begining my career as a pilot...seeking advice

jazmillions

jazmillions

New Member
I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions? I feel like the people who work at my school, like the Director of admissions and the head guys are just sales men trying to sell their school and they're not really answering any of my questions honestly.
I am having a hard time deciding if its better to go for helicopters or planes. Obviously its cheaper to learn planes, but the Dean said sometimes it can be harder to get a job as a fixed wing pilot. But its easy to get a job as a helicopter pilot cause they need so many of them. But it seems more practical to just be a fixed wing pilot. Like what makes a career in helicopters better? Are there even any reasons? And also my teacher says everyone starts out as a CFI. Is that true? What if I don't want to be a CFI, cant I just get a job instead? A friend of mine who is a fixed wing pilot says you can get some jobs with as little as 250 hours.
And do I have to do all my hours at that school or can I do them at airport or if I know people who are already pilots who could teach me in their planes? If you don't know the answers do you have any idea where I could find out? Or anyone else I could talk to? Cause I really don't know who to ask., and I am scheduled to start in May.
Thanks, any information you can give me will help.
Jasmine
 
This should answer many of your questions, and probably raise others:

Flight schools are in business to make money. So they tend to be influenced by that. And yes, this does make them "salesmen" per say. So be careful of what any school tells you since many may mislead you (not all, but I will say most will to some extent or another). Even at colleges, admissions people mislead too. After all, their goal is simple. Increase enrollment. Now, they may still have your best interest at heart, but at the end of the day increased enrollment and the school itself pays their paycheck each month. So keep that in mind. Listen with open ears, but do your own research.

I suggest doing a lot of your own research by talking with current professional pilots working at Regional Airlines, Air Charter Jobs, Flight Instructor jobs, etc. Seek out those who recently got into their jobs within the last 12 months. After all, those younger pilots know first hand what jobs are out there today and what opportunities they had to decide from recently. The older pilots, are great for mentoring and long term career guidance. But to get started, talk to the younger ones for what they seen in today's market. It'll be most relevant info, although the market does change at a moments notice in aviation.

I know for a fact it is easier to get fixed wing jobs versus helicopter jobs right out of flight school. After all, my prior life was as an aviation recruiter across all industries in aviation and I worked with several hundred different companies as their recruiter locating qualified applicants since they were tired of being bombarded with people who did not meet the hiring specs. So I know first hand what it takes as of today to be an entry level oil rig helicopter pilot, medevac helicopter, charter pilot, business jet pilot, regional airline pilot, etc.

On the helicopter side. I seen this. If you were a military helicopter pilot, you can walk into many helicopter flying jobs in medical, oil industries, construction, and news/ law enforcement industries right upon getting your FAA license. The all civilian trained helicopter pilot is never as competitive early in their career as the military helicopter pilot. Simply, the civilian helicopter pilot does not have the flight hours, nor the quality/ type of flying experience the hiring company is seeking (instrument time being the big factor many times along with those flight hours). So the civilian helicopter pilot 99% of the time must be a flight instructor since the helicopter minimums for any flying job I come across historically tend to be pretty high times with very specific experience requirements. So while the x-military helicopter pilot will usually have the flight times and experience requirements met once they get their FAA rating and add in their military light time, the new civilian helicopter pilot will not. So the civilian trained helicopter pilot just does not have that level of experience to qualify for the most entry level of entry level helicopter jobs, hence why they must always instruct to build times.

On the fixed wing side, you can now go to some regional just about right out of school without having any instructor time (at the present time). You can also do things like pull banners in Myrtle Beach in the summer or do mapping/ survey flights to build time (options helicopter pilots don't have). Heck, even up in your part of the country (looks like Maine or something I guess), you can do fish spotting jobs.

That said, here is the most important part of the helicopter vs. fixed wing choice. Which will you enjoy more?

Research the types of flying and types of jobs out there as a whole for each kind of pilot. The missions and type of flying is very different for each type of pilot. I'd advise then to just pick the one you will enjoy more as a long term career.

I was faced with the same choice. Personally, I would rather fly a helicopter since to me those are a lot more fun (plus I really enjoy the low and slow type of flying... slow being relative since many modern helicopters will run circles around many, if not most, other aircraft designed to fly below 18,000 feet). But, in the end I personally decided to go fixed wing for career purposes. Why? As far as a career goes, there are worlds more choices for a fixed wing pilot and I found most of the career choices for the helicopter pilot to be not as interesting to me. I have no interest in medic type flying or oil rig flying or using my flying machine as a crane. So my choice would have been quite limited since my long term goal is to ultimately fly around VIPs in the corporate sector. And most corporate fight departments have turbine powered fixed wing flight departments, not helicopters. So my choice was clear at that point. I am now a new fixed wing commercial pilot getting close to making the next decision in my career path (instruct, apply to lower time regional, tow banners, sky dive drop pilot, etc. to build some more time).

