Want to Become an Airline Pilot? This September... Start Preparing for It...

For thousands of young people returning to school and college this September, becoming an airline pilot remains the ambition. The question is: what do you actually do about it while you're still 14, 15, 16 or 17?

You don't need to rush out and start paying for flying lessons. You don't need to have your entire career mapped out and you don't necessarily need to go to university before becoming a pilot.

But you can start preparing.

On Tuesday 8 September, the first students will begin our new 14-week Become a Pilot Academy and with less than a week remaining, we're opening the final places to students aged 14–19 who want to take their ambition seriously.

Becoming a pilot starts long before flight school

There's a tendency to think that preparing to become a pilot means learning how to fly an aeroplane. That's only part of it.

Professional pilots need a strong foundation in Maths and Physics. They need to understand navigation, meteorology, aircraft performance and human factors.

But airlines are also looking for much more than technical knowledge.

Communication

Teamwork

Problem-solving

Situational awareness

Decision-making

Workload management

Professionalism

Before an aspiring pilot ever reaches an airline flight deck, they may face aptitude and psychometric testing, competency-based interviews, group exercises and other forms of selection.

That's the gap Become a Pilot has been designed to address.

14 weeks. One objective.

The objective isn't to turn a teenager into a pilot in 14 weeks.

It's to give them a much stronger understanding of the profession they're considering and start developing the knowledge and skills they'll eventually need.

Students will study live online each Tuesday evening, exploring subjects including:

• Principles of Flight

• Applied Aviation Maths and Physics

• Navigation

• Meteorology

• Aircraft performance

• Mass and balance

• Fuel planning

• Human performance

• Air Law and operational knowledge

• Pilot aptitude and psychometric testing

• Airline applications and interviews

• Communication and Crew Resource Management

• Professional pilot competencies

And we're going to make students work. This isn't two hours of sitting and listening to somebody talk about aeroplanes. Students will calculate, solve problems, answer questions, interpret information, make decisions and apply what they're learning.

The academic material has been designed to connect particularly strongly with GCSE and A-Level Maths and Physics.

That's deliberate.

If a young person wants to become a professional pilot, we want aviation to become another reason to take their education seriously.

What does school Maths have to do with flying?

Quite a lot.

Take something as simple as the forces acting on an aircraft.

Students can learn that an aircraft experiences lift, weight, thrust and drag.

But we can go much further.

Why does increasing airspeed affect lift?

What happens when air density decreases?

Why does aircraft mass matter?

How can we resolve forces mathematically?

What happens to the lift requirement in a turn?

Before long, a subject that started in a GCSE Physics classroom is being applied to a real aircraft problem. The same happens with speed, distance and time, trigonometry, vectors, pressure, energy, ratios, units and mental arithmetic.

That's where aviation can become an incredibly powerful educational tool.

What if university isn't the plan?

This is another area where families should understand the options before making decisions. A university degree is not necessarily required to become an airline pilot.

There have also been airline-funded training opportunities which can dramatically change the financial pathway for successful candidates.

That doesn't make becoming a pilot easy. Quite the opposite.\

Where opportunities are highly attractive, selection matters.

Meeting the minimum academic requirements can make somebody eligible to apply. It doesn't necessarily make them competitive.

That's why we'll also spend time looking at aptitude, communication, teamwork, interviews, professional behaviours and the competencies associated with being a pilot.

Rather than discovering these things immediately before an airline assessment, students can start understanding them while they're still at school.

What about actual flying?

Become a Pilot isn't flight training, and we don't pretend that it is.

Students who want to take the next step can, however, add an optional Simulator Completion Session later in the programme.

They'll have the opportunity to experience either an Airbus A320 or Boeing 737 simulator alongside a type-rated airline pilot, working through an airline-style flight profile and putting some of the concepts they've studied into practice.

It's designed as a culmination of their learning not simply an hour flying a simulator for entertainment.

Who is the Academy for?

Become a Pilot is aimed at 14–19-year-olds who are genuinely considering professional aviation. Some will already know the aircraft flying over their house.

Others won't know the difference between an Airbus and a Boeing.

That's fine.

We're much more interested in curiosity, willingness to learn and the ambition to improve.

You don't need previous flying experience.

You don't need to be an aviation expert.

You do need to be prepared to participate.

Less than a week to go

The first Become a Pilot Academy begins on:

Tuesday 8 September 2026

Sessions take place live online from 6pm–8pm UK time, with the programme running for 14 weeks.

The full Academy costs £1000, secure a place for £250 and spread the remaining cost across October, November & December.

We're now preparing enrolled students for their first session and allocating the remaining places. So if becoming an airline pilot has been talked about for months, or perhaps years, this September is an opportunity to start doing something constructive about it.

Don't just dream about the flight deck. Start preparing for it