Learning to fly is not easy and it’s not cheap. The first step is a private pilot’s licence (PPL). You will need to do a whole lot of theory, learn how to navigate, use a radio and – of course – how to fly the plane. It takes a minimum of 40 hours to get a PPL and then you are only licensed for the plane on which you learned. If you want to fly a different plane, you’ll need to do a conversion. You can learn through a club or a dedicated commercial flying school. The above is true for any aircraft, including helicopters, hot air balloons, gliders and microlights.
South Africa is one of the best places in the world to learn to fly – for two reasons. The first is that there are great facilities, fabulous scenery and a sophisticated flying infrastructure, and the second is that it is very reasonably priced. You could fly to South Africa (as a passenger in a jumbo jet), do a full time one month residential flying course, take a week’s holiday at a game reserve afterwards, and fly home for less than it would cost you to learn to fly in Europe or North America.
The cheapest way to get your wings is to do a microlight or glider pilot’s licence. If you then decide to do a standard light plane PPL, some of your existing hours will be counted.
There are flying schools where you could do a private pilots licence (PPL) or more advanced courses in the major centres, and even some smaller towns. Most people do a flying course part time but there are a couple of good residential flying schools where you can do your PPL full time and finish it in a month.