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LEFT SEAT CULTURE PILOT TOOLS

Pilot Pathway Planner

See the whole shape of your options, from zero experience to a frozen ATPL, instead of just the one route everyone defaults to.

LEFT SEAT CULTURE PILOT TOOLS

Map your route through the whole licence, rating and instructor graph

Pick where you are now and where you want to get to, from zero experience all the way to the airlines, and see the actual route mapped out, with hours, theory and rough cost at every step. This tool covers aeroplane and microlight licences, ratings and instructor certificates only; it does not model helicopter or other categories.

v1.6.0
Version history (7)
  • v1.6.0 2026-08-25
    • Readability pass on every route step: the hour prerequisites and 'what's in this cost' notes were a dense block of text sitting right under the price, hard to scan. They're now a proper bulleted list with real spacing above and below, matching the format already used in the Earnings & limitations section.
    • Removed em dashes from every user-facing string in this tool (and the tools index page), replacing them with plain punctuation. Same principle now applies going forward across Left Seat Culture's tools: clear, plain sentences over dense em-dash-heavy ones.
  • v1.5.0 2026-08-25
    • Reviewed every step's cost figure for the same 'looks like a course fee but is actually a bundled package' problem the CPL(A) step had, and added a clarifying 'what's in this cost' note to every step where the price could be mistaken for course-only when it isn't (or vice versa): FI(R) M, FI(R) A and CRI(A) now explicitly say their price is the course fee alone, not the cost of building the hours listed as prerequisites.
    • Each step's hour prerequisites now compare against your logged total/PIC hours (step 2 — typed in or imported from a logbook.aero backup): instead of always showing the full requirement, a step now shows how many more hours you actually need on top of what you've logged, or a tick if you've already got enough. When you've already met a step's hour prerequisite, that step also gets a note flagging that its price may be overstated if it assumes you still need to build that time.
  • v1.4.0 2026-08-25
    • Fixed a real bug: a cost-band's caveat note (explaining what's actually included in a step's price) was stored in the data but never shown on screen. This mattered most on the PPL(A)→CPL(A) step, whose £88,495–£93,495 figure looked like a bare CPL course fee but is actually Aeros Fastrack's full zero-to-frozen-ATPL package price, dominated by hour-building plus bundled ATPL theory/MEP/MEIR/UPRT that CPL(A) itself doesn't require. That note now renders as a highlighted 'What's in this cost' line on every step that has one.
    • The results panel now starts with nothing selected for step 3 (previously defaulted to FI(A)) — it shows a prompt to pick a goal instead, so first-time visitors aren't shown a route before they've chosen anything.
  • v1.3.0 2026-08-24
    • Instructor hourly-rate figures revised upward after a deeper sourcing pass: current evidence (Sherburn Aero Club's £38-40/hr instruction fee, UK Ground School's 2026 cost guide listing £30-50/hr, and PPRuNe reports of freelance instructors reaching £40/hr, up from ~£25/hr pre-COVID) supports roughly £30-50/hr for PPL/SEP instructing, not the older ~£20-30/hr estimate — annual earnings bands for FI(R) A, FI(A) and CRI(A) revised accordingly. Microlight (FI(R) M) instructor-only rates still couldn't be found itemised anywhere — every microlight school checked bundles aircraft and instruction into one price — so that card now says clearly that its £30-45/hr estimate is carried over from PPL/SEP evidence, not a confirmed microlight-specific figure.
    • Added 'open your own school' as a further income-diversification option on the instructor certificate cards: as an owner you also profit from aircraft rental, not just the instruction fee — bundled UK PPL lesson prices run £185-300/hr against a £30-50/hr standalone instructor fee, and that gap is the rental margin. Also notes the real overhead this brings (aircraft costs, insurance, airfield fees, and CAA declaration/oversight — a Declared Training Organisation is a lower bar than a full Approved Training Organisation, but still a business).
  • v1.2.0 2026-08-24
    • Every instructor certificate's earnings card now states the real regulatory flying-hour ceiling (ANO Article 65: max 100 hours in any 28 days, 900 hours in any 12 months, across all flying) alongside why it's rarely the actual constraint — weather, seasonality and student demand cap real billable hours well below it first, which is the honest reason the earnings bands look low rather than a data error.
    • Added a 'ways instructors diversify income' list to each instructor certificate: ground school/theory teaching for poor-weather days, delivering FRTOL (radio licence) training (already within an FI's remit with an English Language Level 6 endorsement — the radio practical test itself needs separate CAA-approved FRTOL Examiner authorisation), and becoming an examiner (FE(A): 1,000+ total hours and 250+ hours instruction for PPL testing privileges, sourced from the CAA's own FE(A) page).
  • v1.1.0 2026-08-24
    • Route-finding engine fixed: it previously only ever surfaced one route per goal even when a genuinely different second route existed (e.g. the FI(A) via-CPL vs via-PPL+200-hours case). Now enumerates every real alternative while filtering out meaningless detours (e.g. it won't suggest getting an NPPL(A) first as a route to FI(A), but correctly keeps that option when PPL(A) itself is the goal, since that's a real cost trade-off).
    • Optional logbook.aero backup CSV import for the 'your experience' step — parsed entirely in your browser, never uploaded, sums the Total_Time and PIC_Time columns to fill in your hours automatically, and surfaces night/dual hours from the file for reference.
    • Job cards in the 'lesser-known careers' section are now clickable: pick a job and the tool jumps straight to the route from your current position to whatever licence/rating that job actually needs, rather than only working goal-first.
    • The 'how obscure' tag on each job card is now labelled, since low/medium/high/very high wasn't self-explanatory on its own — the section intro explains the scale too.
  • v1.0.0 2026-08-24
    • First release: full licence/rating/instructor-certificate graph from zero experience to frozen ATPL(A), aeroplane and microlight only, sourced from the CAA, BMAA, Bristol Groundschool, Aeros and Skyborne.
    • Route finder shows every real route to your goal, not just one — e.g. both the CPL(A) route and the PPL(A)+200-hours route to FI(A).
    • Visual route map for each option, alongside hours/theory/cost detail per step.
    • Earnings & limitations layer on every licence, rating and instructor-certificate node — including the instructor-certificates-don't-carry-commercial-privileges distinction and the frozen-vs-unfrozen ATPL distinction.
    • Lesser-known aviation careers layer: 12 real UK-reachable jobs, from Glider Tug Pilot (no CPL needed) to Flight Calibration Pilot and Mission Aviation Fellowship, each pointing at the graph node(s) that actually get you there.
    • LAPL(A) modelled as a legacy-only current position, reflecting the CAA's 1 October 2025 change to stop issuing new LAPL(A)s.
    • Cross-links to the Recreational Training Cost Calculator for detailed local NPPL/PPL pricing, which this tool deliberately doesn't duplicate.
1

