So, what next ?

[The Nr Fairy]

Imagine - hypothetically speaking - that you have a "friend" who's just finished his UK CPL. Ends up with about 180 hours, all on R22s. He has a full time job which pays well, so there's no urgent need to get hours in the logbook, and his next goal is 300 hours on helicopters to allow him to do the instructor's course. Some turbine time in that next 120 hours would be good, because it increaes his marketability when he comes to be an instructor. Money isn't as free flowing as it was last year, principally because wifey is making noises about "extensions" and "decorating" and "not spending as much on flying". So, what's he to do with this expensive piece of paper which may help ? He is mid-thirties, married with a child, settled and doesn't really want to uproot.

Choice one is to waft it in front of the Chief Pilots of various helicopter operators in the country, which will a) annoy them and b) not get him any work, even part time.

Choice two is to get in with the guys where he learnt to fly, get an R44 rating, and try to get bits and pieces to keep current and get experience doing simple things, like crop circle flights and the like.

Choice three is to find the helicopter equivalent of a sugar daddy, who'll let him fly the expensive toy free of charge. Anyone know anyone ?

Any other thoughts ? PM or email me if you wish so I can pass any suggestions on to my "friend".

As an aside, I've always felt a bit of a fraud, posting on PPRuNe as a PPL. Getting my CPL the week before Crimble was a lovely pressie. All I have to do with it now is use it ! And I can post in the knowledge someone was mad enough to sign me off as competent to be a Professional Pilot.

[Whirlybird]

Nr Fairy,

Firstly, CONGRATULATIONS on getting your CPL(H).

Tell your...er...friend ;) ...that all of us low hours CPLs are asking the same questions, especially since the North Sea jobs dried up.

I gave up on Option 1 very quickly - but possibly rather too quickly; there's an outside chance that if you're in the right place at the right time and someone likes your face...

I think Option 2 is probably your best bet; I know someone who's getting all of a certain school's pleasure flights that way. It could have been me...but I wasn't in the right place at the right time, or maybe he preferred the other guy for some reason; who knows. And hey, free flying is free flying.

If Option 3 exists, he's mine!!!!!!!

Option 4 - most schools who know you will give you work if you generate your own. So use your imagination - taking up photographers, 5 minute mini-hops, whatever? I'm still working on this option - but not trying very hard, because earning money and paying to fly is actually easier.

Option 5 - you're young enough to hourbuild slowly, paid if you can, cost sharing, generating work if possible, paying for some, getting house extensions etc done as well. There's no age limit for instructors, so why stress yourself and the family by doing this in a hurry. You only need 120 more hours to do the instructors course; you can probably afford 30 a year with that wellpaid job, can't you? Or 20? Is there a rush? And from what I hear, turbine time doesn't help that much if you want to instruct, though I could be wrong on that.

Er...sorry, I don't mean you; I mean your friend. ;)

[ATPMBA]

Nr Fairy,

A possible option to build and get turbine time is to come to the U.S., on the West Coast in the Los Angeles area there are several operators offer Bell Jetranger time building programs. One of the operators does traffic watch, if you’re a good pilot you get to do most of the flying while he writes up traffic notes. Before 9/11 in the slow periods they use to make approaches to roof top helipads in downtown Los Angeles and do some autorotations.

The program has you fly in the morning and then late afternoon, they fly about 25 hours a week. Cost is about 110-125 per hour USD. This is less then $190 for S300c. They may have a housing arrangement set up with something close by so you may not need a rental car. If you could stay for a month you could get 100 hours of turbine time, in this country this is kind of an insurance requirement to take the machine solo, off course you may need more total time.

You need to research this as to what visa you will need. As for logging the flight time, in the U.S. you can log it as PIC. However, under JAR/CAA rules you may need to get typed on the B206 before PIC time appears in the logbook.
:)

[B Sousa]

Mr Fairy

Sounds to me like the first stages of that disease...AIDs (Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome) Better listen to wifey, whilst getting those additional ratings on the sly.......When you get ready, I think I have some ideas how you can starve and fly here in the Caribbean....You have my email..

[offshoreigor]

Nr Fairy,

I feel for you buddy, but if you, unlike your friend are not in your mid- thirties, then what about the RAF? With your basic experience, you could do it and end up, in about five years with an experience base that is very marketable.

If you don't want to go that route then I would suggest, money, money, money. Get your IFR Rating and flog your CV to the North Sea Operators. I'm sorry but the only way to get the big bucks is to move on when required.

Good Luck my friend,

Cheers,
:eek: OffshoreIgor :eek:
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Robino]

My friends route,

PPL H bought a half share in a R-22,flew 4 hrs per week and had a rent back going with a training school.(Heli was actually making him money)
After 18 months did his Instructor Rating and flew for 1 Year with a school Instructing.
At present he has bought his own small Airfield (Heli-port) and has a fleet of 6 Helicopters (R-22,R-44)and has 10 people working for him,Training of course.

[The Nr Fairy]

Igor :

My - sorry, my friend's - interest is not in going off and finding a flying job straight off. The aim is to hour build slowly but surely to get to 300 heli hours then do an instructor's course. However, having a structure to it would help, so ending up with 300 hours, 30 or more turbine - to allow instruction on B206 and the like after the instructor's course - and some commercial experience to flesh things out and so on.

I'm too old for the military, have a wife, child, mortgage and alcohol bill to support, and all the other trappings . . .

Which is why I'm soliciting suggestions on low-key slow but sure ways of hour building.

