Thread: Wanted: Pilots

Somewhere in these forums Yvain summed up the difference between airplanes and helicopters - airplanes fly, but you you have make helicopters fly.

Wurzzzz,
First congrats on your accomplishments as a pilot. Outstanding work. Second, I am not a pilot, but I am a crew member on a Medivac Helicopter in Greenville, SC. I'm not sure where to point you so far as a career as a commercial pilot, but I can tell you that every branch of the military is going to require you to be an officer to fly. There are Warrant Officer programs out there, but those too often require a college education.

So far as a job as a helo pilot I have just a few things.
One: Getting you private and commercial helicopter ticket is EXPENSIVE!!! It would be a little less so for you as you already have your PPL and Instrument rating which puts you in place to do the transition to rotors without having to both learn how to fly the helicopter AND learn all the FARS as well as the other aviation stuff. That’s all fine and well, but piston helos (namely the R-22 and Hughes 300 Schweizer) are going to run you about the same as a Cessna 182 for time, which if I'm not mistaken is about $250 to $300 an hour. The least expensive turbine is the Bell 206 which is about $500 an hour at most places I've checked. All of the pilots I work with advise doing the transition, but also say that it is damn near impossible to get your commercial without help; military or otherwise.

Two: As Civilwars said, helo pilots are in high demand right now as the Vietnam era pilots are retiring out. Downside is most commercial agencies are going to want you to have several hundred hours in type and class. For example the company I work for requires a minimum of 2000 hours in type and class with considerable experience with unimproved landing areas and at least 200 hours of unaided night flying (ie. No NVGs). Most pilots coming out of the military don't have the 200 hours unaided night flying because they do everything with NVGs.

Hope this helps.Good luck and fly safe. -Yvain