I am not a helicopter pilot.

[CYHeli]

Whirlygig: "In the end, I think it's down to the individual and what they make of their training."
You are right Whirlygig, it does come down to the individual. Who is motivated, attentive during lessons, mechanically aware (it makes understanding emergencies easier), good situational awareness and understanding of the needs and objectives of the pax/mission. Mainly it is who can 'feel' the helicopter and what is doing, so that they can fly it.

I have spent time in the military (ex infantry and commando), the police force and I am a civvy trained pilot. My thoughts. The major difference is money!

The military want the best bang for their buck. They are paying for flight training and can afford to pick and choose who they train. The civvy has to finance his/her own training. The readily available funds means that the military pilot will fly more often than the civvy, who may only fly once a fortnight, or once a month depending on your 'readies'.

I think the military get it too easy, flying wise. The civvys are the ones who become hangar rats – washing helicopters, sweeping floors, loading, refuelling, assisting maintenance personnel, driving to various airports and operators to chase work. The military even get a travel allowance to move from base to base. Oh, and civvys flying for free. Sometimes even paying the operator to let them fly on a commercial op. The level of prostitution in general aviation is unreal. I have even seen a student build a cubby house for the boss's kids to impress him and offset his training costs.

The military don't have to go through all of that to realise their dream.
(The military get it tough, just talk to any infantry soldier or sailor to hear about the grass roots action, but we are talking about pilots here, not 'grunts'.)

The military pilots should make the best of their opportunity (or get sacked) and get all the training that they can, and at 100 - 300 hours in general, they simply are a better pilot! They have flown regularly with top notch instructors that are not just hour building, but give a true damn about their students. But after 300 - 500 hours, you are spending less time with an instructor and more time on your own making decisions and really learning what it means to be PIC! At 2000 hours, the only difference would be if it took the pilot 5 years or 20 years to get there.

The military also spend more time doing revision or recurrence training. This, again, is too expensive for the civvy operator.

This shows, that with the proper training, anyone can learn to fly in, or endorsed on, a turbine machine. The only thing that slows down the civvys is money. It's expensive for a student, or an operator to train (and insure) a turbine helicopter.

More money means more flying and only time at the controls will improve a pilot.

Col.