Of course, winning the lottery would change all that . . .

[Rotorbike]

Can't help your friends problem.....

But congratulations on your UK CPL!!!

:D :cool: :)

[overpitched]

Congrats on your cpl(h).

The question I've got though is why oh why with a projected 300 hrs would you be wanting to teach someone else to fly?? You won't know how to do it yourself !! No offense... just a thought.

[Lefthanddown]

NR

The problem your "friend" is facing is one that I had to face myself a couple of years ago. I was lucky in that pre JAR I was able to instruct and then get my CPL.
I was also in the similar situation of having a loving wife and child which I managed to translate into a loving wife and two children whilst instructing.
I/We came to the conclusion that firstly although I was now in a job that I loved that it was never going to keep my wife and children to a standard anything above the poverty line and secondly if I was going to use my commercial I was going to have to travel and move repeatedly for years before anything like a stable job arose.
I am now back at a desk and only flying for pleasure. I now have the benefit of having a happy wife, 2 children I can care for properly, have learnt to fly properly and can enjoy the flying when I can afford it.

I suggest you take your "friend" out for a long beer at the local and think long and hard about the consequences before he has too many beers!

I would say that an awful lot of people both in and out of the industry advised me against a helo flying career and in some ways they were right but it would have taken me a lifetime to learn how to fly properly without having become an instructor and CPL. Your "friend" will become a better and safer pilot and I would not have missed it for the world! Also I don't regret spending a penny of the considerable sum it cost.

If you wish to e-mail please do

Congratulations, Regards and Good Luck!

PS for Overpitched

The better question might be is why would a client want to be taught by someone with only 300hrs who in reality is still learning to fly themselves?

The situation in the UK is that a low hour FI (Restricted) is always under the tutelage of a senior instructor/mentor even after they become unrestricted. We all have to learn to fly sometime and somehow and this has always been a standard stepping stone for aspiring helo pilots in the UK.
There are very few other methods available for a low hour pilot in the UK to be able to gain good experience. I would have thought very few AOC holders would trust their AC and licence to a CPL with just low hours.

Regards

[ClearBlueWater]

The Nr Fairy, I'm in exactly the same boat as yourself with one small additional detail - an extra child, one month old.

I've gone round and round this problem of 'can't get a job without experience, can't get experience without a job' and I've spoken to many people in both helo and fixed wing worlds looking for advice, as I'm sure you have too.

Like Whirlybird I've come to the conclusion that unless you are exceedingly lucky and in the right time at the right place, face fits etc and you're prepared to up sticks on the spot, family and all, then essentially you have to pay out a whole lot more cash to get the instructor's rating and then take it from there.

In my case it has taken three years to get this far and I can't maintain my motivation to drag it out interminably with no clear light at the end of the tunnel and everyone telling me I must be mad to think this could ever work out. So, I recently made the decision to remortgage my house to raise another £30k, jack in my well paid job and run at building another 100 hours followed by the instructor's course. (Just to show that this is more than hot air the money is through from the building society and I'm in the process of converting to a fixed rate mortgage to negate interest risk. I'll be handing my notice in once the fixed rate mortgage is in the bag.)

Once the course is complete I'll probably have to take on another job and instruct only part time - in order to pay the mortgage etc. However, at least I'll be in a position to move forward rather than treading water and wondering what to do next all the time conscious that I'm not getting any younger.

I wish I could offer you a cosy solution but I don't think it exists (if anyone thinks otherwise they're keeping it to themselves). Caution may be the better part of valour but I'm taking the view that a leap of faith may favour the brave.

On the bright side I'm hearing that there is a general shortage of helo instructors now that nobody can afford to become one.

Best of luck.

[Whirlybird]

ClearBlueWater,
From what I hear there's a shortage of QHIs but a surplus of AFIs . That doesn't really help the newly qualified instructors. :(

LeftHandDown,
Thankyou for answering the question I hadn't got around to asking: is it worth doing the instructor's course when there's unlikely to be any chance of a job afterwards? Although I don't have a spouse and kids preventing me doing so, I honestly don't want to up sticks and go just anywhere. I don't mind possibly moving, but I only ever wanted to carry on with what I do anyway, and do a little part time instructing or pleasure flights as well. OK, so I'm greedy; I want it all. :D But now, looking at the situation, with the North Sea companies not recruiting, so no instructors or new CPLs going there, and everyone wanting to instruct because that's all there is, I decided a job at the end of this was really unlikely. So I was just trying to decide if I should do it anyway, because it sounds like you learn an awful lot, and also because I don't want to end up when I'm 70 thinking: "If only...". But it seemed crazy to spend all that money, when I'm really gettting short. However, if you did it and say it's worth it, I think I'll go for it.

Low hours FIs always under someone more experienced? Maybe in theory, and certainly at some schools. But not all, I don't think, or not enough. If I look back at my PPL training, a lot got missed, a lot was....let's just say done in a way which used to make me angry, but now I have some sympathy for my low hours instructor. But it was a long time before anyone else picked up that something was going wrong. And with hindsight, I wish I'd let him learn on someone else.

Though I hope any future students I might have don't read that. :eek: :D

[Lefthanddown]

Whirlybird

I think you get a lot from teaching people to fly. It hones your own skills and requires you to know your stuff backwards but I,m not sure that the FI course in and of itself makes you a better pilot...practice, practice, practice seems to be the only way.

If you don't think you are going to get a school to let you lose on students then it is probably better to get some good one on one time with one of the top instructors and do some challenging flying.

Good luck!