Hi. Understood re £50-60k. What about a pilot joining with 3,000+hrs and ME time etc? Would they get an increased rate? Senior FO pay rates?

Regards. TTW

SFO's £60-70k on entry...

Thanks. How does Offshore Wind Farm wages compare with Oil and Gas please? Eg. Wiking etc

Similar to hems

Ask any self funded helicopter pilot flying the NS if he/she would do it again....NO. Even with the downturn in fixed wing its a better place to be. Oil and gas is a dying industry.....

And yet they all stayed employed during the pandemic. There are still many fixed wing pilots out of work after the downturn.

I would do it all over again

Yep I'd do it all again too, so neebother isn't speaking for everyone

Great roster. Great pay. Interesting challenging role. Better standard of living for many than some of my friends in fixed wing

I think there is an assumption that everyone in fixed wing works for BA at a nice airfield that they can afford to live next to. Certainly not always the case. Not all pilots get the big jobs and those that do have mixed experiences of how good or bad it is.

Rotary offers a range of different roles, so if North Sea isn't your thing, at least you should be able to find something that floats your boat.

Well said and agree 100%, he doesn't speak for me either. NS is certainly not for everyone but neither is the airline world; my oldest friend was a widebody P1 for a ME airline and I have a lot of friends/former colleagues who fly LH/SH. Apart from my chum's very nice salary (which wasn't quite as much as you might think...) and some nice perks such as staff travel and free uniform laundering ;) pretty much everything else paled even next to my modest humdrum life flogging a 92 around the NS. Before I left the military I produced a very geeky spreadsheet with all the flying jobs I could find (LH/SH airlines, NS, HEMS, Police, Corporate etc) and I met/interviewed various chums doing all those roles and I weighted the various factors (salary, pension, time to command, rosters, leave. fatigue, benefits, lifestyle etc) based on what I wanted/needed, which put the NS easily at the top for me. Out of all the pilots I interviewed, the happiest out of the lot (honestly) were the NS pilots - lot has changed since then and fair to say it's been a torrid few years since 2015, but also a lot of important things haven't changed.

Depending on your age: Join the military and fly there…. Much more interesting flying, free training, friends for life and then do a transition to civil live in 10-15 years when they make you fly a desk. 👍

The salary will be as low as the operators contrive it to be. There is a very effective cartel in operation and passively condoned by the regulator. Engineers pay even worse - it's shameful but I guess you get what you pay for.....

Can I have some of what you've been smoking please? It's obviously some pretty heavy stuff, and I am in need of having my grasp on reality as loose as yours obviously is.

.......and what do you think now?

It is quite interesting looking back on this thread (from 2011) and seeing someone say it costs £70-80k to go from zero to hero CPL/IR. First Officer entry wages at £45k

Fast forward to now £170-180k zero to hero and First Officer entry wages are £58k...

So a 120% increase in training costs vs a 29% increase in pay. A huge financial burden and a very uncertain industry

And thats north sea fo pay, imagine paying 180k for training and then getting a hems fo job

FO Hems jobs pay as little as £35k

zero to CPL/IR is probably about minimum £140,000+ in the uk (R22 for PPL/hourbuilding abroad/CPL), IR on AS355

plus fees/travel/accomodation etc. you might be able to claim the VAT back, not sure if HMRC allow that anymore


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....67131c67f4.jpg

Pprune has been a good measure to determine interest within the helicopter community of potentially interested new pilots. The 20 or so years I've been hanging out here, I've noticed a distinct lack of posts by newbies with questions. It's likely some of them have been scared away by the impertinent regulars, but a decade ago you'd see posts from people who are interested in getting into the industry. You'd then see them posting about flight instruction gigs a year later. Then another year, they've got their first post instructional job, then their first multi job after another year or so. You just don't see that anymore.

t's certainly made the forum more dull, as dispensed advice here can often be littered with golden nuggets. Just about every career rotor pilot I know has abandoned ship and crossed over to the FW side. More money, more stability, more options, no more obstacle environments. It's a different way of life but it assures a quality return on investment. The cost of obtaining a rotor ATP from scratch is pretty much beyond the reach of most now. I don't see things changing anytime soon.

I seem to recall hearing Castle Air were charging around £140k + VAT for fully integrated CPL/IR, that was 18 months ago......

Ouch. So prob about £190,000 inc. VAT now

Even the PPL->CPL->FI route will cost £120,000+ ... to earn £30,000 a year as an FI with zero benefits/prospects....

In the “old days”, pre internet, it was easier for the flying schools to tell you “all the Vietnam era pilots are retiring”.

Now, any prospective student can paint a pretty bleak picture of a prospective rotary wing flying career with 5min and Safari.

I live between two airports (Australia) that both had several helicopter schools (one where I first soloed, one where I worked as an instructor). Now there is one school total.

The cost is high, but it always has been. It would be interesting to compare the hourly rate from 1990 to now in relation to general cost of living. I’d say relative to houses, the license is likely no more expensive.