PPRuNe Forums - Flying Schools

Hi navibrator,

To give you the broad picture, I should say that you have several options.

The first option is to stay in Central Europe and do your course locally to where you are going to do your flying after you get your licence. (I am assuming you are fluent in the local language).

If you don't have languages, then another alternative is to go to one of the outfits in France or Spain that cater specially for native English speaking students.

The cheapest alternative is to go to the other side of the pond for a month and do your licence in the States. It doesn't matter whether you get an EASA licence or an FAA licence (as long as you intend to fly in an ICAO state where your foreign licence would be recognised). You must, however, allow for some hours of extra training on your return to acquaint yourself with the different met and air traffic procedures in your home location.

I don't recommend the UK unless you anticipate coming here to live. Flying in the UK is astronomically expensive compared to other states and our airspace complex, congested and busy. If, however, you do intend to move to the UK before long, then training in the UK would have certain advantages.

There are other places you could go, such as South Africa, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but these don't seem to me to offer any particular advantage, bearing in mind the added time and cost of travel, and the likelihood that at some of them you would not be able to obtain either an EASA or FAA licence.

You can find adverts for nearly all these options in the flying magazines and then research them by using the 'Search' facility here on Pprune.

Good luck!

Broomstick.