Aeros - Gloucester school visit
27 Feb 2026
Another visit to a flight school to find out a bit more about them and what they have to offer. This time a little different to the organised events i’d been to at the other big integrated schools, this one was going to be a 1-1 personalised tour. Aeros are a flying school also based out of Gloucester, but offer the modular route instead, with two flavours of it, one being “fast-track” which is a highly structured modular course similar to the integrated routes, but done at your own pace, and the more traditional DIY route, where you can complete any part of the course independently.
I was particularly interested in the fast-track, as I think having some structure to the training will be better, and looked upon more favourably by the airlines later, but I had quite a few questions about how it’d work doing it part time, and was also just generally interested to see the school, and what their training facilities were like.
I arranged a time to visit via e-mail with their super responsive team (replies were usually always within a matter of hours of me sending mine) & they also offered to provide a personalised quote for me, taking into account the hours I’d already done, as by going modular, it’d all count, unlike with the integrated schools - quite a refreshing change!
I arrived and was greeted by the reception team, and then the training advisor. We sat in the crew room, (which was nice and comfy with everything you’d need to do your flight planning) and had a bit of chat, getting a few of my questions answered about how the ground school and distance learning worked. I was then taken on a tour, shown all the classrooms and briefing rooms, social areas etc - It was similar in a way to Skyborne’s new modern building, just a little smaller in scale and obviously a slightly older building, but perfectly adequate.
We then went out to have a look at the aircraft. Aeros have a really modern and extensive fleet for you to train on, they have a number of Tecnam P-mentors, DA40s and DA42s (for the multi-engine flying) - all them equipped with very similar, full glass cockpits, and are fully kitted with modern avionics too, as well as some C150/152;s and PA28’s that I’m more sued to! I got to jump in one of the Tecnam’s as i’d never even seen one before and was suitably impressed. All of the aircraft I saw looked well maintained and looked after, not surprising, given Aeros also have their own maintenance area, (where they also take on apprentice aviation mechanics)
They also have a fixed based sim which is bookable too and 1-1 of the real aircraft.
I was highly impressed with what I saw and the answers to my questions as we were going round, I just got a very good vibe off the place and it felt ‘right’, possibly because it was a lot more similar to the school that I originally learnt to fly with, and I was really quite sold on it. Doing the ATPLs at home, at my own pace, but with guidance and help when needed, and then once in the flying phase, again being able to do that at my own pace, potentially flying every day if wanted to, just seemed like a much better fit for me than anything I’d seen before.
The thing that really stood out to me was the way that one of the students I spoke to, praised it so highly, and this wasn’t someone who was primed/picked for an open day - because when I asked if there were any current students around I could chat to, he had actually just begun and was in the middle of a briefing with his instructor, and that was the only reason he was in that day - to have an actual lesson. The training advisor knocked on the door and asked if he’d be willing to step out of his lesson to have a quick chat with me - and he was more than happy to do so - that just speaks volumes about the place I think, and he was also someone nearing the end of his training, having just got his CPL, so was able to talk about the high quality of the flight instruction too. This was something that was severely lacking at the integrated schools open days, very few students if any, who were actually flying.
I drove home from this one feeling incredibly enthused about it being a viable option to do my training.