Helicopter instruction: Cost etc

[Whirlybird]

Point of information: instructor pay was the same (less a bit becasue of inflation) pre-JAR when instructors only had a PPL.

[Shark Attack]

CFI wages

In the US most schools I know pay the instructor less than half the amount the student is paying for instruction.

Starting at $15 an hour is not unusual taking home less than $1000 a month some months.

MacDonalds pays better.

How much do you pay a plumber??????

Flight instructors should be paid AT LEAST GBP40 per hour. A professional job with so much at stake should elicit a professional wage.

Remember the first job will quite likely be as an instructor for the first 1000 hrs. I would rather pay more for the first 200 hours instruction in order to reap the benefit of the extra money for the next 800hrs.


SHARK ATTACK

[Whirlygig]

Some of you seem bent on misunderstanding what Bronx said. He never said a FI can or does teach 40 hours a week.

I am sorry Datcon, I have to respond to this. Bronx said, in his original post that £40/hour equated to £1,600 per week. Maths tells me that that means 40 working hours per week.

I cannot comment on the actual pay structures of instructors in the UK since I am only a PPL ( I hope my lovely instructor will reply - if he's reading this)... but it doesn't take an economist to realize that the major part of the high cost of learning to fly in the UK is NOT with the instructor's wage.

If my old instructor was paid £50/hour - I would not begrudge it but I do begrudge the high cost of fuel, the extra, apparent regulations that seem to prevail in the UK and the elitism that seems to pervade the helicopter world. In the US and down under, a helicopter is perceived to be more of a necessity in being able to get around such large areas of countryside. The UK is so small that helicopter travel is considered to be very much a luxury and so the demand is not there.

I don't think that global comparisons are necessarily worthwhile in a forum such as this. It well may be more cost-effective to go to the States to learn but country-wide conversions have to be taken into consideration as well as the hidden costs of flying full-time and living abroad away from friends and family.

If I decide to go for CPL, I might well go to Helicopter Adventures in the US but only after weighing up all pros and cons. But I am glad I did my PPL in the UK, trained by a v. reputable school and having full ATC to deal with as well!!

But please guys and gals... these trans-atlantic arguments don't do anything to explain the situation to a newcomer. The economics behind air travel in various parts of the world would be enough to fill a book!

Back to Charlie's original questions - allow for 2 months at least to get a PPL and that would be largely full-time. This is mainly to allow for the vagaries of the weather and aircraft servicability!! Five months and you would be able to earn some money in between flying perhaps!!

Cheers

Whirlygig

[Hoverman]

Bronx didn't say an FI can earn £1400-1600 a week. He said £35/40 an hour is "the hourly equivalent of about £1400 - £1600 per week." It is, based on the traditional 40 hour week though 35 hour weeks seem to be the modern trend. It was an illustration that the hourly rates are to high in his opinion.

The main reason for the elitism that seems to pervade the helicopter world in the UK is that helicopter flying is so expensive only well-off people can afford to learn to fly, self-fly hire, charter or own helicopters.
I've followed the arguments but nobody's explained yet why helicopter FI's should be paid a higher hourly rate than F/W FI's.


I've just done a quick web search. Rotary instructor rates across the US from Florida to California are generally about $20-30 pr hr. (£12.50 - £18.75). The most expensive I could find was a school in Colorado which charges $40 (£25). Quite a difference between the UK and US and nothing to do with fuel.

[Hoverman]

1 If you're right things must be very different in Oz. A newbie with a shiny new CPL here would be very lucky to get another job in the UK. What's he got to offer an employer? Check out the advice in loads of threads where newbies with low turbine time ask how to get a job. Advice = build hours and get as much turbine time as possible or employers and insurance companies won't be interested.

2 True

3 The entire time spent flying you are less than 2 seconds from death. You're not a Robbo fan then?

4 In the UK the FI doesn't pick up the bill for damage to the machine. Maybe different in Oz.

And thousands of FI's across America go to work every day and do all this for $20-30 per hour. I hope they don't see your post.

[Whirlybird]

I've followed the arguments but nobody's explained yet why helicopter FI's should be paid a higher hourly rate than F/W FI's.[

You've got this precisely backwards, and you obviously don't read the Instructors' forum. Virtually everyone there is agreed that f/w instructors should be paid more. They absolutely cannot make enough to live on. For that reason, you don't get any PPL career instructors. At many schools, they are all low hours hour builders aiming for the airlines. A lot of them don't really want to be there, and won't put themselves out for the students; not all, but some. It's even been argued on a recent thread on the Instructors' forum that they SHOULDN'T bother too much, since they're paid a pittance. There are discussions as to how to increase instructors' pay, since it's so obviously necessary. The only people who can live off f/w instructing are those who specialise in something unusual like floatplanes. The general standard of teaching in the f/w world reflects this. Do we REALLY want to emulate them?

People are confused by the STATED hourly rate. Instructors are NOT actually paid £30-40 per hour. They are paid that per flying hour, and each flying hour includes another hour for helicopter moving, checks, paperwork, and briefings. Most schools book each hour lesson within a two hour slot for that reason. So the actual pay while working is usually about £15/hr for FI(R)s, £20/hr for QHIs. Is that really so high? It's lower than virtually all professionals, and lower than most plumbers, builders etc. It includes unsocial hours, weekends, and is dangerous. If it wasn't that we loved flying, we wouldn't do it.