Our screening procedure is thorough by design. This way, you get a clear view of your future chances of success, not just in regards to graduating as a professional pilot, but also for any job interviews at an airline. Other than your knowledge and skills, we’ll also test your motivation, attitude, and self-reflection. For our final decision, we’ll look at your results as a whole, meaning one bad test won’t automatically mean you’ve failed. As of now, about half of our candidates pass their entrance exams.

As a professional pilot, you’ll need to obtain a class 1 medical certificate. This medical exam is performed by authorized centres and is legally required. Good general health conditions are sufficient. Glasses are allowed. Several medical conditions are allowed as well, on the condition they’re managed through medication or a recognized form of treatment. Your medical physician will provide more details.

You start off with 3 weeks of classroom theory training for the private pilot license. During this time we immerse you in all the applicable theory courses and you get to know our campus. After passing your PPL theory exams, you will start flying. In these first flying lessons, you will learn the basics: climbing, descending, turning, taking off, landing and you will eventually perform your first solo flight, a memorable moment for every pilot! After that you will learn to navigate from one place to another, solely relying on outside references. After about 60 hours behind the controls of the aircraft and passing your first practical exam, you will obtain your first license: the PPL.

Once you have your PPL license, you’ll start putting in flight hours as a “pilot in command”, meaning you’ll be flying to all kinds of national and international destinations in one of our single-engine Diamond 40 planes—without an instructor. You can bring along some friends and family if you like, though. At the same time, you’ll also need to start studying for your ATPL (airline transport pilot licence) theory courses and classroom theory trainings, where an expert instructor will help guide you through the theory courses in small groups and you’ll get the opportunity to ask questions.

After timebuilding, an instructor will teach you to fly by only relying on your instruments (IFR training). This will allow you to fly comfortably through clouds and bad weather conditions. Afterwards, you’ll start flying twin-engine planes and spend a few hours flying an aerobatic plane with an instructor to learn how to recover from precarious positions.

After finishing the individual modules for private piloting, instrument flight and flying multi-engine planes, you’ll take a short, advanced practical training to turn your licence into a commercial pilot licence. Here, you’ll be evaluated more strictly in regards to flight execution precision and the minimum required set of skills for professional pilots.

The APS MCC (multi-crew course to airline pilot standards) is the last big step in your training. The previous modules were all based on basic flight techniques, as well as instrument flight and flying multi-engine planes. During the APS MCC you’ll learn to apply the knowledge and skills you’ve gained in a twin-pilot plane. At the same time, you’ll learn to fly as a team and take your first steps in the real world of an airline pilot. Skywings offers the most extensive APS MCC training available—“Enhanced APS MCC”—which will not only give you the degree you need, but will also fully prepare you for a potential job interview at an airline. APS (Airline Pilot Standards) is a high-quality brand of MCC training aimed specifically at flying mid-sized jets (like an Airbus or Boeing). In this module, you and your flight mate will hop on board our very own Airbus simulator and will be tasked with flying from A to B. This training requires a minimum of 40 hours of flying in our own simulator, spread across 10 missions, after which we’ll take you to Amsterdam for two additional four-hour sessions in a full-fledged full motion simulator—usually reserved for professional airline pilots—which simulates actual plane movements in extremely realistic fashion.

After you’ve obtained your degrees, we offer two days of interview training sessions. These trainings were designed especially for Skywings by a psychologist and an active-duty airline pilot. They’ll prepare you for your first airline interview in an interactive way.

When you graduate, our unique aftercare programme is available to you automatically, allowing you to maintain your licences for free throughout your job hunt, during a period of three years. You’re also free to keep your skills up-to-date during a period of two years by training in our Airbus simulator, along with an instructor, or our Diamond 42 simulator. This way, you can rest easy knowing you’ll be all set to go for your first job interview.