Like I mentioned. There are jobs in both sectors at this time. So I would say, pick the one you will enjoy most for a long term career. Both choices have sacrifices in pay, quality of life, and other areas when you first get started. So focus on the long term. What will you enjoy more?

And like I mentioned above. You can see your teacher is only half right. If you are a civilian going in as a helicopter pilot, yes you will start as a CFI since I never known a helicopter pilot to come out of school and find a job right away until they had substantial hours (unless they were prior military helicopter pilot). But, if you go fixed wing, there is no reason to ever be a CFI if you do not want to be one. You can tow banners, be a skydive drop pilot, fly oil line patrol, fly ground survey flights, be a fish spotter, or even apply to a regional right out of flight school since regional hiring times are very low at the present time in a lot of cases. So your friend is right. There are many more options as a fixed wing pilot from career start stand point. But again, I would focus more on what you'll enjoy long term.

And finally. Where and how you get your hours does not matter. You can do it at your school. You can do it at any FBO/ airport. Any friend you know who is a CFI can teach you. And you can even log the time in many cases even when you fly with a friend if you are PIC on that flight, safety pilot on that flight, etc. So there are many ways to get to your goal.

Most important though, is my repetitive little theme here. Pick the type of flying (fixed wing or helicopter) you believe that you will enjoy most for a long term career. That is really the question to think about as the answer to that will have the longest term affect on your personal career satisfaction and as a professional pilot.

If you have any other questions, feel free to send me a Private Message/ PM or continue along in this thread.
 
Using the "search" feature can answer many of your questions and TexasFlyer summed it up pretty well.

My answer is that first you need to decide if you want to fly helicopters or fixed wing aircraft. You have to decide what type of flying is most appealing to you, not only in the near term but also as a long term career.

Most helicopter pilots I know received their initial training through and was paid for by Uncle Sam via the military. This is still the cheapest, yet, highest quality of training one can receive while flying expensive top of the line turbine equipment...and getting paid while doing it! The key here is "quality training" and "turbine" equipment. The truth of the matter is that the civilian road to flying helicopters is prohibitively expensive and you won't be very employable after receiving all your ratings because you'll have such low total time no employer will touch you because of insurance requirements.

Most military helicopter pilots come out with a couple thousand hours of good multi-engine turbine time and no debt. Insurance companies like that and so do employers. You'd finish your civilian training with maybe a couple hundred hours in small piston powered "puddle jumper" helicopters that are marginally equipped not to mention the out of pocket expense. Then comes the olé catch 22. Nobody will hire you without more time and you won't be able to get the time without someone hiring you. Who would you hire if you were an employer? Helicopter jobs are fewer and farther between than fixed wing and the best helicopter jobs don't pay anywhere close to what the best fixed wing jobs pay. Maybe not a big deal when you're 22 but when you're 52 it is.

If you want to fly helicopters, and personally..I think it would be a blast especially if it were helping others like medi-vac, I would highly recommend you march down to the local Army, Navy or Coast Guard recruiter and inquire about being a helicopter pilot.

Now, if your dreams are to fly fixed wing your choices are more numerous. Obviously, you always have Uncle Sam if you meet the qualifications. Barring that, you have numerous colleges with flight school programs (hugely expensive but a more structured syllabus). You can go down to the local airport's FBO and sign up for lesson and plot away at your own pace until achieving all your ratings (I'm a product of this method and haven't done to bad;) ). The other method is to sign up for one of those fast track flight schools where they take you from 0 time to CRJ f/o candidate in 6 months or so. Crazy, yea...but that's just the current sign of the times. Commercial flying can be anything from CFI, crop dusting to B747 Capt and the wages vary anywhere from near poverty to several hundred thousand/yr.

The thing to remember is that what ever you decide to do in aviation you won't start at the top tier position, it'll probable cost a lot up front, there will be much frustration along the way and the good part is that there are no guarantees when it's all said and done.:sarcasm:

You'll find a lot of info on the board if you spend a little time and effort to search it out. Good Luck!:)
 
In a corporate job I interned with in Houston, we had helicopter pilots. All of them were prior military and when people asked them about learning to fly, all said don't pay for it yourself.

It's way too expensive and a major problem is insurance. The insurance required our pilots to have 2000 hours of turbine PIC for the type of flying they did. It will be incredibly hard to get that kind of experience in the civilian world.

Like A300Capt said, you have to examine what you want to do. If you could do either, I'd go fixed wing. Much more variety in my opinion and the pay is better.

Good luck and welcome to JC
 
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