The South African Flight Training Academy (SAFTA) is a professional pilot training company offering levels of service and a standard of training as can be expected at any of the top training facilities in Europe, Australia and the USA, but at South African prices!

SAFTA originated out of a requirement for two of our affiliate charter and contracts companies to have their own aviation training organisation. As the official ATO to both of these companies, SAFTA is not only an ab-initio training academy, but also offers advanced training and flight and ground recurrency courses.

SAFTA has concentrated its operations away from the more attractive South African coastal airports for one very important reason, WEATHER!! Students at facilities along the South African coast lose up to half the year's training days due to bad weather, but not at SAFTA. That is why we can offer a 10 to 12 month professional pilot ab-intio course.

Based in the rural country town of Heidelberg only 40 kms from Johannesburg, we are ideally situated to maximise training and to get our students to their end goal in the shortest possible time, and that is to be earning a living as professional pilots.

Heidelberg offers the benefit of a safe and secure study and living environment while being within a short driving time of the major shopping malls, airports and the CAA head office.

SAFTA utilises a fleet of C152's and C172's as primary trainers, a Mooney for advanced single engine training and Piper Seneca's as our multiengine trainers. We also have a Simuflight full visual three-channel simulator certified to FNPT II for advanced training and instrument rating and CPL and ATP renewals.

Besides offering training to ab-initio students, SAFTA also offers flight and ground recurrency training to Part 135 and Part 121 commercial pilots, including CRM, DG, SEPT, RVSM, TCAS and English language proficiency testing.

We have a state of the art on site SACAA approved PPL testing centre at our Heidelberg Campus.

Our campus in Heidelberg consists of a 6500 square metre facility that includes over 200 individual bedrooms, an administration complex, cafeteria, lecture rooms and entertainment halls. It is located less than 3kms from heidelberg Airfield where most flight training takes place. We currently conduct night flying training at Rand Airport in Germiston.

We look forward to your joining the SAFTA family in the very near future!