In these parts they are, generally, salaried, so while paid peanuts, at least they have rights, benefits and some stability.

I expect there are plenty of ex-mil instructors like me with many thousands of hours instructional time who could pass on our experience but would have to go through a full FI (H) course to do so despite having held CFS qualifications for many years.

So you still have young and inexperienced instructors teaching newbie pilots - seems bonkers.

Hourly paid is the model for all UK "down south" schools.

ie.

crap weather, can't fly = no pay
student turns up late, no time to fly/do ground = no pay
trial lesson doesn't turn up = no pay
aircraft goes tech = no pay

And self-employed, so any benefits and health insurance coming out of that?

Some schools in the SE UK also will not pay for any type rating renewals for their freelance FIs, or even offer them "at cost".

Best Training Helicopter
 

As a ‘’Trainer’, surely it’s the Hughes/Schweizer 269/300 (preferably the ‘C’).

It’s the only one that was specifically designed and developed as a ‘trainer’ - most notably for the US Army as the Hughes TH-55

Seen it quoted that 30,000 US Army pilots trained on it, flying more than 3 Million hrs over three decades.

Dependable rotorhead and tail rotor, forgiving handling, robust undercarriage……..perfect prelude if progressing to the MD500 or EN480B.

Biggest issue likely to be the limited no of flying schools operating them.

I like that! The S300C ist super easy to fly, still got my 120kg + the 100kg FI into the air at 28°C@1000', and after that enlongated winter pause some of my landings yesterday have me suspect that ground resonance in fact does not exist at all.
I keep memorizing to fly till all four corners have landed and still dump the collective too eary. I don't know how to get the S-300C to ground resonance, I'vee seen videos alright, but I can't imagine what I'd have to do get that going if it can take my ignorant eary collective dumps w/o any complaints. Maybe my habit of "****, again too hard to early i can do that better" and repeating the very landing right away may have masked any GR I would have expreienced, but when I train in the heli square I'm not passing time but want to get it right, hence I repeat until satisfied.
Keeping the ground resonance danger in mind has me continue to cling on to pitch and cyclic way past "landing", just in case it might start to wobble/rock, and has me on alert when spooling down RRPM, but I never even got close to any hint of GR.

That said I'd put in my vote for a rather mid-priced school, one that actually cares for security. My school recently got itself another S-300C from England. Inspection of the local maintanance pro showed quite a lot of faked "AD compliance claims" in the logs.
The schools boss fired up some UK lawyer and sued the hell out of the seller while having the mechanic "redo" all the missing AD and service works before letting us hire-by-to-hour clients even sit in it.
When I complan about a badly calibrated throttle correlator I can be sure it'll be fixed at the next 100h inspection, they really listen to my rants and act accordingly!
No idea how you would recognize that culture of a training school from the outside, though.
Maybe it helps that the school is "renting" its fleet "by the hour" from the actual AC owner.
Schools which actually own their machines might be inclined a little more to squeeze out more flying hours ?

As you might have guessed I truly recommend S-300C, especially for learning as they are great two seaters (forget the "middle seat" it does not exist) with an extremely forgiving design, furthermore a non-teeterring head means no mastbumping, fuel injection means no "cabri float bowl incidents" and of course no carburetor icing issues. For me the safest design flying today.

The most common way of getting ground resonance is to bang the aircraft down on its rear dampers first, even then normally caused by dampers being wrongly gassed ie over or under pressure

Completely agree. I learnt on a Hughes/Schweizer 269/300 and then graduated to MD500 rating. I guess one issue is that there are now, sadly, so few 269/300s around, as you say...

" I think that I'm one of those he's talking about.
I feel that I should give some perspective to what 'Hughes500' has said here.
Fact, I have 32 hrs rotary flying. My fixed wing hours are irrelevant.
I've flown 2hrs in a helicopter in the last 9 months. I presented myself to Hughes500 at a rotors running helicopter at an unfamiliar airfield. I strapped-in and he said "takeoff, go over there!". No checklist or time to settle-in so to speak
There was no exercise plan or pre flight brief given by Hughes500, I spent most of the 40 mins wondering who had control, and there was no debrief performed.
So before he shouts on about how crap I was, he should take a very long look in the mirror; I guarantee that he won't see a professional pilot looking back at himself!....So Hughes500, how about you set an appropriate standard and example before you belittle others from your mighty pedestal.
You are able, in your social/professional standing to be a role model; your actions speak louder than words. So give the bull!!!! a rest and practise what you preach! Act like a professional."

Strange post
I was taught by H500 & dont recognize the person, I was told what we were going to do we went and did it then we talked about it.
I feel that you have taken a general grump personally, it is not the person I flew with.
I understand that a lot of FI dont do autos to the ground, (we always did at idle), we did stuck pedals always rotated to check we were not being snuck up on by some one/thing.
We did at least one of these exercises at least once a lesson.

Airbus

Tell me more of what I am supposed to have done or not, I have no idea who you are, when this happened or the circumstances so i can defend myself or apologise

Airbus know who you are now, so I dont need to apologise

Helicopter instruction: R22 or R44?
 

Hi,

I was offered instruction in either a R22 or R44, the former being more expensive, of course.
What are (if any) advantages of having flight instruction on each model?

Thank you

They both get you the same license, so unless you weigh more than 240 lbs, why pay more for it? I'd pick the 22.

why is the 22 more $$ than the 44

I assume he meant ‘latter’ or typed the numbers the wrong way around.

Like Robbiee says, it depends if you are paying out of your own pocket. The license on the R22 will cost less. I trained on the 22 for that reason.

But the poster says the 22 costs more - that’s the question

​​​​​​​
Who taught you?

For context; I was taught by an inexperienced pilot - made it & grateful. Gainfully employed since 1996.
As an inexperienced instructor i taught some of the highest time S92 pilots in the world currently.