Flyability Scholarships

How the Scholarship works

Flyability encourages disabled people to train at the BHPA registered school of their choice – alongside non-disabled student pilots. By applying for and undertaking a scholarship, you are making a valuable contribution to Flyability’s ‘real life’ disability awareness and education programme.

You should make contact with the BHPA school of your choice in order to get the lower section of the application form completed. Be aware that there are hill and tow schools. All schools have slightly different training environments so it may be that one school is unsuitable for you where another schools environment may be ideally suited to your needs and ambitions. Please contact another school if the first one that you contact is unsuitable for you.

1. Decide if you want to fly paragliders or hanggliders
2. Find out which schools you can get to offer the type of flight/training you want. We advise thinking about which type of flight and which launch method would best suit you to help narrow down your list of potential schools.
3. Contact and/or visit the school(s) to discuss the flight/training.
4. With the school complete the appropriate application form in full and return it to Flyability along with any evidence or additional information.
5. Flyability will authorise the funding for the tandem flight/training and give the school a funding authority number which is valid for 12 months.
6. Do the flight/training within the next twelve month period.
7. After the flight/training the school sends the details to Flyability along with an invoice for the flight for up to the limits of the scholarship. **
8. You pay the school any costs in relation to the flight that are in excess of the Flyability subsidy.
9. Tell us how it went! We are always interested in your photographs, stories, videos, poetry – any feedback about your experiences flying. Ideally we’d like to share this feedback on our website so that other disabled people can share and learn from your experiences and so that we can demonstrate to the people who donate money that their donations are making a difference.

** Note: If your chosen BHPA school or provider requires payment up front for your tandem flight then you will need to pay them in full for the flight. If this is the case, once the flight has taken place, please send a copy of your tandem flight invoice / receipt (quoting your unique reference number) to Flyability – along with the date of your flight and any feedback that you may have and request reimbursement of the Flyability tandem flight subsidy directly to yourself. (Invoices or receipts should be addressed to the Flyability Treasurer via the Flyability office address, or emailed to: contact@Flyability.org.uk )

Where time is of the essence, you can go ahead with a flight immediately and apply for a funding authorisation number after the flight. If you do this Flyability can not guarantee to fund the flight (but we’ll do our best).

Eligibility criteria

The basic criteria for qualifying for a Flyability tandem flight is that you must be in receipt of either Disability Living Allowance/Personal Independence Payment. We’re aware that DWP have tightened the criteria for DLA/PIP and while we use this as one way of providing evidence that you are disabled we’re more than happy to consider other evidence (e.g. a letter from a doctor/social worker/support worker/teacher).

Flyability Pilot Scholarships & Flyability Sponsored Tandem Flights are open to UK residents only. If you are providing evidence other than DLA/PIP entitlement (which is only awarded to UK residents) then please also provide some proof of UK residency.