Originally Posted by
Robbiee
Going from $500 in 2005 to $750 in 2020 (15 years) is inflation. Going from $750 in 2020 to $1,500 in 2022 (2 years) is corporate greed,...not to mention another $300 in just another 3 years!
I was a renter for 16.5 years and $1800 was about have my yearly rental budget. Maybe you're rich enough that $1800 means nothing, but a lot of us Robby drivers aren't.
,...and I seriously doubt any pilot pays $17k out of pocket for that Bell school. Its an apples to oranges comparison to a course that was designed for pilots at the "burger flipper wages" end of the industry.
Plus, when the course is an insurance requirement just to get that burger flipper wage job, the employer is definitely not paying for it. You're as out of touch as the new guy who now runs Robinson.
You are entitled to your opinion, but having spent a lot of my career in the training industry and being intimately familiar with the 505 training program I can say that you are not correct about the cost and funding for training.
For what it is worth, I am the one you can thank for holding R22 spare part prices flat for almost my entire time at the company. I also made sure that when we doubled the life of the R66 parts last year we passed most of the financial benefit to the customer even though some of the new revisions cost more to make.
We have tried to be sensitive to the running costs of our aircraft which is the dominant driver of affordability. If biannual (or every 5 years!) training cost is dominating your flight expenses, you are not flying enough.
PS: take a look at our new R66 Transition course that directly compares to the $17k 505 course… we offer more flight time, more ground school and we do it in California! $7k! Best deal in town after the safety course 😉
https://www.robinsonheli.com/training/r66-transition-course