a checkable answer.
Read itAnyone deciding how to start commercial training
Integrated or modular?
The first real decision in flight training, what each route actually commits you to, and how to tell which one suits you.
Read itAnyone considering flying for a living
Get your medical first
The one requirement a flight school cannot fix, cannot refund, and has every reason not to mention early.
Read itAnyone training abroad, or planning to move
Where to train if you want to fly somewhere else
The licence you earn belongs to the country you train in. What that means if you plan to work elsewhere.
Read it
After your licence
Anyone holding a new commercial licence
Building hours after your licence
The gap between a commercial licence and a job that will have you, and the honest trade-offs of each way across it.
Read itAnyone applying for a flying job
What an airline application asks for
The figures, documents and dates every pilot application wants, and the ones people get wrong under time pressure.
Read it
Why there is no “how much does it cost” guide
Because we would have to make the number up. Training costs vary by school, by month and by how your weather goes, and published hour minima differ by authority and route and change with rule amendments. A student who books a course on a figure we got wrong has lost real money.
Where a number is the answer, we point at the authority that publishes it instead — the country pages name the regulator for 60 countries, and the schools' own contact details are on their pages so you can ask them what they actually charge.