Folks,
Just another insight....
At CHC in Ireland there are 11 ex HAI grads. Around Europe there are many more at both the big and smaller operators. I think something like 1 in 3 pilots at Norsk are ex HAI. Go to sim training in Stavanger and if you look around the hotel dining room at breakfast you are nearly always gonna run into an old student or someone you knew from the states. And no I'm not making that up.
Its true that not everyone makes a career out of it, but its still true that for those that really stick at it that they more often than not come thru in the end. The best advice I ever got was from my flight examiner was to keep making all the sacrifices till I had every rating I wanted... ie FAA ATP, JAA ATP AND any of the types I needed. I got some good breaks but lots who didnt have done well too.
The industry has followed the same cycles since the sixties...it has changed very little. On a brighter note for us Europeans is that some of the military parapublic work has gone civil..eg all the Irish Coastguard contracts, the HM Coastguard contracts. This is likely to continue accross Europe. Thanks to the boom of the late nineties here in Ireland the number of corporate/private machines is now well over 100.
HAI never promises anything more than good training. Its a big school and like all big companies it has its issues. The good news is that many of those same issues remain throughout your career. Go to a big company and see how you get jerked around trying to get online due to availablity of instructors, aircraft etc. I know its not exactly the same situation but the reasons are. I worked at a small school... one that promised the world and believe me the issues were still the same... but the bu****** was often ten times worse.
If you read thru the HAI website, the info. on careers and pay is very accurate. The system of low time instructors is debated all the time but it works and always has. Many of the ex mil pilots are instructed by low timers too but because its on 206's or 500's we all seem to think its much better.
And as far as the BS form old timers... get used to it. You'll be hearing war stories from tossers when you hit the 20'00 hr mark..or so I'm told.