I am 23 and have always been interested in flying. After reading a ton on what its like to be a helicopter pilot it sounds not so good. Any first hand experience here? Is it worth the time and money? And is there a chance I could fine a job I would enjoy?

Any info would help. Thanks in advance.

Spray applicators are always looking for good, qualified pilots.  The crew I'm most familiar with has had a number of their ground men learn, get the skills, and are now flying.

Spray work is long hours, weeks and months away form home, but the money is excellent.  This crew also does powerline work (tower repair, side trimming with a hanging saw) and those pilots make low 6 figures.

But you have to be good.

FLY ARMY

Uncle Sugar will pay you to train you.

You can then spend the next 2 decades alternatively paying each other back for it.

Go military.  Awesomeness.

Join the military, for helicopters Army is the only way to go.  

It's not financially feasible to pay your own way to a commercial helicopter license unless you're rich and don't want to be paid well down the road.

Join the Army.  They pay you extremely well and you have a guaranteed flying job for 6 years(Army) after which you can get any helicopter job you want in the civilian world assuming you're not a sack of shit.  Plus you get paid very nicely to blow shit up.  

Why do you think the Army is the only way to go for helicopters?  

I'll echo what everyone said in here.  Go Military if you want to fly.  Specifically Army if you can get in the Street to Seat Warrant Program.  My stick buddy came here with his CFII (and the accompanying nearly 100K in debt).  I did not.  I'm getting a flight school education, my FAA ratings, and a civilian rating on the Sikorsky S-70 since I am a Blackhawk student.  I'll leave here with an Instrument rating as well, and about 250 hours.  For free.  And about a 60K a year salary plus benefits.  Not a terrible way to go if you can get in the program.

A lot of misinformation in this thread.  

When you finish your 6 years, you might not have enough flight time to qualify for most entry level jobs in the civilian world.  



Where I work, its about 50/50 civilian and military, and we've had this discussion many times. It boils down to this: There are good and bad aspects to both routes.  

If you go civilian, it's expensive (about $70,000 if you go to a school that isn't a scam) and you won't be making much the first year or two after flight school. After you get your ratings you'll have to be a CFI for a while to build time, which may or may not suck ass.  Once you get to 1000 hours though, you can get a "real" job that starts around $65000/year.  You don't get to blow anything up, but all of your flight experience will be relevant to operating in the "real world" and you will rack up hours pretty fast.

If you go military, you'll get to fly cool shit, but you'll also get shot at and be away from home for long periods of time in some pretty crappy places. Pretty much all of your experience will be in overpowered, dual pilot aircraft operating in large groups. What this means is that when you get out you won't have much experience with power management, planning flights, operating alone in busy airspace, dealing with customers and passengers, etc.  Some guys (not all) have a lot of trouble making the transition to civilian aviation because of this.  Depending on how long you're in for and how busy you are, you might not have enough flight time to meet the minimums for the more sought after jobs (EMS, utility, firefighting). On the plus side, you'll probably have a bunch of NVG, IFR, and twin engine experience, which a new civilian pilot wouldn't have.  

Like I said, there are good and bad aspects of both.

Don't care for an aircraft that is constantly trying to throw it's wings off.......just kidding

Vince

You're not wrong. I"ve been told since day one almost daily, these things are supposed to fly.

I went the civilian route, got student loans, worked a full time job and went to flight school on the side. Worked my ass off, luckily got hired as a CFI.  Most of the students where I flew didn't get hired. I figured at the end only about 15% of the students that started flying actually made it as a pilot.  The rest are saddled with a large debt load and a lot of regrets.

I spent several years working as a CFI, right after Silver State went under, and jobs and students were hard to find.  After about 3 years, I caught a lucky break and landed a job as a SIC flying multi engine, heavy lift on a DOD contract in Afghanistan.  First job out of flight school I was making over $100k for working half the year.  No, that's not a normal thing to happen.


