Research methodology

Workflow

1. Discover a candidate. Secondary directories and search results are discovery sources only; they never verify a fact.
2. Confirm identity and operation on the school's own website.
3. Confirm the actual training base (the airfield where flying happens), not the head office.
4. Verify eligible programs on official program pages.
5. Check the authority and status against an official register or document where one is reachable.
6. Extract outcomes and prerequisites: what the program teaches, what completion provides, what examinations remain.
7. Extract hours and duration, keeping regulatory minimums, advertised package hours and school-reported completion apart.
8. Extract prices and exclusions with currency, type, date and what is and is not included.
9. Record fleet and facilities only as published, with the source date.
10. Save sources (URL and a verbatim quote). A script re-fetches pages and checks that each quote is still present; facts whose quote cannot be found are withheld or downgraded.
11. Deduplicate and publish after review.

Who is included

Operating independent flight schools, professional academies, flying clubs offering structured instruction, university flight-training units, helicopter schools, specialist providers and ground-school providers with identifiable official operations. University aviation programs are included only when the flight-training component and the provider relationship are verified.

Excluded from core coverage: individual freelance instructors, flight-attendant schools, aircraft-maintenance schools, air-traffic-control training, travel agencies, sightseeing operators without pilot instruction, entertainment simulators without a documented training purpose, and anonymous lead-generation sites.

Launch countries and coverage

Research started in nineteen countries (see countries). These are the initial research scope, not a claim of equal market size or complete coverage. Counts shown anywhere on the site come from the database, and each country page shows its research status and review date. Gaps are tracked, not hidden.

What we do not do

• We do not invent schools, approvals, prices, fleets, partnerships, reviews, outcomes or employment figures.
• We do not convert currencies, rank by price, or compare hourly rates with package totals.
• We do not state typical completion times that a school has not published.
• We do not assume qualifications in different countries are equivalent, and we do not decide medical eligibility.
• We do not bypass bot protection or access restrictions to gather data. Where an official register could not be reached, the status says so.

Corrections and freshness

Prices, approvals and programs change. Each record shows when it was last checked; records not checked for six months are marked for review. See corrections and verification explained.