I signed up for flight schoolI signed up for flight school

Cessna 152, a model purposely designed for training

I signed up for flight school last week. I chose to go with FFH Aviation Training. The three weeks of ground school will start right after lightning++ on October 6, 2025.

Now, you might ask: why pay this school almost €20k and not choose another one?

That's a good question, and one I also asked myself for a long time. In fact, I had five years to think about it, because I already considered signing up with them back then. I didn’t seriously consider it at the time, though, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford it. I just wanted to get a quote and find out whether there was anything that would keep my dream of flying from ever even taking off.

So, I took the test for the certificate of airworthiness, and fortunately, I passed. I only remember that the assistant had to tell me to breathe in even deeper, and for a moment I got scared that I’d fail because I couldn’t breathe deep enough, haha. But no, everything was fine. After that, it was only a question of money.

So, what did I do in those five years? Other than buying bitcoin, not much, to be honest.

I did not look into any other schools. I looked up common red flags, but most of them already required some commitment to the school to spot. Only price (it shouldn't be too cheap) and genuine reviews seemed like something I could use as inputs for my decision. Since reviews can be faked—and the bad flight schools will make sure they have good reviews—, I also couldn't really trust them. I tried to find reviews of FFH on Reddit but couldn't find any. I took this as a good sign.

Together with how professional they seemed to be with multiple locations in Germany—there was even a location in California before the pandemic—, their focus on training airline pilots and info material in fancy folders—that got less fancy over the years though, haha—, I felt comfortable trusting my decision.

However, it was important to me that I wouldn't have to pay everything at once, so I made sure that wasn't the case. And as expected, yes, I only had to pay for ground school upfront in a non-refundable way. For the lessons in the air, I would be billed separately.

This also meant I could start my training with them and later still decide if I wanted to join another school. I was pleasantly surprised when the Head of Education pointed this out himself during the application in person. I was in no way obligated to finish my training with them.

Another good sign was that it was important to him that I knew what I was getting into. When he said that they usually don't let people sign up without going to one of their info events first, I told him that I had been to two over the last five years. This question also came up multiple times during our conversations on the phone while I was getting closer to actually signing up in person. So it looked like he was a little forgetful, but I didn't mind. The important thing is that he cares.

At some point, in addition to all of the above, I considered it mostly a waste of time to look into other schools. In the end, I just need to get along with the instructors and be able to trust their knowledge. And before I get to know them, there aren't many ways to find out. So I would consider myself to have done enough due diligence to make sure I don't get the worst flight school. Maybe also not the best, but I'm confident it will be good enough.

After I signed up, I got a bag with all the material I would need for my training:

Everything I will need for my training

I might also post a full breakdown of the costs soon.

I have also already prepared a joke to say before takeoff when I take friends with me:

Are you ready to go to heaven?