Kind of missed all the discussion for the last few days being away. But as Chariman has had a go at what people are doing for training these days am I interested to hear how he did everything and am sure his experiences and knowledge would be great to share with the pprune community, especially for new students. As other people pointed out alright you kninda missed the point of this post, and would be interested to hear how you and SASloss would recommend getting their training if they shouldnt pay for it - "tossing your hard earned pounds away"
Rotorboy, HAI is still relatively cheaper for training than a lot of other schools in the US, and as we all know as the dollar is so !!!! right now make is a hell of a lot cheaper for foreign people. Personally I believe that getting your Private in the 300 is the best way to start, from there you can do your instrument and commercial in the R22. Finishing at 150 hours wil kinda get you nowhere these days. Even at 200, getting a Robinson instructing job is becoming harder and harder thanks to insurance these days. Something you failed to mention, that if you look at a lot of instructing jobs advertised with R22's the min time is 300 hours. At least if you finish with 100 horus 300C and 100 R22 with your SFAR then you have a chance at both aircraft and all the schools, not limiting yourself in any way. And personally I have not met too many people when being interviewed that asked me did you wash helicopters before your flight training to help them decide to hire you.
I have met people from schools all over the US and they all have their fair share of dropouts and people who dont succeed in a helicopter career after training. A bit random to be saying that it only happens at HAI. Naturally there might be more from HAI, but lets look at figures, they have the biggest flight school in the world. So of course you can say more people drop out from there or dont make a career out of it, if you have over 100 students and 10% dropout then thats 10 students. Whereas a school with 50 students and the same 10% dropout then thats only 5. Pretty simple. And also as we all know HAI is primarily a school with foreign students, again a major reason why people will not get a career out if it, as its harder to get a job when returing to Europe. Using visas to their best is not about beating the system, its about getting the most you can from it and people offering you their experiences and knowledge.
Someone is always going to make money in these schools. Thats why they are a business and thats what business' do. Make money! So its not about people strealing your money or you giving it away, its about the best way you spend it for yourself. And when new students ask questions about where to go and how to do things, they are trying to find out the best way to spend their money.
On a side note Chariman, generalising with statements like "your pommie brethen" and "you English" aint really appreciated. If you are from Australia you would be more of a pmmie than I would be. This is an international forum. Try to keep that in mind!!