I realise England's amazing taxes account for a lot and that airfields charge incredible fees for landing. I think I read somewhere it costs about £20 to land an R22 at Biggin Hill.
I don't agree instructors' pay is insignificant, but I dont see why helo FI's should charge any more than fixed-wing FI's. As a FI, you may not think £20 less sounds a lot but if I was a student, the difference between paying £230 and £250 an hour plus tax would seem like a lot to me. And yes, I think £20,000-25,000 a year is a lot. What do school teachers get paid in England?
Jealousy? No.
I haven't done any PPL instructing for more than 20 years but I know students here only pay about $15-20 over the rental rate for instruction and it was less than that 20 years ago. The UK used to have a good system of PPL-FI's. Shame they stopped that.
I don't buy this living wage stuff. If you carry that through, if a FI has only got two students doing an hour a week does he charge them each £250
pr/hr so he gets a living wage at the end of the month/year? When I was a freelance/contract pilot I had some lean times but that's the deal if you get paid by the hour. If I'd put my hourly rate up I would have gotten even less work.