Vliegschool Hilversum Runs a Professional DTO on Aviatize
Scheduling and training as the beating heart, ground training and progress exams inside the platform, and a deep API mesh linking Mailchimp, Moodle, WordPress, and Drillster so all data stays automatically synchronized.
Vliegschool Hilversum is one of the most professionally run Declared Training Organisations in the Netherlands, based at Hilversum Airport (EHHV) just outside Amsterdam. The school trains private pilots through PPL(A) and LAPL(A) courses, runs a substantial aircraft-rental operation alongside the school, and has built a reputation for the kind of structured, transparent training that turns a hobby into a competence.
Where many DTOs run lean, Vliegschool Hilversum runs at scale. Ten aircraft on the ramp. Seventeen instructors. Roughly one hundred active students at any moment. Three hundred renters with current currency. Running an operation of that shape on disconnected tools is how DTOs quietly burn out their staff — and is exactly what Aviatize was selected to prevent.
The Challenge: A Professional DTO Needs a Professional Spine
A school that simultaneously trains 100 students, dispatches 17 instructors, manages 10 aircraft, and runs an active 300-renter rental pool is not a side project. Scheduling has to be live and correct across all four constituencies at once. Training records have to follow every student across every lesson with the right competencies, hours, and signatures. Documents have to be valid — for every renter as much as for every student. And the whole thing has to talk to the marketing, sales, and learning platforms the school already runs.
Vliegschool Hilversum’s legacy stack got the school as far as it could, but the gaps were the usual ones: scheduling lived in one system, training records in another, the rental pool in something close to a spreadsheet, and the marketing and e-learning platforms in their own corners. Every gap was an admin task on someone’s desk.
“Aviatize is the beating heart of our operations with its planning and training modules.”
Scheduling and Training: The Beating Heart of Operations
Today, Aviatize Scheduling and Training sit at the centre of everything Vliegschool Hilversum does. The dispatch board shows live aircraft availability across the fleet, instructor availability and currency against each student’s syllabus, and renter bookings against the same aircraft pool the school teaches on. Conflict detection catches the usual training-school traps before they become a problem.
“Aviatize is the beating heart of our operations with its planning and training modules,” says Frank Morelisse, Director of Vliegschool Hilversum. “As a professional DTO with 10 aircraft, 17 instructors, an average of 100 students, and 300 active renters, Aviatize has become indispensable in our daily operations.”
Training tracking carries every student through PPL(A), LAPL(A), and the school’s additional ratings — with hours allocated to the correct EASA logbook lines automatically, grades tied to the right competencies, and progression visible to the student, the instructor, and the Head of Training in real time.
Ground Training, Progress Tests, and Exams Inside the System
Beyond the cockpit, Vliegschool Hilversum runs ground training, progress tests, and exams natively inside Aviatize through the Ground Training and Checking module. Theoretical-knowledge sittings, phase tests, and end-of-stage proficiency exams are configured per syllabus, delivered to the student, scored, and recorded against the training file in one motion.
Instructors and the Head of Training can see, at a glance, whether a student is genuinely ready to move to the next stage — not just whether the hour count says they should be. Question banks, pass thresholds, and result retention follow the syllabus design, so progression decisions sit on real evidence rather than memory.
For a DTO with a hundred concurrent students, that single capability turns a recurring bottleneck — “who is ready for the next phase?” — into a saved view inside the platform.
The API: Mailchimp, Moodle, WordPress, and Drillster, All in Sync
Where Vliegschool Hilversum’s use of Aviatize goes further than most is the API. “Through APIs we can fully customize the platform with integrations to Mailchimp, Moodle, WordPress, and Drillster,” says Frank Morelisse. “All data is automatically synchronized, enabling custom reports and daily student progress monitoring.”
The shape of the ecosystem is deliberate. **WordPress** powers the school’s public website, where prospects land, read about courses, and start applications. **Mailchimp** carries the marketing relationship — newsletters, course launches, currency reminders, retention campaigns — addressed to a contact list that mirrors the real student and renter population in Aviatize. **Moodle** carries the theoretical-knowledge learning content, so students self-study at their own pace before the in-house ground training sittings. **Drillster** runs the adaptive competency drilling and knowledge-retention practice that keeps PPL theory sharp across the long tail of the training timeline.
All four sit on top of Aviatize’s REST API. When a student is enrolled, the platforms know. When a student passes a phase exam, the platforms know. When a renter falls out of currency, the platforms know. Vliegschool Hilversum’s team never copy-pastes a record between systems — the API does the work.
“This was the deciding factor in choosing Aviatize,” says Frank Morelisse, “and it has been fully delivered on.”
One Platform for Students, Instructors, Renters, and Maintenance
Aviatize’s value at Vliegschool Hilversum isn’t one constituency — it is four, on the same spine. Students see their syllabus, their next lesson, and their progress. Instructors see their day, the lesson plan, and the grading flow. Renters see the rental fleet timeline and book their own slots without phoning the school. Maintenance sees aircraft technical status, work orders, and currency.
“The program works intuitively for all users and we notice continuous improvements based on our feedback,” says Frank Morelisse. The Aviatize mobile app puts the same picture in the pocket of every student, instructor, and renter, so the dispatch desk stops being the bottleneck for every routine question.
Document validation is the quiet enforcer underneath all of it. Before any student is scheduled onto a flight that requires a current medical, an active English LP endorsement, or a particular theoretical-knowledge milestone, Aviatize checks the supporting document is present and unexpired — and blocks the slot if it isn’t. Renters get the same treatment. The DTO’s compliance posture holds without anyone manually chasing it.
Time Back to Fly
“The time we save can truly be put to good use doing what we love most: flying!” says Frank Morelisse. It is the same conclusion every operator that runs a real number of students through a connected platform eventually reaches — the platform isn’t the point, the time it gives back is.
For Vliegschool Hilversum, that time is funded by every part of the operating spine: scheduling that doesn’t need to be redone, training records that don’t need to be re-typed, ground training and exams that live where the rest of the training file lives, and an API mesh that keeps Mailchimp, Moodle, WordPress, and Drillster aligned with reality without anyone’s evening.
It is the same pattern other European training organizations on Aviatize have reported, from Wings over Holland at Lelystad to LOT Flight Academy in Warsaw and Vliegclub Seppe at Breda — replace the patchwork, keep the rigour, give the team time back to teach and to fly.
One Spine for a Multi-Stakeholder DTO
Scheduling, training, ground exams, documents, and rental management all on the same data backbone — for students, instructors, renters, and maintenance simultaneously.
Ground Training and Exams in the Platform
Theoretical-knowledge sittings, phase tests, and stage proficiency exams delivered, scored, and recorded against the right syllabus inside Aviatize.
Ecosystem Sync Through the API
Mailchimp, Moodle, WordPress, and Drillster all wired into Aviatize via the REST API — all data automatically synchronized, no manual data entry between platforms.
Custom Reports + Daily Progress Monitoring
Bespoke reporting built on the synchronized data, with daily student progress monitoring instead of weekly catch-up meetings.
Continuous Improvement Loop
Direct feedback from Vliegschool Hilversum's team turns into ongoing platform improvements — the deciding factor in the original selection, fully delivered on.
What Aviatize Delivers for Vliegschool Hilversum
“The time we save can truly be put to good use doing what we love most: flying!”
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