Just graduated uni, have always had flying helicopters down as my dream job, amazing machines.

Anyone fly or do it for a living?
Whats the best way of getting into it as a job? (prefer not to enter armed forces).

Anyone need a graduate trainee?

😀

whilst with army cadets i had the luck of being able to fly a gazzelle for about 15 seconds 😀

Don't you need a aeroplanes licence first?

a light aircraft license is required aswell as a whole new set of medicals…

your looking at about £6000 for getting both your plane and helicopter license imho

Then to do it commercially, a whole load more money and exams. Best you get a well-paid first job and do it as a hobby.

You need A LOT of money! Mr MC's uncle did it! Spent years living in a cravan to afford to do the licence. Completed it and ended up flying helicopters for film crews, did the TV credits to Emmerdale (IIRC), managed by pure luck to get a job flying Yorkshire air ambulance. Problem with a lot of pilot jobs is you need bucket loads of air miles of which only the forces tend to manage to accrue. He was lucky and got a break. He was subsequently the pilot who flew Richard Hammond to hospital.
Sorry that doesn't help much though does it! 😉

take a large chunk of cash to http://www.heli.com – no flight experience required but you will have to pass all the various medicals etc. Think around $75000 for no exerience to commercial pilot.

Forces is the way to do it, most pilots in commercial jobs come from that sort of background.
I flew Gazelles a few times in the RAF cadets and a short stint in the co-pilots seat of a Chinook which was amazing.

Doing it privately costs a LOT of money and you're competing against very experienced ex-forces guys for all the jobs.

interesting reading, yeah i thought that might be the case-joining up is the easiest way to it. would love to work royal navy search and rescue.

will have a think,

so can you join the forces specifically to go into say aircrew or do you all work up from the bottom?

edit-yeah having just left uni i have no money 😀

you can join alll 3 forces specifcly with flying in mind but only with the raf and navy can u jump straight into flying

but i would have to sign up for a set period, 5years?

i think the absolute minimum across all 3 is 6 years, youve just done uni so you could go in as an officer and get pay'd loads

it so tempting!!! but guessing i will be training somewhere distant from family/gf/friends etc and not have any time/chance to see them?

Yeah its 6 years minimum in the RN but you might find that aircrew is longer; just because of the length of the training pipeline.

I don't know how long it takes to get pilots and observers trained but i'm pretty sure that it'll be a good few (3/4/5?) years.

Plus before you join you'll undertake assessments and be streamed pilot or observer. So there is no guarantee you'll end up as a pilot anyway.

you will in most cases get weekends off of training

to get a commercial licence will cost about £40k – you can do fast track courses in Florida

i did a day at gloucester airfield finding out about careers and actually a bit of flying too. still the most exciting thing i've ever done in the absence of a woman. the bottom line is that the best jobs go to the ex military pilots.

i think that in the USofA you can get a half price course – if your not interested in landing

😉

walla24 – Member

interesting reading, yeah i thought that might be the case-joining up is the easiest way to it. would love to work royal navy search and rescue.

Don't try to join just to learn to fly. You'll not get in if that is all you want. Do lots of research and make sure you don't need glasses, don't have asthma and do more research. The Armed Forces is not an easy route to learning to fly.

One of my colleagues has recently qualified as a commercial heli pilot, he was too short for the army so had to do it all privately. He did his private license in Australia as it's cheaper to do it there – then flew lots out there to get his private hours up. He came back, converted it to a uk license and did his commercial, think its cost him well in excess of £60k thus far, and even though he's qualified he needs at least 200hrs on a type to begin to consider applying for jobs…

Try this, which has a lot of info about the military side of things Pprune You have to be very committed to get in, the training is the best in the world and what you get to do/see cannot be compared to anything else in the "real" world. Have a word with an Armed Forces Career Office, they can arrange a visit to units/stations so that you can make an informed decision. Good luck.

My mate got his license and spends some of the time in NZ flying privately. Now contracts here, has taken lots of rich bankers to events and the odd grand prix driver to races – had that Jordan bird in the back one time….

There's also that RC helicopter advert on the right hand side if you can't afford a licence

There's an organisation based in Saudi that might sponsor you.

My brother-in-law is an RAF pilot, and he is of the opinion that if you attempt to join up just for the training, with your motivation being a commercial career after passing out, you won't get what you want. It's a common tactic, and all the way along the recruitment process they'll be looking for people of this mindset. You'll be clocked very quickly, and it'll count against you massively.

"You join up because you want to serve, not for personal gain and freebies" – his words, not mine.

yeah fair point, i would never join up soley to get the qualifications but at the same time joining up to serve (i am patriotic) would still not be easy. thanks for all the ideas i will do more research…. its that or join the police.
i just want an exciting job!