Training PPL & CPL (H) for 7K

[matt22scotland]

I have zero hours on wirly gigs but have alwaysbeen fascinated by them and flying them etc.
Only reason that i never pursued this route is cost.
Now i have come into a bit of money (7K) what realistic training can i get with this cash home or abroad??

[Bronx]

CPL(H)??? :eek:

In England rental costs are so high and even low hours flying instructors charge such astronomic hourly rates you'd be lucky to get even a PPL H with £7K.

[thecontroller]

A PPL(H) in the uk will cost you about £16,000.

A CPL(H) is pretty worthless for job-hunting without an instructor rating. All this will cost you about another £30,000

Yes, it's expensive!

If you just want to fly for pleasure. I'd recommend taking 2 months off and going to the USA and doing your FAA PPL or UK PPL. Training is almost half the price over there. Although you have to pay for flights/hotel etc.

I'd recommend using the search function on this site for further information, there's plenty of threads covering this topic.

[Heli-Ice]

Bronx

I agree about how expensive it is but low hr. guys/gals also have to eat. :hmm:

matt22scotland

Don't spend it all in one place! :}

[EMS R22]

matt , ever thought about coming to N.Z. Great place to train/live and a hell of alot cheaper to train than over your way.

[Whirlygig]

I have zero hours on wirly gigs

A-hem! You called?

May I suggest that you get yourself a trial lesson on fixed wing and helicopter first before you make any decisions to go abroad or spend more. £7k should get you a fixed wing licence PPL in the UK. You need double that for a UK helicopter licence. If you think about going abroad, you need to consider travel and accommodation costs and what you will do with your licence when you return; you may have to undergo some UK conversion which might wipe out all the costs previously saved.

Bronx,

The economic argument of salary disparities between the UK and elsewhere has been discussed ad infinitum and so I won't bore you again with it but your statement is quite erroneous.

Cheers

Whirlygig

[helicopter-redeye]

A PPL(H) in the uk will cost you about £16,000.


I'm struggling with the math on this one. How does it add up to £16K?

[boomerangben]

Turn around and walk away until you have at least the cost of doing 60 hrs ppl training. Harsh I know, but I have seen the pain of only getting half way there and running out of money and having a loan to pay off. It is not worth it. Get the money together first, then it is worth it. Same goes for the career licences (CPL, IR, FI). But be very wary of falling into the trap of getting big loans. There are many out there with big loans and no licence.

[Whirlygig]

It is not unreasonable to budget for 60 hours to get a PPL(H) and, at around £250 per hour (inc VAT and landing fees), that equates to £15k. Add on the exams fees, licence costs, medical, equipment, books and £16k is a good ball park figure on which to work. There is no point in telling people the minimum cost at 45 hours and using the cheapest school around (which could be less than £250) since this would give an unrealistic impression of the costs involved.

If it's any help the total cost of my PPL(H) was around £18k but I did learn on Schweizer (which, then, 2 years ago, was around £280 per hour and includes accommodation and all costs as I did it full-time away from home - but in the UK).

Cheers

Whirlygig

[helicopter-redeye]

Economic observation "more than doubled in 10 years ..."

[Bronx]

Whirlygig's an accountant and I'm only a pilot so I'm not gonna rush into arguing with her. They way I look at it which could be "quite erroneous" is -

Economic principles -
If demand exceeds supply prices go up
If supply exceeds demand prices go down
(and hopefully stimulate demand.

UK helicopter school economic principles -
If demand exceeds supply prices go up
If supply exceeds demand prices don't go down
(and maybe go up.


I can see how if there's not much work about FI's want a high hourly rate to make a living but I cant see how high rates are gonna encourage more people to learn to fly.

So do students in England get charged a lower rate if their FI is busy and getting lots of work?
Are students gonna pay more for FI's who aint getting much work so to keep their monthly income up?


:confused:

[Whirlygig]

Your supply and demand theory is quite correct but what you are not taking into account are the differences in economic and political climates between our two countries namely, taxation and regulation. Both of these are a lot more onerous in the UK than in the US. There are threads passim on what training a UK JAA FI(H) has to do in comparison with those in the US. The taxation on fuel is heavier too! In addition, the cost of living is higher, housing is more expensive, consequently salaries appear to be high.

