Universities for Pilots

In the airline industry, it is often said that there is a surplus of pilots on the market but a lack of qualified pilots in terms of flight experience, combined with academic experience.

( John G. Wensveen. 2011. Air Transportation. A management Perspective)

You will find commercial pilots come from all kinds of training background. In the past you could easily enroll in a university degree on an engineering course. Yes this is not exactly a pilot oriented course, you will be studying a lot of engineering physics and maths, doing lab reports, etc and do little bit of flying, but it is at least a beginning. Now, universities recognise that future pilots want to integrate flight training with an aviation degree and there is an increasing number of educational institutions offering such courses.

Currently, there are eleven universities in the UK, as far as I know, to offer courses for future pilots. Some of them offer a foundation degree, where you complete all flying courses and pilot theory with a Flying School and then do a Top – Up at the university selected (ex. BCFT with Kingston University of London).

Others, like University of Leeds, offer a BSc Aviation Technology with Pilot Studies course, where the PPL and the ATPL theory are studied in Year 1 and 2, respectively and the actual flying has to be completed with a flying school, usually after the degree. Many students prefer to graduate first and then go to an integrated flight school such as CTC Wings, FTE Jerez or OAA. All of the universities listed below offer pilot – orientated courses. Brunel University London, Buckinghamshire New University, University of Sheffield, University of Hertfordshire, Kingston University London, University of Leeds, University of Liverpool, University of Salford Manchester, Craven College, Middlesex University London, University of the West of England

You will probably find it hard to compare different courses, because they do not offer the same thing and incorporate different approaches to the cirriculum and flight training. Read carefully the page of each course, look at the module studied, understand what degree is awarded, find if the course is awarded by an external organisation and you check the level of satisfaction of students.

Integrated schools, like CTC, offer to get your degree as part oft the integrated flight course. They work generaly with Middlesex University London.

#University