STUDENT SUCCESS STORIES

My Aviation English Journey

I’m an electrical Engineer, 57 years old, was looking for a challenge and found it in Aviation.
I’m Austrian, which means German main native language. I’m an electrical engineer and I graduated in English 40 years ago. So I do have some technical knowledge and I do speak some English, but both trainings are decades ago and I never was among the good students those days.

I still don’t have any aviation training as I decided to start with English as it is the common basement of any other training.

ICAO rules say that they don’t test Aviation knowledge, but they do test aviation Vocabulary, and how can you know and use that vocabulary properly without having a basic understanding about aviation, workflows and communication rules?

Therefore I can totally agree to one of the major statements on the Captain Pilot website and app: ICAO English is not about an common English test, it is about precision under enormous pressure. Giving up, redoing or taking a break is not an option when you are airborne and your engine is on fire.

This constant focus on little details, including correct tenses and other tiny details during the training sometimes felt annoying, but it was absolutely true and necessary. In Aviation there is no “good enough”.
Sometimes the training felt like doing the same thing, the same task 3 times. I didn’t really like it but it was necessary.

Due to starting from zero knowledge I sometimes struggled, especially at the beginning, but at the integrated chat I always got an answer within a relatively short time and the answer was long, personal truly interested and helpful. There you are not talking to another chatbot. A human invests time to help you.

I did both major basic training paths: The six months Master program and the 3 months AI assisted Training. For absolute beginners like me I still suggest that combination as both programs have their own individual purposes: The 6 Months Master program gives you all the knowledge and Information you need to remember aviation terms and use them correctly with your individual pace. Once you know what you need to know, you can practice and connect the individual parts with the AI training.

There you will see the how right Captain Pilot was with stating that ICAO English is not about knowing vocabulary. AI can show you how many mistakes you still make, although you basically know the words and the rules, especially when pressure is rising.

I finished the 6 months master program with 98% in the final test, but at the first AI training I have seen how many mistakes still happened. AI is a very new tool and therefore the AI assisted training is still evolving. Sometimes AI feels more like a real human, sometimes less, but that is an important part of the training, as I the real life test you are also sitting in front of 2 examiners you have never met before and you don’t know their personality and focus. So I strongly recommend to completely use the 3 Months duration of the AI training, even if you may have finished the course after half of the time. You always can improve. Nobody is ever really finished and perfect.