After twelve intense weeks of theory with Oliver Hartmann in Opfikon, Zurich, it's finally time: take the controls, throttle up, and take off. Our pilot trainee Venisa Kadi takes us to Grenchen in the canton of Solothurn. Here, aspiring pilots spend eight weeks with single-engine training aircraft DA40. After a stint in Arizona, USA, for visual flight training, they return to Grenchen for two and a half months of training on the DA42.

First Solo Flights

Venisa, now training on the twin-engine training aircraft, fondly recalls her first flying hours: "The first takeoff is an overwhelming moment," she beams. The days are intense. Landings, takeoffs, flight maneuvers, and emergency scenarios are practiced, over Grenchen and sometimes farther afield, like France. It's helpful that instructors from the European Flight Academy, who also fly for SWISS, are present during training. This way, Venisa explains, we get to know the SWISS philosophy from day one.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Apart from flying, Venisa values the strong team spirit. The student pilots help each other with tasks like refueling, hangaring, and cleaning the aircraft — all essential parts of the job. After a long day, the students retreat to shared accommodation, where they cook together and laugh but also prepare for the next day. After all, they are entrusted with a lot of responsibility from the start, just like they will be with large aircraft.

Venisa owes her dream of flying to her brother, with whom she used to watch films about aviation. He encouraged her to apply. " I was fascinated by flying, but I wasn't particularly interested in subjects like physics. That's why I didn't consider becoming a pilot at first," she says. But, she adds, you don't have to be a physics genius to do the training. Growing up, Venisa also lacked female role models in aviation. "Nowadays, gender doesn't matter," she says, encouraging women to apply: "Just do it, it's a really fantastic job!""

If you want to learn more about how to become a pilot, stay tuned as the next two episodes will take you into the simulator with candidate Seraina for training on the Airbus A320 and A220, and with Matthias for landing training in France at the end of the four-part series, before hitting the track as a checked-out pilot.

Tempted by the idea of working above the clouds?