About Us
Our Story
Located at the Old Nelspruit Airfield, the Lowveld Aero Club offers training leading to Private Pilot License (PPL), Night Rating, Instrument Rating and also hire and fly services for PPL holders who wish to advance their training to Commercial Pilot License level. The flight school also handles renewals for various licenses and ratings. With a vibrant social community of professional and recreational flyers, we provide opportunities for important networking in a shared environment of learning. We are also an accredited SACAA Examinations center – all exams for PPL and Night Rating, for example, can be written from the secure examinations center onsite.
History of the Lowveld Aero Club
Nelspruit (officially renamed Mbombela), is a city in the north eastern part of South Africa. Located on the Crocodile River, Nelspruit lies about 100 km west of the Mozambican border and 330 km east of Johannesburg.
Nelspruit was founded in 1895 by three brothers of the Nel family who grazed their cattle around the grounds of Nelspruit during the winter months. During the Boer War, Nelspruit briefly served as the seat of government for the South African Republic, an independent Boer Republic.
The city has two airports: Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport (KMIA) in the northeast and the general aviation Nelspruit Airport in the southwest. KMIA is used for scheduled flights. The Nelspruit airport is on the Kaapsehoop road and is mainly used by private and/or charter flights. It has its own tower but is controlled from KMI Airport.
Initially, an airstrip near Nelspruit did not exist and then Barlow’s contractors had to fly in for building their Headquarters at Nelspruit in 1949, HL HALL & SONS has a strip on the place Woodhouse for this purpose and this was the beginning of the Airport.
Founded in 1956 under the chairmanship of Bob Snaddon, the Lowveld Aero Club is the oldest Aviation Training Organisation (ATO) in the Lowveld area. The school has trained pilots at all levels from Private Pilot Licence (PPL) to Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) and the associated ratings and courses such as Night Rating, Complex Endorsement, Dangerous Goods, Crew Resource Management (CRM), Safety and Emergency Procedures Training (SEPT), and Restricted Radiotelephony.