A massive shout out to everyone who is involved with Pilot Training at the moment: our wonderful team of mentors, our FIs ( @Ben Carpenter, @Benjamin Arrowsmith, @Firas Bashee, @Cole Edwards, @Tarik Merrylees), and our TDA @Craig Stewart.

Join the team

We are always looking for new mentors across our training courses: P1, P2, and TFP. Irrespective of your experience, if you are interested in contributing to the division and passionate about flying then please reach out!

Helpdesk: https://helpdesk.vatsim.uk/ (select “Pilot Training” as the department)

What. Just. Happened.

Recently I found a screenshot that dates my time in this department.

It's one of the highlight slides from our 2022 year-end review meeting (which I still remember running...somehow). Keep these figures in the back of your mind as you read this quarterly review.

The numbers and graphs

P1 PPL(A)

In Q1 2025, we saw our best quarter ever for the P1 course. Not only did we have 13 active mentors, we gave our students 65 sessions at an average of 4.33 sessions per student. Bear in mind, not all of those students were active for the whole quarter.

P2 SEIR(A)

Carrying on the same trend, we equaled our best quarter in the P2! We had 6 active mentors give our students 13 sessions.

The Flying Programme

TFP saw a fantastic rebound after Q4 last year. We equaled our second best quarter with 12 sessions. The number of sessions per student was the highest we've seen.

Exams

For this quarter, I've decided to include historical exam data (ie data from before centralized exams came into effect). We saw a very strong Q1, with 3 P1 passes, all with excellent feedback from the examiners. Overall, the pass rate for the P1 remains incredibly high at 89%, which has been at 100% since the higher standard centralized exams. The P2 continues to have a 100% pass rate as well.

What are the numbers saying?

First and foremost, it is evident that our turnaround strategy from last year is working.We are engaging the mentor base better and giving our students more frequent sessions. However, we still have a lot of work to do in ensuring that the growth is sustainable. We also need to bring across some of the initiatives that have made the P1 so successful into the P2 and TFP programmes.

Department Updates

New Handbook Release

The latest version of the Training Handbook was released a few weeks ago, with the removal of the P5 Flight Instructor rating. The new release brought some notable changes, such as the even faster mentor onboarding process and some new policies for student engagement. It also has made the document significantly easier to maintain.

Staff Changes

We have been recruiting for a Pilot Training Manager in the 2nd half of the quarter. I expect this appointment to be made within the next week, so stay tuned!

Where are we headed?

As I've mentioned above, a big focus for me this year is to improve our course content. The P1 is in a much better place, which is becoming even better with the in-progress updates. However, the P2 still need the love and TLC that the P1 has received. With the soon-to-be appointed PTM, I will work towards updating the P2 and making the course significantly easier to manage.

I still firmly believe in The Flying Programme. I've had compliments from various other ATOs about what we're doing there. In parallel with the P1 and P2 updates, we are looking to build capacity for TFP.

Lastly, the P3 is making stellar progress!

Safe landings ✈️
Darren