STUDENT INFORMATION

Flight Training

If you are interested in learning to fly as a hobby, obtaining your PPL (Private Pilot License) can be done in as little as 4 months. This is assuming you are training full-time, booking flight 5 to 6 days per week. The PPL entails a minimum of 40 hours ground school and a minimum of 45 flight hours. Students usually finish the PPL course around 60-70 flight hours at the Boundary Bay airport because of our busy airport and airspace.

If a career as a pilot is what you are after then you need a CPL (Commercial Pilot License). The CPL program entails a minimum of 80 hours ground school and 200 flight hours. One of the biggest achievements in the CPL course is to obtain the 200 flight hours. This is the main time consuming element. Booking flights every day, a full-time student can finish the course in less than a year. When flying part time, the program can take 18 to 24 months.

Flight Training Videos

If a picture worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a thousand pictures! Vancouver Aviation College is one of the very few flight schools that allow students to film during flight. Many of our students have recorded and shared flight training videos on social medias. These videos have helped many others to master and successfully complete their training. Here are a couple of YouTube videos from our students on what flight training at Vancouver Aviation College will be like. For more videos, check out our media page.

Ground School

Our ground school runs both on weekdays and weekends in our facility at Boundary Bay Airport, regardless the number of students. The program runs in a cycle and takes approximately 3 months to complete the whole course.  New students are welcome to join in at any time.  In addition, students are encouraged to re-sit any or all of the course upon completion at no extra charge. The ground school prepares you to achieve a solid passing mark on the Transport Canada Written Exams. For ground school schedules, please visit Ground School Program page.

Access to our Online Ground School is included at NO additional cost to classroom-based ground school. The Online Ground School has been approved by Transport Canada and grants students credits toward the ground school hour requirement.

Students registered for Online ground school will have access to the following studying materials:

Daily Live Class Sessions

Ground School Course Slides

Ground School Quizzes

Written Exam Preparations

Recorded Ground School Training Videos

Training videos such as proper airplane tie-down and de-icing.

Ability to interact with other students and instructors online through messages and discussion forums.

The online ground school serves as an excellent complement to conventional classroom-based ground school. It enables students to participate and learn on the go, even before arriving in Canada. To learn more about the online ground school, please visit its program page.

Training Cost

As with the length of time to complete the training, how much it will cost will vary from student to student. How much commitment and aptitude and whether the student is full-time or part-time are factors that will affect the cost. All prices are in Canadian Dollars. There is no need to pay the full amount fee in advance. Instead, you will be charged by “flight time” following each training session. This is the time from engine start to engine stop.

Although prepayment is not required, students do need to pay a $500.00 security deposit which will be refunded at the end of your training or when you decide to leave us. For registration, we charge:

Non-refundable registration fee of $250 CAD plus tax ($600 CAD plus tax for International Student)

Non-refundable admission fee of $300 CAD plus tax

Security deposit of $500 CAD (refundable at end of training)

The flight training can start at any time. When you and the instructor show up, the lesson starts. The pacing and schedule of the lessons are up to you. You can fly once a month, once a week, or 2-3 times a day if it’s productive for you. The more often you fly the sooner the course will be done and the less money it’ll cost you to learn to fly.

Job Opportunities for Students

We do offer job opportunities to students on campus. Please visits Job Opportunities page for more information.

We offer the Instructor Rating; this rating can be completed after your CPL license. If you want to gain experience and have the thrill to teach others your flying passion, the Instructor rating is for you, please visit Instructor Rating page for more information.

Student Accommodation

We want to help you locate comfortable accommodation that best meets your needs to make your stay much more enjoyable and stress-free. Pitt Meadows airport is well served by public transit. We are pleased to provide some suggestions to a host of accommodations available to students in areas around the school, ranging in style, comfort, and price. Please visit the Student Housing page for detailed accommodation information near the school.

Canadian Permanent Resident Status

Over the years, many of our Instructors Rating students have successfully obtained Canadian Permanent Residence Status through the Express Entry Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS). We suggest interested students contact the Canadian government or an immigration expert for detailed information on CRS.

Financial Assessment

Luckily if need be – there are some Financing Programs in place for our future pilots! Also – personal loans are available at many banks provided you meet with them and have a Plan of Attack for your training and career. Student Loans and Bursuries are available for Pilots enrolled in Pilot Training at Flight Schools that have been assessed to be “Training Institutes”. These Loans and Bursuries come from the Federal Level, and sometimes the Provincial Level as well – depending upon the province. Their is a limit to these funds though as you cannot use them toward your initial Private Pilot Licence, nor toward your Commercial Pilot licence build up time – instead you can only apply for, and use the money toward Commercial Pilot Licence Training, Multi-Engine Rating, Single/Multi-Engine Instrument Rating, and the Class IV Flight Instructor Rating training. Loans are Bursuries up to a maximum of $20000 CDN are available to those who qualify.

We're Hiring