[Closed] Any civilian commercial helicopter pilots here?

My friend's son did it, qualified about ten years ago, did the training and then walked straight into a job no problem. Whether it's still the same nowadays I don't know. He enjoys it, basically just a posh taxi driver, but he enjoys the flying.
My friend, his dad, had a licence for a much smaller 2 seat helicopter (for fun, not a job) but lost it because of his eyesight, still OK to drive, but not good enough to fly. Something daft like that could end a career.

Also, this https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&client=ms-android-samsung-rev2&source=android-browser&q=how+many+helicopters+are+there+in+the+world gives various, slightly different, figures for the number of helicopters, but if that 59,000 figure is correct then almost none of them will have a pilot.

Here's a list of most produced rotorcraft, the total comes to a bit over 100,000. That includes a lot of old machines that will have been scrapped, plus most helicopters are military anyway so the number of civilian pilots needed can't really be anything close to 50,000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-produced_rotorcraft

Edit: Ok, so they seem to be predicting a huge surge in demand in the future. I suspect they are just making up numbers because helicopter production doesn't seem to have surged massively.

This is because there are only about 15,000 current active helicopter pilots in the U.S. Nearly four times as many pilots will be needed by 2038 than there are working right now.

https://www.suu.edu/blog/2020/06/aviation-helicopter-pilot-shortage.html

Surely one of the biggest demands on helicopter pilots is the offshore industry which is on decline.,,

Not like it's in bristows favour to create a glut of pilots now is it......

Pffft it's going to be all people carrying automated drones by then.

I have a friend who went to America and trained privately to become a helicopter pilot. As identified above he struggled to get his first job without having 1,000 hours, or whatever it was, under his belt. In the end he managed to get a job flying helicopter tours up and down the Thames. It was a great way for him to rack up hours. Since getting the hours, to my knowledge, he’s never had a problem finding jobs. There seem to be two main options: a) wealthy man/ woman with a private helicopter, effectively as their chauffeur b) taxi driver.

Both options have pros and cons.

a) sounds great, but you typically get relatively few hours flying, and as a (for lack of a better description) servant, you’re kind of at the whim of your employer. If they suddenly want to fly at 2am on Sunday morning, it’s you who has to make it happen.

b) more regular hours and more flying time, but I think you always feel a bit like a taxi driver.

a global shortage of helicopter pilots to the tune of 59,000.

Gloabally thats a lot, but locally it maybe doesnt add up to much when you consider the 100's of 1000s of staff shortages across all sorts of sectors in the UK alone.

If they are predicting a a lack of pilots where is that lack predicted to  - as in where in the world and in what kind of role - posh taxi driving? delivering aid in a failed state? moving rocks from the bottom of a hill to the top of a hill, a few at a time all day every?

And while a skills shortage sounds like an opportunity - working in an industry where there is an acute skills shortage isn't always fun .I'm riding the wave of a skills shortage at the moment - great for my bank account but not a great way to live a life for me, or anyone close to me.  If that industry is addressing that - and for instance putting strategies and programmes in place so that there are 59,000 new pilots by 2035, (and all the ancillary staff and skills to keep those helicopters and their pilots viably air-worthy)  and you're one of them, then great. If theres isn't and you fund your own entry into the market then there's still 58,999 too few pilots and non of the other supports and services then that could be shite. Skills shortages make the lazy and incompetent unsackable and you have to work with them.

First thing to do is take a trial flight and see if you like it. Then you’ll need a class 1 medical. If you can’t get one of those you are done (I can’t due to eyesight). If you are still up for it, then it’s an ATPL(H) course and about 150 hours with instrument rating etc.

Flying a four seat Robinson R44 is about £400 per hour. An R22 is a little less. There is also a turbine version that you won’t fly. This is double the price of a fixed wing. Commercial will then likely want a dual engine conversion and the hourly rate for that will be more spends but few lessons needed. I’ve seen quotes of £50k which I don’t believe. And then there are the ATPL exams. Bristol Ground School or a full time school are your options.

Hours are often built by instructing, at least in the fixed wing world, but rotors might be different. There is a shortage of instructors in the UK and some schools will pay for your instructor course if you commit to the school for a fixed period.

