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Choosing a Career School

While searching for a career school, try not to fall into several of the money traps, used by pilot schools, which might lead you to believe are required to obtain employment or are a necessity for quality training.  

One of the biggest is the "Turbine Transition Course".  These courses are almost never needed to get a job.  Most companies today like to see a little turbine time and for the most part in the aircraft you will be flying.  Since you don't know which aircraft you'll be in, you likely won't have time in the proper aircraft.  It is almost always better to wait until you know what the job requirements are prior to spending money that you might not need to spend.  Don't believe the lie that all turbines are started and operated the same.  Even between different models of the Bell 206, the starting procedures may be different.  In point of fact, we train flight techniques that directly carry over to the proper operation of turbine helicopters.  

Another great waste of money is the "External Load Course".   These are mostly to teach sling loads attached to a hook below the helicopter and would be used in setting equipment, water drops for fires, dry materials application in ag, etc.  How can a pilot with less than a thousand hours expect to obtain employment doing work of this nature?  NO ONE in this industry will hire an inexperienced pilot to do external load, insurance simply will not allow it.   

Probably the biggest misconception is that your pilot time be in Robinson helicopters in order to obtain employment as a CFI or other "low time required" position.  In all honesty, there are too many pilots with nothing but Robinson time scrambling for the jobs requiring Robinson experience.  The fact is, you will need a minimum of 200 hours of Robinson time, as well as the Robinson Factory School (only given in California and with a 2 to 3 month waiting list) to meet insurance requirements for flight instruction.  If all you want to do is flight instruct in Robinsons, by all means, train in Robinsons.  Be aware that, Robinson helicopters have a 25 knot wind limitation (required to be met by FAA regulation) that severely restricts the training time that may be done.  In order to act as a pilot in a Robinson, 50 hours in make is required no matter if you're 200 hour pilot or a 20,000 hour pilot.  A licensed helicopter pilot can fly any helicopter legally up to 12,500 gross weight, with any number of engines and without additional hours, except the Robinson.  To reverse the statement made by Robinson operators, "If you can fly all other helicopters, you still can't fly a Robinson.".  Another point of fact is that most of the offshore and EMS operators don't really like Robinson time on a pilots resume.  The reason is that Robinsons fly and handle differently than the other aircraft you will be flying commercially.  Their odd control configuration, coupled with marginal ability to handle emergencies, as well as their poor safety record, combine to provide a less than adequate training machine for the helicopter industry.  One unusual method in Robinson training, requires that hover height be kept around 5 feet above the ground, however, it is recommended that when practicing hovering autorotations (engine failures while in a hover), that the hover height be only 2 feet.  Seems a bit contradictory doesn't it?  Please do yourself a favor and do a bit more research before deciding to train in "Robbies". 

As for safety, the following statistics from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board speak for themselves:

Loss-of-control (LOC) accidents involved an in-flight loss of main-rotor control; structural failure of the main-rotor blade that did not involve pre-existing fatigue of rotor-blade materials; or loss of aircraft control or collision with terrain for unknown reasons, in the absence of structural failure, encounter with instrument meteorological conditions of pilot impairment because of drugs or alcohol.

Source: U.S. National Transportation Safety Board

These statistics do not reflect the thousands of hours safely flown by the U.S. military in the Schweizer/Hughes 269/300 series or all the other makes and models used by the U.S. military.  There are, and have never been, ANY Robinson helicopters used by the U.S. military.

The exponential rise in accident rate has slowed somewhat after SFAR-73 (a special regulation to help control the accident rate in Robinson helicopters) was issued, however the fatality rate still remains twice that of Schweizer/Hughes aircraft.

Many helicopter schools tout is their FAA Part 141 status.  In reality, Part 141 status is only obtained by most schools to grease the wheels for students loans, VA benefits, and to obtain visas needed to attract foreign students.  The intent of the FAA in issuing Part 141 status is in regulating standardization in the training methods and materials presented to students.  In exchange, this status allows the school to finish students with substantially less hours than under FAR Part 61.  Brazos Helicopters has its own standardization program and we  feel that the lessened time requirements, under Part 141, are not beneficial in preparing students to be safe and competent professional helicopter pilots.  

Some schools guarantee in-house employment of a student on graduation.  This appears to be great perk of training at these schools, however, you will either pay for this practice in mediocre training or exorbitant training costs, or both.

You will find that schools, deep in heart of high traffic density areas (around major airports), try to promote their school by their "make you a better pilot by dealing with ATC (Air Traffic Control) on every flight" pitch.  This is a ridiculous attitude and can't be further from the truth.  In actuality most flights as a commercial helicopter pilot are accomplished without the control and input from ATC.   By the time the the Instrument Rating (40 hours exposure to flight under ATC control) is obtained, the pilot is completely comfortable with operating in controlled environments.  What really happens is that over half of your training flight is wasted in cruising flight just to get to a lower traffic density training area.  This means you will not progress as rapidly as a student operating in an un-controlled environment.  Uncontrolled flights are what you will do over 98% of the time as a working pilot.  Though, in some cases, as in flight instructing at a controlled airport, electronic news gathering, or the occasional EMS job, more exposure to ATC in seen.   Don't let this fool you into thinking that 100% of your training needs to be done in the ATC environment.  While in the pursuit of the Private and Commercial ratings, many hours are spent in ATC environments without wasting valuable training time exiting the controlled airspace.  Another advantage to training at an un-controlled base is that you will not experience the traffic delays and flight cancellations due to the marginal weather that would ground your flight while under ATC control.  Remember that Federal Aviation Regulations require increased cloud separation and visibility in order to reduce the possibility of an aircraft, that is flying under instrument flight rules, colliding with another aircraft when approaching an airport to land.  At Brazos we want our students to learn to fly the aircraft first, then expose them to the regimentation of operation in controlled airspace.

You can see by the chart below that the majority of low level airspace in the US is "Class G" un-controlled airspace.

The United States Airspace System

In summary, to make it short and sweet, do lots of research and choose wisely!    

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