Where are you starting?

Select everything you currently hold. Licences, ratings and instructor certificates can all be combined.

2

Your experience

Rough figures are fine. This only affects how close a route looks, not which routes are shown.

Parsed entirely in your browser: the file is never uploaded anywhere. Sums the Total_Time and PIC_Time columns from a logbook.aero backup export. Check the result against your logbook; this reads the file, it doesn't validate it.

3

Where do you want to get to?

Any licence, rating or instructor certificate in the graph, or scroll down and click a job in "jobs you might not have considered" to set this automatically.

LESSER-KNOWN AVIATION CAREERS

Jobs you might not have considered

Most people's mental model of "flying for money" stops at "airline pilot." The graph above actually connects to a much wider set of real jobs: some need a CPL, a few genuinely don't. The tag on each card is how obscure the job is: low means most pilots already know it exists, very high means most pilots have never heard of it. Click any job to jump straight to the route that gets you there from where you are now.

Why this matters

Most "how do I become a pilot" questions get answered with one route, usually the airline one, when the real graph has dozens of valid paths, several genuine shortcuts (like glider towing), and at least one hard rule almost everyone gets wrong (an instructor certificate alone never carries commercial flying privileges). Seeing the whole shape of your options, not just the default one, is the point.

Planning aid only

Every hours/cost figure here is sourced from the CAA, BMAA, or a named school/operator, with a verified date shown alongside. Licensing requirements and prices do change, though, so confirm your proposed route with the CAA and your intended ATO/DTO before spending money. This tool cannot assess your aptitude, local aircraft/instructor availability, or an individual school's actual pricing. Earnings figures are indicative, aggregator-sourced bands, not primary payroll data: treat them as a rough guide, not a guarantee.

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