The usual way in is via military training due to cost. I don’t fly but I pay for someone who does 😅.

These guys seem to be the go to. I’ve seen them in action many times https://www.heliair.com/commercial-pilots-licence/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwLL487Ok9QIV2-vtCh3SwwSXEAAYASACEgJfrPD_BwE

In the end he managed to get a job flying helicopter tours up and down the Thames. It was a great way for him to rack up hours.

There's a tour company that flies out of a farm next to Glasgow airport, they do multiple 5 minute "buzz" flights a day and the pilots always sound knackered by the end of the day. I've always assumed, maybe wrongly, that they are in one of their first jobs & trying to build hours. It looks like a tough gig.

Helicopters are awesome, I had an hour long R22 experience / lesson - I really wanted to be a natural & take to it like a pro. I was rubbish! 😂 Good fun though.

I managed to wangle two separate observation shifts with London's air ambulance, I hoped for precarious landings on top of buses in Picadilly Circus or similar, but our first landing was at RAF Northolt onto a huge H'd helipad. I was disappointed, but we did get some more irregular spots after.

Most nifty landing I witnessed was into a hotels tiny walled garden in Cirencester, it looked so out of place amongst the roses. We found the pilot eating cucumber sandwiches in the restaurant, he seriously looked about 25!!!

It's a great way to get around. The Battersea refueling station is an insight into how the other half scrape by.

The “pilot shortage” agenda has been pushed by aviation training organisations for years, but never materialises.

There is a constant pipeline of experienced military helicopter pilots too, who will always be in demand.

I’m not saying it’s not possible, but the people pushing the shortage have an agenda.

It’s a great way to get around. The Battersea refueling station is an insight into how the other half scrape by.

I've flown out of there (I won a flight on one of those 10-minute River Tour things where you buzz up to the Shard then come back again).

Flying out of there before we got airborne was the owner of Leicester City FC. The guy on the River Tours desk had seen loads of famous people (most of whom I wouldn't have recognised even if they'd been standing there with a nameplate on!)

, I had an hour long R22 experience / lesson – I really wanted to be a natural & take to it like a pro. I was rubbish!

I had a go on the Fleet Air Arm Lynx flight simulator, helicopters are quite fiddly. I crashed into the ocean which was fairly interesting even in a sim. Mrs C got to attack a warship, the jolt when the missile was fired was quite cool, unfortunately she hit a RN warship and then also crashed so not a resounding success.

unfortunately she hit a RN warship and then also crashed so not a resounding success.

It must be the American version of the sim 😉

My BIL says you need to be able to pat your head and rub your tummy whilst standing on a football. He was military. Not too interested in civilian because the flying is apparently rather “mundane”. But you will need high levels of dexterity. If you’d seen his Land Rover restorations or in fact any mechanical and DIY he’s done, you’d know he has it. Many don’t and get screened out early.

Book a lesson, you might find you hate it. Or not. Son2 had a fixed wing flying lesson for his 16th. It would have been cheaper to give him C&H. PPL before he could drive. 17 months saving money for uni commercial course. Now he’s well on his way to commercial qualification.

I’m minded to learn to fly an auto gyro. Because.

I had an hour long R22 experience / lesson – I really wanted to be a natural & take to it like a pro. I was rubbish!

I had a couple of goes in a Gazelle at RAF Shawbury when I was in the RAF Cadets. Took a bit of getting used to. I'd done my Basic Glider Training by that point and flown solo in a glider, had a fair few hours in Chipmunks but the helicopter was like learning everything all over again.

As far as I’ve heard, commercial chopper pilots earn a lot less than fixed wing pilots.

So only go for poling a big chopper, if you really want to.

So only go for poling a big chopper, if you really want to.

Best tipping eros for some time!

I know one ...
And they do training at Shoreham by Sea Airport

Maybe google it.
You have to train aa a private licence helo pilot first - then a commercial one - which was 12 -18 full time.

Friend of mine was one the first female mil helicopter pilots and flew in former Yugoslavia. She married a USAF officer and they moved to the states (I want to say Carolina, but somewhere east anyway) She flew for several commercial businesses, and did a stint as a traffic reporter! I don't think the pay was amazing, and she was struggling when the US military got rid of their OH58 Kiowa fleet and pretty much made all the qualified pilots redundant, the civilian version is pretty popular, and the pilot market was filled with folks looking for work. This was back a few years though so it might have all calmed down again. I think it's still hard as a non US citizen to get a flying gig in the States though.