About 18 months on the contract, I decided I no longer wanted to be away from family and home so much.  Had a bit over 800 hours of flight time in Afghanistan, in about 10 months of flying there.  I wanted to be done, but still wanted a good pay check.  


So I moved to vegas flying tours of all things.  Base + flight pay + tips puts me right about $100k a year at my company.  Home every night and nobody shoots at me here.  


I'm rapidly closing in on 4,000 hrs, got a significant amount of multi engine time, got my instrument, and I make good money.  So going the civilian route worked for me. But once again, I figure only 15-20% of the students that started at the school I went to actually have successfully made a career of it.  And most of those had to grind out an existence.  3 of us (out of hundreds that have gone to that school) caught a lucky break to be on the DOD contract, which has helped the career a lot.


On the flip side, I know several military pilots and ex-military pilots who are having a very tough time transitioning into civilian jobs. We have a couple ex-military guys where I work.  So less than 5% of our pilots are ex-military.  And we just had one ex-army guy wash out during training. I also know a lot of military guys who have very good careers flying on the civilian side.  Utility, EMS, tours, etc.


In the end I figure it comes down to the person.  The type of person who will succeed going the military route is probably the exact same type of person who can make the civilian route work and be successful.

Read What he said.  There's always exceptions both ways.  The deciding factor I see for military is the guaranteed flying job, no debt, and good pay for your required time after flight school.  Only guarantee going your own way is you will accrue lots of debt.

Military isn't a bad gig, in my opinion.
I certainly don't build hours as quick as some others, but lack of debt and pretty good pay is nice.  Working with people with a common mission is pretty nice too.
AF flies helicopters...even though not many people seem to know.  The up/downside is AF pilots are all officers, which means it is pretty hard to be a career pilot--staff assignments are likely, at some point (the "up" part of that being the officer pay scale).  

At the schoolhouse, a 5 ft hover completes your max available dual engine power check on some days (if you actually get to 5ft), so we're not always overpowered.

Another advantage is you'll fly aircraft civilians can only dream about flying.  A 35 year old beat up Army blackhawk could slingload around 10 R-22s while the crappiest chinook in the Army could slingload more than two dozen R-22s.  The R-22 you might go into debt to fly can't carry two people and a full tank of gas....  

At only 23 the military route will set you up financially and educationally for life.  The Army only requires you to stay in for 6 years after flight school, so in well under 8 years you could get out and have $100k+ in retirement, a free BS and MS degree, commercial helicopter license, zero debt, and war stories for a lifetime.  AF/Navy will require you to stay in for around a decade depending on which branch and what aircraft you fly.  

I got a BS and a job after high school and paid to get my private single engine.  I quickly realized I was unwilling to go into debt to continue paying my own way and joined the military.  Now I have all sorts of FAA ratings for free, my youngest kid will get 4 years of college for free, and I get paid stupid money.  

I'm not a recruiter, but if you have a burning desire to fly at 23 you're insane to not join the military.  The military isn't all roses, but I think the good/bad ratio is far more desirable than paying your own way to fly.  My only regret is that I didn't join until my late 20s.  

 
I used to parrot the over powered aircraft bit about military pilots. Until I got to see Kiowa pilots in RC-E at high altitudes struggling to climb out over  hescos and t-barriers.  I got a whole new respect for those guys after that.  

 
Nobody goes into debt to fly R-22's, meaning that isn't the end goal.  R-22's are simply used as a stepping stool to get into better aircraft; EC-130's, A-Star's, AW119 etc.


Chinooks have been used in the civilian world for years, as have CH-46's and Blackhawks are starting to be used as well.  Some of those companies like to hire military pilots, some prefer civilian pilots for various reasons.  


The military is a very good route to go no doubt.  But there are additional hurdles on that route that might make it not possible for everyone.  I started flying late into my twenties, wear corrective lenses and have had knee and back issues.  So the civilian route was the only choice really for me.  


