Salpauslento (SL Flight Training)

About Salpauslento (SL Flight Training)

Salpauslento, trading as SL Flight Training, is an EASA-approved Finnish training organisation (licence FI.ATO.2001) running courses from two bases: Tampere-Pirkkala Airport and Helsinki-Vantaa. Unusually for a Finnish school, it covers both aeroplane and helicopter streams under one roof, and most of its fleet is kept permanently at those two airports. Aeroplane students begin with the PPL(A): 100 hours of classroom theory taught largely by the school's own instructors, plus about 45 flying hours entirely on the Cessna 152, typically finished in three to four months full time. A night flight rating can be taken alongside the PPL or added later as five hours. The CPL(A) adds 250 hours of theory and 30 flying hours (15 for instrument-rated pilots), moving students onto the Piper PA-28RT-201T Turbo Arrow IV — the school's most complex single, with retractable gear and a variable-pitch propeller. The two-year professional pilot line leads to a CPL with frozen ATPL theory, ME/IR and MCC. On the helicopter side, the roughly 18-month CPL(H) combines 750 hours of theory with 135 flying hours on the Robinson R44 and an EC135 FTD3 device, and the school also delivers IR(H) and EC135 and EC120 type ratings. Graduates have gone on to operators including FinHEMS and Helsinki Citycopter.