I think it can be OK in "emerging markets" if you're OK working for oil barons, or Chinese millionaires as a glorified chauffeur, and there's pleasant tourist stuff but those gigs are pretty rare, the competition is fierce and the pay isn't great, and certainly in places like the states, it's pretty cut-throat.

Helicopters are great. One boat I used to race on was owned by a great guy (sadly no longer with us) who had a Jet Ranger and he used to fly a couple of us to events arounds the country. One particular highlight was flying down to and back from Lymington one bank holiday weekend from N Wales - watching the queues of traffic below made you feel quite smug!
They're pretty dangerous though and he chartered his out to another company once and it ended in a lake in a lake!
He sold it and bought a private jet instead which was even cooler!!

I actually looked at doing what the OP is considering back in the early '80's but my eyesight was a limiting factor so it didn't happen.
A friend at school went into the Navy though and learnt to fly there but went into commercial jets when he left - he's now one of Lord Bamfords (JCB) pilots. His twin brother is a private helicopter pilot and is doing less well I believe.

There is a constant pipeline of experienced military helicopter pilots too, who will always be in demand.

This, very much so.

I kinda get the feeling that helicopter usage is going to reduce if anything.

you need to be able to pat your head and rub your tummy whilst standing on a football.

I had a quick go while writing a newspaper piece about a helicopter business at the local aerodrome. That's a very good description.

I had no aptitude for it whatsoever.

Sadly the pilot - a lovely guy - later died in a crash in bad weather.

There seem to be two main options: a) wealthy man/ woman with a private helicopter, effectively as their chauffeur b) taxi driver.

I used to have a niche product supplier who also ran a helo charter firm in the UK. He spent most of the time on the widgets, but most of the profit and all the enthusiasm came from the helos! I think they had 3 or 4 aircraft, they did virtually no "chauffeur / taxi" type work - it was all filming (drones may be hurting that market), and stuff like powerline / rail line inspection contracts (how long before drones are doing that?). His pilots were all ex forces. As he put it - "they do what they are told, don't mind working unsociable hours, aren't in it to get rich or trying to pay back a massive loan for the training, and have dealt with enough difficult situations you aren't just waiting for them to screw something up". I assume they were also being used to being bossed around be a cock with no real idea what he was doing - hence why they worked for him!

Long time lurker here.

I flew helicopters commercially between 98 and 2012. So some of knowledge of the industry might be out of date.

Firstly there is absolutely no pilot shortage. There is however a shortage of experienced pilots with the right qualifications. The ex military pilots retiring story has been around as long as helicopters, it’s rubbish I’m afraid.

Flying helicopters is fantastic and I’m glad I did it. Did everything from instruction, aerial filming, pipeline survey and charters. By far the most fun is instructing, you get to really push yourself and can learn a lot, and teach yourself some really good aircraft handling. Downside is the pay.

Get some experience instructing you start doing charters in single engine and the twin engine turbines. The pay is better but you are just a taxi driver. Typical day could be an early start, fly half an hour, sit around in a field in the middle of nowhere for a day while your passengers are off having fun, then fly half a hour back. E.g lots of sitting around.

To progress any further than this you will need to get an instrument rating. This on its own when I left was about £40k. You will almost certainly have to pay this yourself, very few employers would pay this for you.

Once you get your instrument rating you can earn good money. However you will be in the have no experience using it, so no employer who needs it are likely to give you a job. The only way to get experience with it is flying multi crew on the North Sea rigs. Pay here is very good, and the work life balance can be excellent. However the flying gets very boring and repetitive. It’s very hard to leave offshore though as the only choice would be to fly on shore again which will probably mean a significant pay cut and poor work/life balance. So not many pilots will leave the offshore and you just see and hear them moan about their jobs for ever more.

I left as I had enough of the industry. It unfortunately really became those you could pay of all the ratings had the best chance of getting the jobs. Experience and ability will unfortunately only get you so far. Job security can be poor as lots of the contracts you work on will be short term. You also need to be willing to move around the country for the work. Easy when your young and single, hard when you have a family.