Point being, there are two very valid routes, each with advantages, each with disadvantages.  I could argue that right now is a poor time to do either route, due to market conditions.  But nobody will really listen.

Military all the way. My buddy is currently paying big bucks (will be upwards of $90k to get certified) at a rotary wing school in New England and he will leave with only a couple hundred hours of flight time.  To put it into perspective, many businesses hiring pilots want 2000 hours. The CIP of our BN (within a combat aviation BDE) has over 10k hrs.  He'll retire with well over 12k hours, and is a very skilled pilot. You will spend years, spending your own money, getting shit pay, and will still end up with far less hours than a military pilot.  On the other hand...the military will pay you to burn fuel and component times on aircraft.

Yeah, flying helicopters in the AF isn't a great way to build thousands of hours.  I think only two or three people in my unit have over 3,000hrs, and they are coming up on 20yrs pretty soon.  That said, they didn't have to pay for each hour.

Army Warrant Officer will probably be your best bet on logging hours.

Something else to think about: You don't have to make a career out of it to experience the joy of flight. You can get your helicopter private pilot license for about 12-15k and fly for fun, on your own terms. The only downside is the costs for renting and insurance. If you have another means of making good money, to where you can comfortably afford flying recreationally, that's perhaps the best route. Unless you've decided to dedicate your life and career to flying for a living.

I'm currently in a flight training program and got my private pilot license in May. Initially I wanted to make a career out of it and get my instrument, commercial, CFI/II and become an instructor. But I came to the reality of the sad truth, which has already been stated in this thread: it requires an great deal of dedication and sacrifice, it is an extremely competitive job market and the fruits of your labor will hardly even keep a roof over your head and food in your stomach (unless you give it 200% effort and happen to make it into the turbine world).

I've decided that flying for a living just isn't for me. Maybe over time i'll work towards the commercial license and see what I can find. But for now, I just want to keep the experience simple: fly for the thrill of it and get a more practical, well-paying job to fund it.

 
Except a lot of flight schools won't rent to private helicopter pilots unless they are active students at the school. And even if they do, it's still just a R-22/44.  


For those considering doing civilian flit school, be aware that the market for new CFI's is probably going to tank with the discovered abuse of the VA system.  Without a supply of students, there is little hope of a new pilot building the needed hours to move on.  

The military route is most certainly the best for training, but the thing no one brings up in these threads, is not everyone will medically qualify.  I would have killed to be a military pilot, but my vision was a total show stopper.  I understand that now most services will waiver vision to some degree, but when I was starting out it was 20/20 uncorrected or you were not going to get a pilot slot.

Is Army helicopter training slowing down the same way the rest of the Army is downsizing?  I know they have slammed the brakes on most of the rework of those helos.  



I know most of our Army folks on here are first rate folks, but I have worked with a couple of WOs that...well...I can't believe they trust those people with helicopters.  I wouldn't trust them with an ultralight.  Idiot savants maybe?

Army flight school throughput is dropping, but it's dropping from an artificially elevated number.  From memory, it was around 1200/year for a long time.  They ramped it up some years ago (6-8 maybe?) to around 1500/year.  They are currently scaling it back to around 1000/year.  Like any other training pipeline, throughput is adjusted to manage the population.  

There's good guys and dirtbags, same as for any group of people.  Remember the astronaut 3-way where one of them wore diapers on a cross country drive to assault another with a pellet gun?  

Ah, the diapernaut.  She ended up at the local helicopter repair facility which is now scaling back.  



 

Those numbers are in the rough ball park though the recent reductions weren't a normal up and down flow of intentional downsizing as much as the temporary hard shock of sequestration and we're finally creeping back up to 1000-ish/ year.

For those that don't know... We run 24 common core (no, not *that* "common core") IERW classes per fiscal year.  A new one starts every two weeks (excluding the 2 week Christmas break).  There are always 4 classes in the flow of training at the same time with each class split into 2 sections.  It's an assembly line.