Also consider that, in general, in the UK an instructor only gets paid for the flying bit; not the ground brief.

Cheers

Whirlygig

[helicopter-redeye]

Appears that the number of hours it takes to get a PPL have increased over the past decade.

So have the quality of the instructors students gone down or is there another factor? (60hrs for a PPL(H) when the hours required are 45 - does that mean the CAA/ JAR have mis-estimated??)

[Whirlygig]

Redeye,

Good point! I don't know what the true averages are wrt hours to get a PPL(H) but the CAA has decreed the same number of hours for fixed wing PPL(A). Perhaps they just decided to plump for the same number.

It could be that most people learn on an R22 and there is much anecdotal evidence to suggest that it takes longer to learn on one of those.

In addition, it takes longer to learn, the older you are and it maybe that the average age of your student PPL(H) is higher than fixed wing; again due to the costs involved.

Cheers

Whirls

[thecontroller]

45 hours is the MINIMUM CAA/JAA requirement. hardly anyone gets an PPL in 45 hours on an r22, unless they are extremely gifted and/or have previous flying experience. the average is 50-70 hrs, particularly if you only fly once/twice a week.

[hemac]

In defence of flight instructors and their wages.
My FI only gets paid for the hours logged on the datcon, but he is always more than happy to spend loads of time on ground school theory, briefing and debriefing flights.
In my opinion after all the hard work and money expended achieving CPL(H) FI then you would at least want to be able to afford to eat.
I know it's hard on us trying to gain those covetted licences but then that's capitalism, something we are all desperate to defend.

H.

[Bronx]

KMS

I read about plumbers hourly rates being outrageous in England but it's what I said about demand and supply. More demand than plumbers so they can charge what they like and the prices stay high. If there were too many plumbers chasing not enough jobs they couldn't charge such high rates.

I just dont buy this idea of it costs £XXk to qualify so FI's are entitled to certain rates. There's no entitled about it. If you qualify to do a job in a market that's already saturated then you're gonna have trouble making a living. Fact. It's all fine and dandy for Brit helo FI's to all charge what they think they 'deserve' but if there's not enough customers about it the theory ain't gonna work.

American FI's get a lot less. Sure if they're in a good weather all year round state their gonna earn more each month because they get more work, but that's not everywhere in America.

If you set yourself up in business as a FI, its gonna take time to build up a customer base just like any other business. Maybe there'll never be enough work around so so just like any other business you're not gonna make the bucks.
There's no right to earn a decent living as an FI, freelance pilot or freelance anything. If you get some lucky breaks you do, and if you don't you don't. That's life and you gotta accept that if you decide to go into something where there's already not enough work for the people already doing it. If you're good and you get lucky you can overtake the guys already doing it but thats the chance you take.
Brit FIs think they should earn a decent living from when they qualify. Why? In a perfect world they would but the world ain't perfect and sometimes it's tough starting out.

If you make a name for yourself and there's a demand from folk to fly with you then you can put your charges up.
Example. If Nick Lappos set himself up doing advanced training and charged 500 bucks an hour or more I reckon he'd get it. Demand and supply again. There ain't too many Nick Lapposes around.

[Whirlygig]

Bronx,

I really would be interested to know if you are comparing like with like here.

As far as I am aware, a typical UK freelance FI would charge £40 per hour per flying hour (again not paid for the ground brief). If my assumptions here are invalid, please let me know.

Let's say, on average, he has two lessons a day, five days a week. Each lesson takes 2 hours; 1 hour for flying and 1 for brief/de-brief. At £40 per hour. this is £400 per week which equates to an annual salary of £20,000. This also allows the poor chap to have a couple of weeks leave (unpaid).

The average price for a two-bedroomed, terraced house in the UK is around £140,000. This instructor would have to have a mortgage of SIX times his salary. That is not really liveable on! (Sorry, bad grammar). The typical rent for such a place would be £650 per month including Council Tax.

A pint of beer is around £2.50 and a litre of petrol is (round the corner here) £ 0.91. A packet of fags is pushing £5.00 for 20.

Basic tax rate is 22% after a tax free allowance of around £5,000 per annum plus National Insurance of 11%. Therefore, this chap's take home pay (if he were an employee) would be £280 per week. I do realise that if he is self-employed, he gets extra tax reliefs.

So what are the equivalent figures in the US?

