Hello everyone, I was directed to your site by a friend of mine while discussing my future options to begin training to become a helicopter pilot and was hoping to pick a few brains of people who have gone through the process. Let me start off with a little introduction. I am a 22 year old kid living in Eastern Washington with an extremely strong desire to fly helicopters for a living! Last May I graduated from Northern Arizona University with a BS in Forestry and am currently a Forester in the Inland Northwest. A large portion of my job is focused on wildland fire (both suppression and ignition) where we heavily utilize helicopters and it is my dream to actually be working up in the air rather than eating smoke and rotor wash on the ground
I am currently exploring my options to move forward in pursuing a career in aviation and would love some advice. So far I have toured two schools, Inland Helicopters in Spokane, WA and Guidance Aviation in Prescott, AZ. The only certainty I've found is that helicopter training is not cheap. From what I have gathered to schools seem to be polar opposites with Inland Helicopters being very small, laid back, and less structured (also less expensive) vs. Guidance which is much larger, far more structured, but also far more expensive. So I guess my first question would be is it worth it to spend a lot more money to receive more structured (and high altitude) training or do you recommend taking the cheaper alternative?
I have a multitude of additional questions that I would like to get answered but I was hoping this would serve as a good starting point to open up a discussion.
Thanks!
I am currently exploring my options to move forward in pursuing a career in aviation and would love some advice. So far I have toured two schools, Inland Helicopters in Spokane, WA and Guidance Aviation in Prescott, AZ. The only certainty I've found is that helicopter training is not cheap. From what I have gathered to schools seem to be polar opposites with Inland Helicopters being very small, laid back, and less structured (also less expensive) vs. Guidance which is much larger, far more structured, but also far more expensive. So I guess my first question would be is it worth it to spend a lot more money to receive more structured (and high altitude) training or do you recommend taking the cheaper alternative?
I have a multitude of additional questions that I would like to get answered but I was hoping this would serve as a good starting point to open up a discussion.
Thanks!