We train active Army WO/RLOs, Army NG WO/RLOs, USAR WO/RLOs as well as a sizable number of NATO/Whatever students.  They all fit into the mix.

In the 9 years I've been doing this, we started with class sizes of about 52.  We ramped up to 60.  We backed down to 50-ish.  Then sequestration kicked us in the balls and classes got halved seemingly over night.   Things are starting to stabilize now.  

Where will it go from here?  Beats me.  I'm just one of the girls.  And anyone that tells you that they know, definitively, what is going to happen in the near or far future knows even less than I do.

As for the product we put out....

It's my job to help make the chicken salad.  I do the level best I can with what I've got because this is what I live to do.  Unfortunately, not every batch ends up tasting like it should.  Some of them might even end up giving someone a stomach ache down the line.  I hate that more than anyone else could.

That's something I didn't consider. I haven't flown outside of my flight school yet, but I do know of 1 or 2 flight schools back home in north Puget sound, WA that advertise helicopter rentals with wet rates. So I would at least think they rent to licensed non-students (there might be a total time requirement though).

I went the ARMY (IERW Class 89-08) way but one other way not discussed is:,

Police Depertments

Hire on to a PD (local or State) and while you will have to ground patrol for anywhere from 2-5 years, they will pay for your training.

OK and TX does this.
Albuquerque PD does this
TX DPS and the others above have really nice equipment.

and many many others.

Let the Police Department pay for your training and you won't have a 6 year commitment or thousands to repay if you change departments, etc.

FYI

It isn't, but it depends on what you want.

Do you want to be an officer first who also flies or do you want to primarily be a pilot.

In the Navy/USMC, flying is required, but you will move in and out of flying jobs in the name of professional development.   This is also true for Army regular officers from what I understand.

CFII can say better than I, but my impression is that Army WOs exist primarily to be professional pilots first and everything else second.  Far less likely to have out of cockpit tours.

It's a great gig, but really isn't a realistic goal, unless you happen to have some heavyweight connections.      It's not as if it's a well kept secret.

Dp.

You're leaving out the part where you can possibly BE blown up

Aviation in general, and helicopter flying in particular, is a very dangerous occupation.   Anyone considering it, who isn't an idiot, has already considered the dangers.        I suspect that Military rotorwing flying is not statistically more dangerous than civilian, but I stand ready to be corrected if anyone wants to post the numbers.

Join the Army if you are interested in flying helicopters. I work for a government contractor. The pilots who go into the military and spend twenty years flying have it made upon retiring! There have been over 11 million flight hours flown at Ft. Rucker without a maintenance related accident.

The numbers are kind of tough to compare since Part 91 flyers aren't reporting hours.  

We had a few military pilots work for us several years ago and the posts I've seen in here are spot on. The mil is a good way to get the aviation training and some time, but they will not prepare you for the real civilian world of being a commercial helicopter pilot. Over the years, we've had several mil guys. One of them fried a hot section costing $44k to replace, one of them about got us fired from a contract because he couldn't get along with the client's crew, another quit only one week before the start of his contract because he didn't want to work, I caught another cranking his bird up with the fucking gas cap missing (twice), a third time he flew about an hour deadhead with the gas cap off and tethered by the chain and it beat the fuck out of the aircraft.

Only one military pilot out of 4 guys in my experience has worked out. He used to be a crew chief and flew the 60 in the guard. He was a smooth pilot and he was responsible and took the intiative. He also took very good care of the aircraft. A very solid worker. When I see a resume these days I think twice if their only experience is military. I hate to say that because I have a huge respect for our vets and I sincerely want to help them out, but the prior guys have left us in a tough spot to trust them.

Now, we typically hire guys with civilian backgrounds. They are well put together and really care about the business of it as well as the aircraft. Most of them came from the firefighting ranks, so that may be a route you could look into OP.