Flight School in the Algarve: Learning to Fly in Portugal

What you can train for at Lagos, who is eligible, and the one certificate to arrange first

Yes - you can train for a full pilot's licence in the Algarve. Argo Aero UK, the UK dealer for Manufaktura Lotnicza, runs gyroplane flight training from the municipal ultralight airfield at Lagos, in the western Algarve, to the syllabus of the UK Civil Aviation Authority's Private Pilot's Licence (Gyroplanes). The licence carries no nationality requirement: CAA Standards Document 44 asks for 40 hours of flight training, five written examinations at 75% and a medical, and says nothing about citizenship or where you live. To train in Portugal you also need a valid Class 2 medical certificate - the UK's self-certified declaration is not accepted there.

What you can learn to fly here

What we teach is the gyroplane - an aircraft whose rotor is not driven by the engine but turned by the air passing through it, so it is in autorotation from the moment it leaves the ground. There is no stall to recover from, and if the engine stops the rotor keeps turning and the aircraft keeps flying. If the words are new to you, we have written a plain explanation of what a gyrocopter is and how it differs from a helicopter.

There is other flight training in the region - microlights are taught from the same part of the coast - so the Algarve is not a one-aircraft place. Gyroplanes are what we do, and the training runs to the British syllabus rather than a local one, which is what makes the hours count towards a licence recognised outside Portugal.

You do not need to be British to hold the licence

This is the question we are asked most often by people living in Portugal, and the answer is short. Standards Document 44, the CAA document that sets out gyroplane licensing, contains no requirement of nationality, citizenship or residence anywhere in its ninety-four pages. What it requires is the training, the examinations and the medical. A resident of Portugal trains on the same course and receives the same licence as a British student.

Where nationality does not matter but the register does is in what you then fly. A licence follows the aircraft's register rather than the pilot: a UK PPL(G) is the licence for a UK-registered gyroplane. Taking a UK-registered gyroplane abroad is a separate permission, from the country you are flying in rather than from the CAA, because these aircraft fly on a national Permit to Fly rather than a Certificate of Airworthiness. If you later want a Portuguese-registered machine instead, whether ANAC will accept a UK licence is Portuguese national law - gyroplanes sit outside the European Union's common licensing rules, so there is no single European answer to quote. Ask us before you buy anything and we will go through it with you.

Arrange the medical first

Training in Portugal means Portuguese rules, and on one point they ask for more than the UK does: a valid Class 2 medical certificate is required to train there. The self-certified Pilot Medical Declaration that covers you for the UK licence is not sufficient in Portugal.

It is an ordinary examination with an Aeromedical Examiner, but it has to be booked, and it is the single item that can hold a course up before it has begun. Sort it out before you book flights, not after - and ask us if you are not sure where to go for it.

Why the flying gets done here

The enemy of flight training is not difficulty, it is the calendar. In Britain the weather cancels a third of the slots and the skill fades between lessons. At Lagos the field is a hard runway owned by the municipality with very little traffic, and the day is two hours of flying back to back - you fly, debrief, rest and fly again while the lesson is still fresh. We have set out what the weather and the wind really do to a flying day here separately, and why the winter is the better season, not the worse one.

What the course consists of

Forty hours of flight training, of which at least 15 hours dual and 10 hours solo must be flown in gyroplanes, with three of the solo hours cross-country; five written examinations at 75%; and a General Flying Test. The full breakdown is on our page about the UK gyroplane pilot licence, and the syllabus itself - all 38 exercises, stage by stage - is written out in full. If you already hold a licence in another category, up to 15 of the 40 hours can be credited.

On cost, the honest answer is that it depends on how much flying you have already done, so we would rather give you a figure for your own case than a headline that turns out not to apply. We have written about what a gyroplane licence costs in general terms, and you can simply ask us.

Start with half an hour

Nobody should commit to a licence before they know they like it. A flight over the coast is logged, counts towards the hours and answers the only question that matters at the start. The fast-track course in the Algarve is where it goes next - including, for the already-qualified, an advanced handling course and a flight along the Formula 1 circuit at Portimao.

Frequently asked questions