Again helicopters are amazing machines and I don’t regret my time at all. As a career it’s a big financial gamble. If you really want to fly get a fixed wing licence and aim for the airlines. Then learn helicopters as a hobby when you are earning a nice captains pay

@south downs biker I have a chum who was a 747 Captain with Cathay. In 1990, he was on a deal in excess of £250k p/a. Yes he had a lot of the downsides you've described, principally lots of travel and away from home time but lots of people have jobs that involve that. Many don't earn that sort of package.

Your experience summary sounds to me like a host of reasons why you'd want to avoid what is in effect a very niche industry with a very high entry cost/requirement.

@boblo U.K. based commercial airline pilots definitely don’t earn that sort of money now!

The old Cathay A scale was renowned as being rather lucrative, I don’t think that’s the case, especially today in Cathay. As South Downs biker said, let somebody else pay for your chopper training or do it as a hobby.

Aye would include housing allowance being HK based. Still good deal tho 😀

But can they do this?

Son2 had a fixed wing flying lesson for his 16th.

I had one for my 18th. It was, honestly, one of the dullest hours of my life.

I had one for my 18th. It was, honestly, one of the dullest hours of my life.

really? I did one - its not in my 10 most exciting hours of my life list - but its better than virtually every work meeting I've ever been in, every school parents night/musical performance/awards ceremony, every traffic jam, every hour spent in an airport departure lounge, and every hour on a commercial flight staring at the back of the seat in front.

Met a local pilot on a train in Vietnam, he was asking about moving to London to work in a restaurant as he’d earn more money! My heli-biking trips were totally awesome so no help to the original question.

I had one for my 18th. It was, honestly, one of the dullest hours of my life.

Trouble is, they tend to be in ratty old 152's or 172's. You don't get an M5 when you're learning to drive do you? You get a crappy Nova or Astra or some such.

I got a few hours of fixed wing with the ATC; Chippies and Bulldogs but BIL had a 172 which meant fun Sundays... The mission was always to get my Sister to go green during our 'the most expensive coffee stop ever' sortie. Ie fly to another field, have a coffee, come back. Kerching.

A chum has one of those string and nylon microlites which is great fun and cheap. The inflight service is a bit rubbish though 🙂

I had one for my 18th. It was, honestly, one of the dullest hours of my life.

That's bad luck. You must have had a dull pilot and zero/zero visibility. To be fair, you could always have asked the pilot to spice things up a bit if you were bored, you don't just have to sit there straight and level for an hour if you're paying and not enjoying it.

really?

Alright, fair enough, I was exaggerating, I've been more bored in work meetings and traffic jams, but as an experience it was enormously underwhelming.

I had one for my 18th. It was, honestly, one of the dullest hours of my life.

Y'know, if I'm honest as air cadets we used to have an opportunity every few months to go flying with 6AEF from Abingdon in Chipmunks, and it was after a while not the most exciting thing ever. You needed to be with a pilot who was up for a bit of fun, lots of them weren't and saw taking cadets up on a jolly  as a bit of a chore

If anyone fancies a quick intro to any type of flying, winch-launch gliding has got to be the best bang for your buck. Even if you don't find any thermals, just the launches are pretty amazing. I had 4 launches to about 1500-1600ft without finding a thermal before we had to start the landing pattern - 5 mins of gliding, basic control stuff. Then we found a good one, I kept it in the thermal up to their ceiling of 4000ft (near stansted), we went over towards where we lived at the time, saw the estuary all the way to the sea. Amazing day. And, if my instructor was right, the depth of training for gliding licences is greater than powered as far as required manoeuvres goes as you don't have the help from the engine. Good way to start flying.

while I'm on - "helo" what's that about?

Heard it a while ago getting ferried about the hebrides, and it's popped up here a couple of times.

"Heli" is already available, it's just the first bit of the word. Hee-low is choosing longer vowels sounds, taking longer to say, and which don't appear in the original word.

Why?

Man down my road flies helicopters out to the N Sea and he's not too poor-

His neightbour diagonally also works on a helicopter but as winch engineer on a air-sea rescue chopper

 Hee-low is choosing longer vowels sounds, taking longer to say, and which don’t appear in the original word <span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">Why?</span>

AFAIK it's military? It's just slang, It doesn't have to meet your rules though...

