Leading Edge Aviation (LEAL) has announced the launch of a new funded fATPL/Flight Instructor training programme, covering up to 85% of training costs. LEAL’s new training programme will see cadets complete training with the academy, gaining a frozen Air Transport Pilot Licence (fATPL) and Flight Instructor (FI) rating, ahead of commencing two years’ employment as an FI at LEAL’s Alhama de Murcia training base in southern Spain. The programme is open to both modular and integrated training pathways. Applicants with a PPL can apply to LEAL’s modular training programme, which will take them from ..read more

Helicentre Aviation Academy has announced its 2025 CPL(H) (Commercial Helicopter Pilot Licence) scholarship initiative. The £250,000 scholarship fund, designed to assist modular trainee helicopter pilots fast-track their careers, are open to applicants training at both of Helicentre’s training bases at Oxford and Leicester airports. Now open, the scholarships will be awarded in August 2025, to two pilots who have completed their PPL(H) with Helicentre by 31 July 2025. The recipients will benefit from fully-funded hour-building to meet the pre-requisite hours for the issue of the CPL(H), before ..read more

Pilot Careers Live is returning to the Concorde Centre at Manchester Airport this Saturday, 13 July 2024. For those interested in learning more about what is involved in training to become a commercial pilot, as well as learning about the various careers on offer, PCL offers a one-stop shop for aspiring pilots. Flight academies from across Europe will be in attendance, providing an opportunity to learn about the training programmes they offer, alongside pilot shops, aviation organisations and pilot unions. A number of airlines are also attending, including British Airways, easyJet, Emerald Air ..read more

Luton-headquartered CATS Aviation, specialists in commercial pilot theoretical knowledge (TK) training, have launched a subscription-based study programme for ATPL cadets. According to CATS, the new online subscription programme includes updated audio-video content, updated overview lectures, and the most up-to-date study guides and ATPL question bank. The CATS complete web-based training system is now available online and via iPad for £222 per calendar month as a pay-as-you-train subscription payment programme. Dr Stuart E. Smith, Head of Training and Founder at CATS said: “We are really plea ..read more

The UK CAA has published a comprehensive guide on flying into and out of unlicensed airstrips. The guide – part of the CAA’s series of Safety Sense Leaflets – contains valuable information on the art of flying into grass strips and how to identify and mitigate potential hazards. The guide commences by advising that most strips will not be licensed or certified to any standard and may have hazardous features such as power lines or slopes not normally found at licensed aerodromes. The runway surfaces themselves may be of poor condition, being rutted or uneven, and often considerably shorter tha ..read more

Premier Flight Training have gone out of business after around two decades of operation. The Norwich airport-based flying school was set-up in 2002 and had been based at Norwich airport for over two decades. Starting out providing training for the Private Pilot Licence (PPL) and associated ratings, Premier Flight Training later went on become a CAA Approved Training Organisation (ATO) offering commercial, instrument rating and Flight Instructor rating courses and had planned to begin offering a pilot degree programme in 2024. However, signs of financial distress began to appear last year when ..read more

Norwegian ATO Pilot Flight Academy (PFA) has launched an fATPL scholarship, covering all tuition fees across an integrated 18-month training programme at the company’s headquarters in Torp Sandefjord Airport in southern Norway. Open to European passport holders, PFA says it is particularly interested in attracting applications from individuals who might not otherwise have the financial ability to fund commercial pilot training, as well as individuals who, “through extraordinary social engagement or other merits”, have particularly earned this opportunity. With a rolling intake programme, PFA s ..read more

Airbus’ R&D division, Airbus UpNext, commenced testing last month on a new project to develop automatic taxiing and enhanced pilot assistance. According to Airbus, the three-year research project, called Optimate, will combine a wide range of technologies including advanced automation, computer vision, data fusion and machine learning (AI) to improve aircraft navigation systems and the human-machine interface. A key objective for Optimate is to develop and test automatic taxiing based on more accurate and reliable position calculation, to include ‘quantum sensing’ to improve position avail ..read more

Spanish ATO FTEJerez has opened applications for the Ryanair Future Flyer Academy. The Future Flyer Academy, previously known as the Ryanair Mentored Programme, aims to train over 400 aspiring pilots in the next four years. The programme provides three distinct training paths, catering to individuals with varying levels of experience. FTEJerez is starting its Ryanair programme with the Integrated Ab-Initio Path, which offers a comprehensive full-time programme designed for candidates with little to no flying experience. Candidates selected for this course will receive extensive training, inclu ..read more

UK government has confirmed that its sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) mandate will come into force in January 2025. In September 2023, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced a ‘revenue certainty mechanism’ to kickstart the SAF industry. To make this happen the DfT introduced a SAF mandate which will require at least 10% of all jet fuel in flights taking off from the UK to come from sustainable feedstocks by 2030. SAFs are typically derived by combining jet fuel with alternatives such as biofuels or recycled oils from industrial food facilities to achieve carbon savings of up to 70%. As re ..read more