Your Opinion

[Dave D]

Hello everyone, my name is David and I hope to get my helicopter license within the next 3-5 years. I am 16 years old (long wait :down: ) and live in Osoyoos. I've been looking at schools in B.C. and Alberta, but am most interested with the schools that train in the mountains. I've read a couple of previous topics, but would like you opinion on which school would be best.

 

In the mean time I've thought about attending the nearest fixed wing school (pentiction) to get my private pilots license. Would fixed wing experience help me with helicopter training? or is this money that should be used for helicopters?

 

Thanks, Dave

[R22Captain]

In the mean time I've thought about attending the nearest fixed wing school (pentiction) to get my private pilots license. Would fixed wing experience help me with helicopter training? or is this money that should be used for helicopters?

 

Thanks, Dave

 

Hey Dave

 

I had my fixed wing license before doing my rotary conversion. There's no real advantage/disadvantage to doing it either way.

 

Cost ends up being practically the same. If you do your FW ifr/night, it'll cost you less to convert to heli down the road but I would hinge your decision on that. You're looking at an extra 1-2 years to do you FW license before 4-6 months to do a conversion.

 

If you know now that you 100% want to be a heli pilot then just do your rotary license.

 

CHL has a school at penticton. Some of the best instructors in the country........but it'll cost you.....and you can do your complete license in a 120.....if you have $180,000 hahaha

 

I'm biased because I trained and work for CHL....there's lots of good school's out there. Bighon in Springbank runs a tight ship from what I'v seen. Runs a efficient program, lots of new machinary, hires as many grads as they can every year, gets them flying for a year and even seeks out a job for you after that at a bigger company. Not bad eh?

 

CHL also hires as many grads as they can. Their hiring comes and goes depending on the forcast for the season. I went to their Buttonville school 5 years ago and 6 of the 7 fulltime students got on and are now flying. 4 of them are all in 1500 hour range moving drills on A-stars, I might be going IFR FO on the 212 in the next few weeks if all goes well.

 

Those are just the 2 schools I'm familiar with. Lot's of guys on here with lots more hours then myself who have gone to all kinds of different schools. Lots of option out there.

[AH1]

Do you have your IFR now, or are they going to give it to you?

[Dave D]

Thank-you for you information R22Captain.

 

I've only been to the Canadian hangar in Penticton once, and that was 1.5 years ago. To say the least, I was impressed. Of the 5 of us students who visited, I was the one who didn't get to go for 15 minute flight, but I did get to tour the hangar and talk with the pilots and engineers. Although I would love to train here in the future, I think the cost is out of the question for me. I'm willing to spend the next 3-5 years saving up my pennies, but not the next 10 for $80,000 to $100,000 course. I do have a question though. Does Canadian hire 100hr pilots who've trained in penticton, or do they mostly hire students from Buttonville?

 

As for fixed-wing training, it's about the only thing I've got for getting in the air right now, which I really want. The more I think about it, I wouldn't mind having a ppl just for cruising around, and from what I understand, things such as navigation and meteorology are nearly identical for fixed and rotary wing. This is something I've really got to think about if the $8500 is worth it or not.

thanks, David

[ISE DA BY]

Canadian hires from both schools. There is probably only 1 or 2 guys a year from Penticton as opposed to 10-12 who graduate from Buttonhole. The Penticton guy is usually a shoe-in for ground crew and they'll probably take 5-6 of the others, but as 22Cap said, it all depends on the year as to how many make it in. Out of those maybe 3 will get PPC'd the following spring.

[Winnie]

navigation and meteorology are nearly identical for fixed and rotary wing

 

Not nearly... IDENTICAL...

 

Now the other end of the coin, do you want to keep two licences up to date...

 

 

you can start doing a couple of helicopter hours here and there ( with BC Helicopters or Chinook or any of the others ou there in the BC area) or do some "stuck-wing" time, any time you'll do will have SOME benefit, wether it is from actual skills or just theortical knowledge.

 

The most important thing is to study amd keep the knowledge part in your head

 

So STUDY UP, and be ready to go wherever you go, read Cole's piece, and study yer heart out...

 

Cheers

H.

[helikid]

Hello everyone, my name is David and I hope to get my helicopter license within the next 3-5 years. I am 16 years old (long wait :down: ) and live in Osoyoos. I've been looking at schools in B.C. and Alberta, but am most interested with the schools that train in the mountains. I've read a couple of previous topics, but would like you opinion on which school would be best.

 

In the mean time I've thought about attending the nearest fixed wing school (pentiction) to get my private pilots license. Would fixed wing experience help me with helicopter training? or is this money that should be used for helicopters?

 

Thanks, Dave

 

[helikid]

Hey Dave, 16 is a great time to start thinking of flight training. There really isn't any benefit from having a private fixed wing licence first. My suggestion would be to start saving your money now and do the research of which school you want to go to. My suggestions would be to train at BC Helicopters. They fly the schweizer 300cbi which is a great training helicopter for being in the mountains and preparing you for the world of helicopters. They do extensive mountain work and are like five minutes away from all the rivers, lakes, valleys, and mountains. Check them out and try an intro ride. You can do it any time and you get to do like half the flying.

[Dave D]

Hey Dave, 16 is a great time to start thinking of flight training. There really isn't any benefit from having a private fixed wing licence first. My suggestion would be to start saving your money now and do the research of which school you want to go to. My suggestions would be to train at BC Helicopters. They fly the schweizer 300cbi which is a great training helicopter for being in the mountains and preparing you for the world of helicopters. They do extensive mountain work and are like five minutes away from all the rivers, lakes, valleys, and mountains. Check them out and try an intro ride. You can do it any time and you get to do like half the flying.

 

Thanks helikid, I'm still doing my ppl soon, and the 300 looks like one heck of a nice machine, but just remember BC helicopters isn't the only school that trains on that machine. Never the less it probably is a good school.

 

[sk76driver]

Nothing wrong with flying with other instructors as long as they are high time and highly experienced instructors.

 

Check ALL the schools out and go for experienced instructors. To be honest, you come out of flight school with 100 hours same as everyone else. No company gives a sh#t if it was in a Bell 47, R22 or 300....... it just doesn't matter.

 

I trained on a Bell 47, guess how many hours I have in a Bell 47? About 100 hours....and around 10,000 hours on everything else! Get my point?

 

But if you are trained by high time guys, chances are they have passed along good habits and you will get more than what is written in the Flight Training Syllabus. In other words, they will teach you about having the right attitude as well.

 

Do your homework! Good luck!