Course it doesn't! It just seems like an odd one, so it's stuck with me as unsatisfying!

It's not fun to say like "chopper", not evocative like "bird", it's longer than alternatives which have more to do with the original word. I thought it must be some acronym or shortening of a couple of words, but it seems not?

*palms up, shrugging shoulders emoticon*

If it's military, probably to do with phonetics.

'Hell-ee' can sound like other things when said over a crappy radio. Probably? Chopper's a bit 'A-Team' and how many tough Special Army Soldiers want to be heard calling up for a 'big chopper'?

By the time you've said 'Helicopter' you'd probably be dead from the enemy gunfire, so I reckon they settled on 'Heelow'.

I’m commercial fixed-wing so very little knowledge of the rotary world, but:

- I’ve flown a twin-squirrel (under supervision) down the London Heli-lanes and it was FANTASTIC!

- when they go wrong, which they do, it ain’t pretty. And it all ends in microseconds.

- look at the example nature gives. Birds glide like fixed-wing aircraft. The only airborne thing that rotates in nature is a sycamore seed. It only goes down.

That is the extent of my knowledge!

Edit: massive props to the Oil Rig pilots who head out to rigs in awful weather with huge commercial pressure. Not something I’d relish at my ripe age!

while I’m on – “helo” what’s that about?

Dunno, mebbies it's 'cool' cos that's what the Yankees call them?

<edit> Yeah when they go in it isn't pretty. After bouncing, they usually continue to beat themselves to death...

You could perhaps get a job changing spacers on live high voltage lines.

Helo is very much SAR jargon - so I would guess it is ex military

when they go wrong, which they do, it ain’t pretty. And it all ends in microseconds.

That's very true when a gearbox or some sort of transmission fails.

But I'd always felt a bit more secure in helicopters because if there's a problem and the rotors / tail rotor are still spinning, you can just drop like a stone, pull up/ flare at the last minute and land on nearly any surface.

In fixed wing if you have any problems, particularly when close to the ground, your options are rather more limited.

Maybe that was just the instructors trying to attract us away from fixed wing? 😉 What they didn't tell us was the failure rate of transmissions and rotor systems on helicopters for some reason...

That live line job actually looks like a reasonably pleasant way to earn a crust.

More linesmen are killed by working at heights than they are by electricity.

You could perhaps get a job changing spacers on live high voltage lines.

Holy moly!

I would love see the risk assessment for that:

- 765,000 volts - check
- helicopter in touching distance of heavy steel structures - check
- operative dangling out of helicopter and attaching it to high voltage steel structures at regular intervals - check
- drinking hot beverage from container without lid - he's OK on that one - phew

And why weren't the spacers there in the first place, before they switched the power on?

Is he clipping himself on to the power cable?

Why would he fasten himself or anything to that cable?

By clipping onto the live line, he ensures that he and the helicopter are at the same potential as the line he's about to grab hold of.

See the stick that is the first and last thing to touch the live line? That's that he doesn't want happening to him.

Why would he fasten himself or anything to that cable?

All I can think of is that he unattaches from the helicopter then clips onto the power line so that if there are any sudden movements and he's thrown out of the 'helo' 😉 he doesn't fall to the ground and the helo isn't snagged on the line.

From the look of it, if the helo were to pull away, the first thing to let go of the line would be the guy who has hold of it. Second would be the clip on line holding them at the same potential (it's only a sprung jaw) and last to let go would be the arc control wand.

Thanks Onzadog.

Good knowledge.

Ironically, it's closely related to the industry I'm in currently.

@andrewreay That'll do, thanks! It might not be right, but at least it makes sense. I'll take it off my "Things for which I have unsatisfactory explanations"

What they didn’t tell us was the failure rate of transmissions and rotor systems on helicopters for some reason…

Yup.

In many cases, even on single engine piston you have a decent chance on an EFATO. Obvs as you get older, multi-engine (pref turbine) becomes far more desirable!!

It takes infinitely more skill and knowledge to stop then land, than to land then stop 🙂

I have a mug that says that so it must be true/)