I believe in the UK you need a certain amount of GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondrate Education <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> ) before you can take the exams. The CAA can tell you the grades required.
These days, the job needs more specialisation, mainly because insurance companies and customers tend to specify pilot requirements, so you have to decide early on in which direction you want to go, as it is fairly difficult to move from one to the other - not impossible, but you will have another pile of certificates and hours to get before you become employable in the other field. This relates to the choice between IFR and VFR, and the fun things like longlining.
If it helps, here is an extract from a book what I wrote:
Getting started is the most difficult bit – the cost of helicopter time is so great that it’s almost impossible to do without help, maybe from parents, or being trained in the Forces. Having said that, there are plenty of people who have done it, so it isn’t impossible, but these will tend be found in Canada or the USA, where it’s considerably cheaper. In Europe, where it’s over twice as expensive and you need more hours to get your licence, anyone who can afford their own training would, in terms of pure financial reward, have to think twice before working as a pilot, because that sort of money can be considerably more productive elsewhere. At least you can then fly when you want to.
Mind you, it’s ultimately not that different in North America. Even though you only need 100 (Canada) or 150 (USA) hours to get your ticket, you are still usually unemployable, unless your family owns the company (and even then the insurance companies or customers would have something to say), so you either have to do a couple of years as a hangar rat, that is, washing windscreens until your company sees what you’re like and trains you up, or buy the hours yourself. To be even remotely interesting to an employer (or, more correctly, a customer), you need at least 500 hours, sometimes 1000 or 1500, or some sort of specialised training, such as a mountain course (preferably both) and maybe an instrument rating, depending on the job.. .Typically, in a large company, there will be an internal course for ground staff with commercial licences, and who have been observed for a couple of seasons for suitability. It will be run by senior pilots who are also instructors, and is a good thing to get on, as it will markedly improve your prospects over other pilots with the same hours as you, assuming that other companies recognise the standards. In fact, your training background is so important that you should pick your school carefully if you can’t get on such a course. Make sure whoever teaches you has actually been out and done the job themselves, and have maybe run their own companies. Unfortunately, it is possible for people to become instructors at 200 hours and stay there. Granted, if this wasn’t possible, the industry wouldn’t have nearly as many pilots as it needs, but there are many who would prefer that instructors have a minimum of 1500 hours before they start, because trouble is best avoided by not getting into it in the first place, and you only know how to do that with experience. You can’t teach what you don’t know.
Many schools indicate they might hire you once you complete your training, but don’t include that as a factor in your choice, as it’s generally only those that are part of a larger commercial organisation that can afford to do it, and the competition is keen. The employment situation can change from day to day, and it can be impossible to keep up with. Just regard it as a bonus.
When you budget for your training, don’t just count in the cost of your course, but the time afterwards going around companies to get hired; just sending resumes is no good at all (this could take up to four years). Note also that you may well need more hours than you think– certainly, as far as the PPL is concerned, the average time taken to pass is 67.7 hours, against a minimum requirement of about 40.
The machine you train on often counts, too – it took a long time for the Robinson R22 to get accepted over a Bell 47, and then only because the spares ran out (the fact that the Robbie only needs a can of oil occasionally probably helped). However, both are underpowered and are good for teaching you power management, if nothing else.
So, now that I’ve painted a really pessimistic picture of your prospects (by request, actually, from people who have been there before you), let’s have a look at what you need to get your licence, then what you might get up to after that, so you know what you’re letting yourself in for.
First of all, though, here’s a quick checklist of all the stages you might go through, with suggestions for getting the best bang for your buck—at this stage, the pile of money in your pocket will buy one of two things; a commercial licence, with minimum hours, or a share in a helicopter in which you can fly all you want, including training, assuming you have the money for fuel.
Before you do anything, get a Class 1 medical, because all the training in the world will useless if you fail it.
Do a trial lesson in a helicopter, to see if you have the aptitude.
Enrol on a fixed wing commercial course. It may sound daft, but there are sound reasons for it, which the military have known about for years. One is that the written examinations are almost the same, except for principles of flight, and you will learn about 80% of your future trade at a much reduced cost (navigation, use of radios, etc), assuming the requirement for hours is about the same. There are some who will argue that your money is best spent on helicopter time at this stage, but you won't be remaining a low-time pilot, hopefully, to whom that advice is best applied. It's also another string to your bow, and you can do it on a single. If you intend an IFR career, then do the Instrument Rating as well. In building up your hours, you could always include potential employers on the trips and do some job hunting first!
Convert the fixed wing commercial to a helicopter one, with an add-on qualification. You now have more total hours for the same money, and maybe some change for a turbine rating.
Otherwise, there are distinct stages in the average pilot's career. First, you fly single-engined piston machines, then turbine ones, then multis, then you might go IFR (in fixed wing, you go multi, IFR, then turbine). Along the way, you pick up specialist stuff like longlining, and by the time you retire you finally have enough qualifications to get a job
I hope I haven't been overly cycnical, and I would never try to stop anyone doing what they really want to do - I just wish more people would go into it with their eyes open. The advice given by Hughes500 is sound - you could join the miltary, but don't expect to do a lot of hours, as they tend to expect you to be better at driving a desk and killing people than actually flying. Having said that, that's the way i did it and I had a good time, managing to avoid a war (occupational hazard). You will learn a lot about flying, but the civvie world is completely different, and many operators in Western Canada don't like military pilots anyway, so it cuts no ice.
regards
Phil
PS I like your signoff line
[ 05 February 2002: Message edited by: paco ]
[ 05 February 2002: Message edited by: paco ]</p>