CAE - open day school visit
09 Apr 2025
After attending Pilot Careers live last month, and chatting to CAE about their link with EasyJet and the MPL scheme, the opportunity arose to visit CAE’s dedicated training facility located in Crawley. It was in the evening, which for me turned it into quite a long day as I drove up and back from Exeter in one day, meaning I wasn’t home again until nearly midnight. Many of the students I’d spoken to at pilot careers live where, there welcoming the guests in, and later on, taking people on the tours of the somewhat impressive building.
It started off with getting registered and being given a temporary ID badge, before being taken into one of the classrooms where the ATPL ground school is taught. We were then given a presentation detailing the structure cost and benefits of doing the MPL course, none of which was new to me, as I had watched a webinar earlier in the week, which was essentially the same thing. There was then the chance to ask a few questions, and I am always amazed at these things how unprepared people are, asking such basic things which are easy to find out online ahead of time.
Following that we were then split into three groups, one group was taken on the tour of the building, one down to the simulators, and the final group, which I was in, was taken to the common area, where a number of students, current EasyJet pilots and a couple of training advisors were all available to mingle with and ask further questions. The common area it’s self was quite impressive, very spacious, and modern with plenty of seating and a cafeteria. Similarly, again I found the quality of questions from others was highly variable, but it was really useful for me to chat to some of the pilots, to get a much better flavour about what life was really like working for EasyJet.
After a little while the groups were rotated, and we were taken on a tour of the building. The building in general is huge and operates 24/7. It’s where all of EasyJet’s existing pilots come for recurrent training and sim checks, and cabin crew courses are also run from it, with full scale mock-ups of emergency exits and slides. A number of other airlines also use the facility to train their pilots and cabin crew too. So it was busy with real pilots having briefings ahead of their sim sessions, as well as groups of cabin crew taking a break from their sessions.
We were shown the various classrooms and fixed flight training devices, which are essentially a set of touch screens arranged in a 1-1 replica of a cockpit, and are primarily used for learning cockpit flows and procedures, without needing the visuals out the window, or sensations of flying. These all looked relatively new and fresh, despite being well-used.
A couple of students came along with us on the tour, and were available for further questions as we went around, giving a bit of an insight into what it would be like to do your ground school there.
After the building tour, the groups were rotated again, and we were taken down to see the banks of simulators. The building is essentially split into three, with rows of full motion flight simulators running down each side, and then in the middle, the common area and all the classrooms and admin offices.
One of the sides of simulators is purely for EasyJet’s use, all variations of the A320 family, and the other side is shared by other airlines, and has a bit more of a mix, including B737, and A350 simulators. They also have at least one fixed 737 simulator, which is a full 1-1 replica with wraparound screens, but obviously does not simulate the motion. This one was open to go and have a sit in the pilot’s seat, which I thought was a slightly odd choice, given anyone thinking of applying to the MPL scheme and EasyJet, would be on an Airbus instead.
Being the last group to go around the simulators though, the building had become a little quieter, and we got lucky in that one of the full-motion A320 simulators was not in use, and so we got to have look in there, and having been into a couple of real life cockpits before (at the end of a flight) it was truly impressive and believable that you were sat in the real thing. The training advisor who was taking us round told a story of a pilot doing recurrent training in these simulators who’d got so immersed in it, he was talking about how annoying it was that he’d have to get from Luton all the way back to Gatwick via public transport, as that’s where his car was, because he’d just flown an approach into Luton, before he realised, actually still on the ground in Crawley!
Once we had finished with the tour of the simulators, we were taken back to the common area, and there was a final chance to mingle with the pilots, students and training advisors. It had thinned out somewhat from the large group at the start, as it was now gone 9pm. I stayed for a little longer as I had a couple more questions. I ended up leaving at nearly 10pm, and incredibly fired up. It seemed like a fantastic route to the cockpit, and the training facility was highly impressive. I just need to figure out exactly how i’m going to fund it, and spend some time swatting up on maths and physics, before applying, given they form part of the selection process, and I haven’t really had to think about that much since leaving school!