You CANNOT just simply say "supply and demand" will always win through when there are external forces which slew the theory. The "plumber" argument is very much a classic supply and demand scenario but, again, this came about because of a political philosophy in the 80s whereby the old "trades" were discontinued at many colleges. However, one can receive grants to train as a plumber and get tax relief on course fees.

Cheers

Whirlygig

[Helibelly]

It's dead easy to get a CPL/IR (H) for seven grand, just join Aunty Betties flying club, serve for eleven years then do a mil to civ cross over and hand over your money to the CAA. Whilst your at it I recommend becoming a IRE and FI whilst your in as it will save you oddles of cash when you leave.
Of course the hard part is getting into the flying club in the first place. :p

[Bronx]

I guess I made my point badly. Sorry. Even if you don't agree with me I'd like you to understand my point.

Yeah I was working on £40 an hour from the figures I've seen here over time.
I know the cost of living is a lot higher in England but if there's not enough people wanting to learn to fly helicopters you ain't gonna make a living out of instructing. Period.
American FI's often don't get enough each month to make a living, except in a few all year round sunshine states. The big difference is new qualified American FI's don't expect to.

I see names like Mike Smith and Mike Green in the UK come up regular here. Folks recommend them all the time. But new qualified John Doe can't expect to go off with his shiny new FI ticket and get as much work or as much an hour as well-known respected FI's who built up a good reputation over years.

I don't understand how folk can get qualified in a field which already has a whole lot of experienced people not getting enough work to make a living and expect to make a living themselves.
If new FI's charged £10-15 an hour they couldn't live on that but they might get more work and more hours in their logbook which will help them when they go looking for a CPL job.

Are there enough people in England wanting to learn to fly helicopters to keep all the FI's in enough work to make a living? It don't seem so.
If that's right the chances of becoming a career FI ain't good.

You might need $xxxx a month to live but you're not gonna get it if there ain't enough folk wanting to learn to fly.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

Heli-Ice's suggestion of not spending it all in one place is very prudent. This way when you finally realised you've been strung along for the last £50k you will not be so bitter about it ! Shop and fly around on your way up !

[Whirlygig]

Bronx,

I have not said that I disagree with your point but that there is much more to it than macro-economics. A rough ball-park figure of £250 per hour for a student to learn to fly is not unreasonable. However, just by reducing the FI's rate by half is only goning to change that to £230. This alone would not be enough to encourage more people to learn to fly helicopters but it may encourage a potential student to select one school over another.

Helibelly,

Thanks for that but, as you know, I am sooo old that not even the TA would have me! I did ask and they got quite excited when I said I had a PPL(H). Then the clincher, they asked if I was under 35! Flattered at least that they asked :O

Cheers

Whirlygig

[helicopter-redeye]

Are there enough people in England wanting to learn to fly helicopters to keep all the FI's in enough work to make a living

Perhaps part of the problem is that this is demand led.

People wait for work to come to them.

If more people went out selling the idea to a wider market the market would get bigger.

Do that many people REALLY want double glazing or insurance. Nope, just some gezza out flogging the stuff.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

There is one chopper for every 50,000 people in the UK - but can anyone estimate how many of these machines are used for training on a regular basis?

[helicopter-redeye]

There is plenty of spare capacity ...

[R22DRIVER]

Hi Guys,

When i did my PPL i took about 65 hours. I dont know about you but if i would have been taking my flight test after 45 hours there is no way i would have been ready and confident!!!

45 hours they are having a laugh!!!!!

:yuk:

[Aesir]

Under JAR regs the student is supposed to do 5 hrs simluated IMC (Hood) out of those 45 minimum hours and if memory serves me he is supposed to do 15 hrs solo and 5 hrs cross country training so that leaves only about 20 hrs for basic and emergency training!

So to do the PPL in just 45 hrs is basically impossible. 60 hrs is a good ballpark figure.

[hemac]

I think ultimately, as we all know, it costs a lot of money to gain your PPL and an awful lot more for the CPL.

I'm an electrician and earn a reasonable salary, but then I have a family and a mortgage to support.

When I finally decided to start flying lessons I gave up the booze, took sandwiches to work and stopped frittering money on unnecessary rubbish.

I'm now a boring, tight fisted t****r, but at least I'm flying.
It all depends on how much you want it; and I want it bad.

H.