YoungPilot Academy

Imagine you are fifteen and you live in Poland — a country whose aviation industry is growing rapidly, where new airports are being built and thousands of people work in and around the sky every day — yet you have never been to an airport, never seen a cockpit up close, and you have no idea what it feels like to lift off the ground in a small aircraft. This is the everyday reality for most young people in local communities across the country. The "Young Pilot Academy" program was created to change that — and it comes directly to schools.

This three-day program takes 30 students aged 13–15 on a carefully designed journey from the classroom desk to the cockpit. It is not a one-off field trip and not a dry physics lecture. It is a real aviation education program led by a licensed pilot-instructor — someone who flies every day and can show young people what this life truly looks like.

The first two days take place at school — your school, wherever it is. Across twelve hours of hands-on workshops, participants dive into aerodynamics, aircraft construction, air navigation, meteorology and aviation safety. But these are not textbook lessons. Students work with real aviation charts, navigation cards, educational models and craft materials. They learn how wings generate lift by building and testing their own designs. They plot routes on real ICAO maps. They study weather the way pilots do — not as an abstract scientific topic, but as a skill that saves lives in the air.

Day three is the culmination. The whole group travels to a local airfield — for example Warsaw's Babice Airport, a historic general-aviation airfield active since the earliest days of Polish aviation. The exact airfield is chosen based on the school's location — the Foundation works with aeroclubs and airfields across Poland to keep the experience close to participants. After a thorough safety briefing on the apron, students split into groups of three and board a four-seat light aircraft together with the pilot-instructor. Each group makes an introductory flight over the surrounding area.

Sitting right next to the pilot, mere centimeters from the instruments and controls, students see everything up close — the altimeter, the compass, the horizon stretching in every direction. They can ask questions mid-flight. They experience the physics of take-off, turns and landing not as formulas on a blackboard, but as real forces pressing them into the seat.

Ten flights are completed in total — one for each three-person group. For many of these young people it is the first time they have ever been in any aircraft. The day ends at the airfield with a debrief in which participants share their impressions, followed by a ceremonial diploma presentation — every participant becomes a graduate of the "Young Pilot Academy".

What sets this program apart is the combination of deep knowledge with an unforgettable experience. Two full days of workshops build real understanding and curiosity. The flight on day three is not just a reward — it is the practical culmination of everything they have learned. Students who plotted navigation routes on a map the day before now see the same landmarks from the air. Theory becomes reality. Formulas turn into feelings.

The program is created and run by the "Lotnicze Marzenia" Foundation — an organization founded by active aviation industry professionals. Foundation members hold pilot licenses, have years of operational experience and maintain close relationships with flight schools and airfields across Poland. This is not a theoretical program devised by people who only read about aviation — it is built by people who practice it every day.

Polish aviation is growing at a pace nobody would have predicted a decade ago: new airports, new airlines, thousands of new jobs. At the same time, most young people in local communities — especially away from major cities — have almost no practical contact with the aviation industry. Local aeroclubs rarely offer youth programs. Schools rarely run aviation-themed extracurriculars. The closest hands-on experiences are usually too expensive or too far away. The Young Pilot Academy fills that gap, bringing professional aviation education directly to local schools — and then taking students into the sky.

Every participant goes home with a diploma, an educational booklet covering the key workshop topics and — most importantly — a memory that can shape the rest of their life. At thirteen or fourteen, the window for career inspiration is wide open. Showing a young person from a local community that a cockpit is not an unreachable dream but a real workplace — that is an experience that changes trajectories.