teamcoco;690571 wrote:Does anyone here have a helicopter license? I've always been fascinated with heli's and thinking about going to school to get one. What kind of jobs are there?
I am a few flight hours away from my private rotorcraft licence. I will tell you that it is not easy and prepare to spend sixty to seventy thousand to obtain a commercial license with a CFII rating. Flying a rotorcraft is cool and very challenging and it takes alot of practice, you got to have your balls screwed on straight to fly a helo.
You will go through six weeks of ground school (classroom) to teach you everything from aerodynamics, calculating fuel, to emergency maneuvers. I flew for my first time with my instructor about four days after I started helo school and was handed all the controls during that flight flying in a straight and level pattern with no turns or any manuevers. Slowly you progress as your instructor gains confidence in your skills that you will be safe enough for your solo flight which the FAA requires you to do.
The job situation goes in stages to obtain the required hours for certain jobs. You will graduate from the academy and start off as a flight instructor and hopefully you are good enough that your school hires you (a flight instructor is the most dangerous job in aviation BTW). From that point you will gain enough hours to fly workers to the oil rigs in the GOM or you could fly tours again to gain more hours and then after that you will be eligable to gain jobs such as lifeflight. The cream job is corporate which requires lots of hours, a good reputation, and even just knowing someone in the right place to land you that job.
My advice would be that you research this thoroughly and to choose a good school which really catapults your resume. Make sure this is what you want to do and take a discovery flight at a school as it is a shitload money that you would lose if you got far enough into it and then something scares the shit out of you and quit. One other thing that I do recommend is that you choose a school that trains in the Schweizer 300CBI and stay away from schools that train in the Robinson R-22 which is alot harder to learn to fly and way more dangerous, that teetering hinged main rotor is a scary thought if you don't know what your doing. The Schweizer 300CBI utilizes a three blade rotor system that is fully articulated an also it is fuel injected instead of carbeurated.
I know a ton about flying rotorcraft don't hesitate to ask or PM me, I would be more than happy to share my knowledge and experience.
Good luck with your decision.
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