Aviation for non-Polish in Poland

Hello,

What are my chances of pursuing aviation hobby in Poland as non-Polish speaker?

I am mostly into GPL, not so much interested in PPL due to higher costs. Are there even slight possibility of attending courses in English? Where could I find more information?

Currently I am living near Wroclaw.

It would be cheaper in the USA

GPL? Don't know what this is. Do you mean CPL?

OK, I think I figured it out. GPL = Glider Pilot's Licence . . . ?

I went for a fly in Bydgoszcz recently, was a bit of a struggle with the language, and i did not do the radio as that was all done in Polish, but i'm sure in future the tower will speak English for me.

There was a really nice girl there whose English was really good, unfortunately i forgot her name, i can't even remember where she usually flies, either wroclaw or maybe more likely wloclawek.

So i would be interested to hear how you get on.

This will be of limited use to you not speaking Polish h t tp://w w w.aeroklub.wroc.pl/node/17
but it gives you a phone number, and the address (no surprise that the address is the airport)

also the price for a lesson in a cessna 150 was 350zl and hour for members and 500 for non members, but i didn't get the bottom of cost of membership, it involved a yearly fee and monthly fee so didn't make sense for me as i was only visiting. but still a little cheaper than DonAir but then DonAir have better aircraft (152s) and fly out of East Midlands, where as Bydgoszcz use a grass strip in the grounds of Bydgoszcz airport.

I don't think that the language you speak matters, there are plenty of aeroclubs in Poland. That's the one based in Wroclaw area:

Aeroclub "Dolnośląski"
Mirosławice Airport
55-050 Sobótka 1

An office:
ul. Kiełczowska 43
51-315 Wrocław
tel./fax (0-71) 390 91 40

It is possible...but like everything in Poland it is more expensive and overly complicated.

In Warsaw at least they offer an "English" (sort of) program but in typical Polish fashion there are only TWO days in the entire year you can begin the program and it has a ridiculous amount of classroom nonsense by some "Professor" in the first half of the program. The costs were more than TWICE what it costs in the US for all programs. Rather than treat you like the customer who is paying to learn a skill (again as most flight schools do) they act like it is some sort of 'academy' and you are beholden to them to kiss their ass and snap to like some former communist program.

Something you will also find (as mentioned above) is that a lot of people CLAIM to speak English but they really can't...it can be really frustrating when they lie like this. ATC often has such thick accents you cant understand the radio...and it can be dangerous as well as frustrating.

Unless you just have no other option I would avoid training in Poland. Overall it will be much harder to you to learn the fundamentals while struggling with the difficulties and oddities of how things are done here. You will be a much better Pilot if you train someplace where they speak your first language and are less stuck in the old way of doing things.

And before any patriots start harping about the English part....Air Traffic Control is required by international law to speak English. It is the official aviation language. The problem is that often radio is not as clear as speaking face to face and when you add in someone with a very poor accent it can become unintelligible...when that is involving airplanes it can become a big deal.

is that just at international airports or at all airfields, even the little ones?

Because a Polish friend of mine flies and he says that when he goes to/from Krakow he has to speak English to them, but when he is at the tiny local airfield (not even an airport) that nobody seems to speak English.

[extremespotting] for a website that might interest you.

A very poor choice for exactly the reasons you give, English phonetics vary too widely from dialect to dialect and it takes too much effort for too many people to achieve an acceptable pronunciation. But the decision was not made on linguistic grounds or taking into consideration the burdens it imposes on the less linguistically gifted.

And how long have you been in Poland, can you speak Polish and if not, why not?

Indeed. Increasingly, mis-understood ATC/Pilot/ATC radio traffic, is becoming a causal factor in near misses etc.

As a side note, I work on the ground at an airport and have frequent contact with pilots on the ground to air radio, I can say that more often than not I have to request pilots to, "say agian" in order to understand their comms.


As a rule, comms with ATC is very formatted, and is designed to communicate technical information about the aircraft's status. Because of this, range of vocabulary is limited and strictly speaking a pilot need only be competent in speaking english at this level. However, most airlines demand that their flight deck crews be fluent english speakers.

Your opinion on the matter is irrelevant. The fact is English IS the official aviation language and it will not be changing because you take issue with it.


I won't be able to cite regulations but my understanding is any airfield that is "controlled" and has responsibilities for directing aircraft (keeping them from crashing into each other or the ground even at night or in bad weather for example) is required to speak English. If it is a small grass field where there is just someone on the radio during the day for convenience and info (but not officially coordinating traffic) I can see how they wouldn't bother and would speak whatever language is most convenient to the people flying there.

Thank you for informative replies!

I seems to be a bit of a challenge, but we will keep trying!