New training aircraft, more students, extra staff and the entire training in-house. According to director Auke Dros, the KLM Flight Academy at Eelde airport is doing well.
On Friday, aircraft number seven landed at Groningen Airport Eelde. It is part of the fleet of twelve brand new single-engine training aircraft that the KLM Flight Academy is purchasing this year. “Delivery is faster than expected. We hope to have all the devices in before the summer holidays,” says Dros. The school wants to festively present the new acquisitions on May 24.
From his office at Groningen Airport Eelde, Dros looks out at the platform where the flight school’s training aircraft fly to and from. There is another aircraft in the colors of the Martinair flying school, which merged with the KLM Flight Academy in 2020. “The aircraft has not been repainted, because we would only fly with this type for a short time.”
No lead
The twelve new Diamonds DA40, costing around half a million euros each, are quieter and more economical than the old training aircraft and no longer fly on leaded petrol. This is good news for residents from surrounding villages, because after the arrival of the Martinair aircraft to Eelde, the number of training flights increased sharply and with it the number of complaints about noise pollution. The emission of more leaded petrol also worried the Eelde Airport Residents Association (VOLE). “Can we still eat fruit and vegetables from our garden?”
“We cannot reduce noise pollution to zero, but it has become a lot less. The new teaching aircraft can also fly on biofuel,” says Dros. He is proud that the fleet will soon consist only of new aircraft, because in addition to the twelve single-engine aircraft, the KLM flying school has also purchased six new twin-engine training aircraft in recent years.
Nice company
These aircraft also come from Diamond. According to Dros, the KLM flying school has become an important customer of the Austrian aircraft manufacturer. “A great company with 800 employees. I’ve been there recently. They make everything themselves. From the fuselage of the aircraft to the parts.”
The renewal of the training fleet took into account an increase in the number of students on the two-year training course for commercial pilots at KLM, for which the school in Eelde is the main supplier. Previously, a maximum of 60 new students were admitted to the school per year, but the demand for new pilots is so great that 72 students have been admitted this year and 81 next year. One of them is Thomas Krol, Olympic skating champion in the 1000 meters.
Dros: “We cannot accommodate more than 80 students on our campus. Over the next ten years, 800 KLM pilots will retire, but they will have to be replaced. Aviation will continue to grow worldwide in the coming years.”
No more waiting list
The KLM flying school is in a very different situation than about ten years ago. At that time there was a long waiting list of graduated pilots who did not get a job and were left with a significant debt from the expensive flight training of 120,000 euros at the time. Dros: “We no longer have a waiting list and KLM finances the training itself. As a result, the study is no longer only accessible to rich children. We now have a cross-section of the population based on a talent for flying.”
“25 percent of our students are currently women, which creates a nice dynamic at the flying school, while at KLM it is 7 percent. A boy from Syria also goes to school here. He fled to our country when he was sixteen and learned to speak Dutch well. He is now 24 years old and almost finished his education. I think it’s great that such a driven boy also gets the chance to become a pilot.”
More students also means more staff. “We have just hired five new instructors, bringing the number of permanent instructors to more than twenty. Everyone is now being trained to teach on the new Diamonds.”
Electric flying
At the 75th anniversary of the flying school in September 2021, Dros’ predecessor Bart de Vries announced that the school would purchase fourteen electric training aircraft and had signed a letter of intent with the American aircraft manufacturer Bye Aerospace. However, the development of that aircraft took too long, after which the Flight Academy moved to Diamond.
It has been agreed with the builder from Vienna that the school can exchange the new training aircraft for electric aircraft for a reasonable price. Dros: “Diamond presented the electric version of the teaching device a few weeks ago at the Aero fair in Friedrichshafen. But it can only fly for 72 minutes on a battery. That’s too short for us. Flying lessons last one and a half to three hours. And then you also need to have enough fuel to be able to divert to a nearby airport in the event of an emergency.”
If the electric device can stay in the air longer, it will be interesting for the flight school. “Developments are moving quickly. I predict that in the near future we will have a training fleet that flies partly on kerosene or biofuel and partly on electricity.”
Old equipment for sale
The KLM Flight Academy will sell the sixteen old training aircraft. “They will soon be on a kind of Marketplace,” says director Auke Dros with a wink. “There are several sites where these types of devices are offered for sale worldwide. Although they are old devices, they have not been tuned up and are well maintained. They are quite popular. We prefer to sell them in one go.”
From RLS to KLM
The National Aviation School (RLS) opened January 1, 1946 the doors on the Gilze-Rijen military air base, op initiative of then KLM director Albert Plesman. The 78 students were taught twelve Tiger Moths aircraft. Due to lack of space part of the training moved to Ypenburg air base as early as 1946. In 1954 the National Aviation School moved to Eelde. In 1991, the flight training was privatized and taken over by KLM for 1 guilder and continued as KLM Aviation School (KLS). To underline the international character of the school, the name was later changed to KLM Flight Academy. The two-year training course for commercial pilots was previously largely completed in Phoenix, Arizona. After Dutch students could no longer go there, the airline pilot training course was almost entirely moved to Groningen Airport Eelde in 2019. Only the last part of the study, the flight simulator training, is given by KLM at Schiphol. The KLM Flight Academy employs 50 permanent people.
Tags: KLM flying school Eelde twelve teaching aircraft students
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