Wishlist Flight School...

[randalrowles]

Happy Holidays to all! I would like to inquire to those on this Forum the following:

Please give a description of what you would consider as the perfect helicopter training facility. Please list any and all elements no matter how large or small.

Take care,

Randy Rowles

[Heliport]

Welcome to Rotorheads, Randy.

I hope you'll post your CV/resume in our 'Who's Who' thread but, in the meantime ............

Randy is an FAA ATP/CFII/Examiner, owner/CFI of a well-known helicopter flight school in Florida and flies EMS in a Sikorsky S76C+.
He's held a wide variety of positions during his 20 year career, including S76 CFI at Flight Safety Int but is widely known for his biggest passion - flight training.

[Watchoutbelow]

In my humble opinion



Wishlist for a good flight school.

Not necessarly in this order.

1: A school that does not try to squeeze every penny from the customer, discounts to good customers, if I was to spend the type of money spent on flight training any where else, I would be treated like a king and deservedly so!

2: Good ground facilities to study and reference materials to learn from and a couple of Computers for practicing FAA knowledge tests.

3: A couple of old hands who know there stuff through experience and not just from books

4: CFI's without ego's and opinions of themselves and not necessaraly there just to build hours.

5: Florida can be good becasue of the weather but the flat featureless terrain doesn't make it a particuarly nice place to fly around, somewhere with a bit of scenery would be ideal and a bit of Altitude makes a big big difference.

6: When your training is finished, a bit more then a pat on the back and a "Good luck with the job hunting, I hear its tuff out there at the moment, but hopefully it will pick up soon"
a few good leads or a word thrown in here or there to other operators would not go astray, in fact this is very high up on the list.
And if a school does not do this, it should not advertise that it does.


I could go on at this for quite a while as more spring to mind!!

[RDRickster]

Add to that, manufacturer independance. I'm a little tired of Robinson vs Schweitzer, etc. Each aircraft has its pros and cons for different types of flying. I would like to see a school with ALL of the following:

Brantly B2B, Robinson R22, Schweitzer 300CBi, Enstrom 280FX, Bell 47

For PPL students, they should stick to one aircraft (for obvious reasons). For Commercial Students, this gives them a few hours in other types of helicopters... which I have found to be extremely beneficial.

[Hilico]

One that, when you ask what the hourly rate is says '£260, and £6 for every additional go round the circuit / pattern'. Not one that says '£160!' - and when you get there, you find that a) 'that's the NVQ rate', b) 'Plus VAT', c) 'and of course the instructor's time', d) ' and the groundschool before and after', e) 'plus the movement fee'.

[Watchoutbelow]

What am I thinking,

Good maintenance and availability of aircraft are top of the list

[Whirlygig]

I would also like to add, as someone who has recently qualified as a PPL(H) and who did it full time that I would find some social cohesion between other students useful.

Whilst training, I found hovering v. difficult and navigation relatively straight forward. I was chatting to another student who was exactly in the reverse position and it was helpful to get their point of view as well as that from an instructor who learned to fly many years ago and probably in a military environment.

I also think it would be helpful to continue this post-qualification since the opportunities for helicopter pilots to meet are not that common.

I also benefited from the opportunity to see all aspects of the operation including police, air ambulance, film work and engineering.

Cheers

Whirlygig

[chuteless]

honesty!!!
if you fly this aircraft (r22,Bentley2b2,sweizer,bell206,bell47,augusta 109,s-76,jumbo 747) back to our base from maintenence you will really benefit from the experience and for the one off price of normal rates plus safety pilot which just happenes to be the same rate as an instructor

****** me what a deal if only i could do all my flying at this rate

a maintenence company at my school would be ideal
or a mad idea only maintenence companies can run flying schools
no more cowboys only politically correct indians

[Cron]

Bit of a sideways slant:

I am recent PPL(H) but I actually started the course 6 years ago - at that time PPl(H) + Ins was still available as a route to paid flying.

I'd have liked my school to have envisoned possible futures for me (I guess we all have a sneaking CPL wannabee mode) and demonstrated costs and routes onwards and upwards from PPL with perhaps a tie in to places like BGS to get a discount on a couple of their CPL manuals to engage me further.

I would have liked some theory homework even on PPL - but I guess that is an individual taste thing.

Basically I'd have liked them to try and ring me dry of money and in return progressed me 'by force' until I yelped 'no more'. Maybe my School (which I found excellent in all other respects) were a little laid back and other schools do the above anyway.
R

[moosp]

From the "Training" chapter of the "CAA Helicopter Tail Rotor Failures" I found this paragraph which reminds me of the best schools I have visited.

"In the civil world there is very little opportunity for the transfer of experience across the generations of aircrew, in contrast to the military environment which involves crew room discussions, pilot's notes quizzes and general scope for the exchange of anecdotes. Civil pilots tend to come to work, fly and go home. The military also foster interest in the technical aspects of aircraft emergencies through articles in flight safety magazines such as Cockpit and Air Clues. There is not the same incentive in the civil environment to produce such an article (commercial confidentiality, liability and other questions arise) and not the same forum in which to discuss ideas."

I have sat around in a "crew" room at a very good flight school where just this sort of discussion took place. It was fostered by having a very open door where every man and his dog from the rest of the airfield would wander in for free coffee and shoot the sh!t. Students learned more from there than the briefing rooms.

So spend a little on the social areas and encourage pilots to hang around. Free beer on Friday nights works too.

[Aesir]

I recommend training at a school that also is a full time operator!

That is a company that also does Aerial work, news, seismic, filming, sling, charter, EMS etc...

Companies like that often have training as a sideline operation and sometimes the flight school side of the operation is not the highest priority for the company but the benefits for the student are many. He´ll get first hand experience of what happens in the "REAL" world, hell get to go along as "hooker" on sling jobs and the list goes on. Sure it may take more time to train at such a school and lessons may be cancelled because the instructor is busy but the benefits for the future is immense.

Please note that I am NOT saying that flight training flights are not REAL flying its just not what most of us will be doing, of course it is a great benefit if the instructors are experienced in operational flying even if the school is just a straight flight school only and nothing else.

Experience is gained and not tought but you might as well start to pick up on all the experience´s of others from the start.