tour pilots

jdog · August 10, 2008

First off, great website! I'm off course wanting to become a helicopter pilot. I'm looking to gain hours through tours rather than CFI. Would it be better for me to do all of my flight training in the R44?

Thank you for your time.

K-38 · August 10, 2008

Sure, good luck with that.

EC120AV8R · August 10, 2008

You are going to be hard pressed to find a tour operator that will hire you unless you have built hours somewhere else first. That's usually done as a CFI. Unless you have something just short of a war chest full of money, I wouldn't even consider doing all my training in an R44.

jdog · August 10, 2008

Thank you so much for the replies. I'm looking at going to Summit in Addison. I wish someone would open a "good" flight school here in the Central Texas area, that way I wouldn't have to drive so far.

rotormandan · August 10, 2008

If you plan on doing all your training in a 44 you could probably just buy all your hours in a 22 instead and skip at least half of the time spent on working as a cfi.

slick1537 · August 11, 2008

I would have to agree, I think a lot of us would be doing the tour route if it was that easy.

captkirkyota · August 11, 2008

I would have to agree, I think a lot of us would be doing the tour route if it was that easy.

X2

PhotoFlyer · August 11, 2008

Thank you so much for the replies. I'm looking at going to Summit in Addison. I wish someone would open a "good" flight school here in the Central Texas area, that way I wouldn't have to drive so far.

Just out of curiosity, where in central TX are you? I drove from Austin to Dallas (sometimes daily) for flight school.

Summit is a good school, as is Sky in Garland. I have been to both.

SkyJock · August 11, 2008

Just out of curiosity, where in central TX are you? I drove from Austin to Dallas (sometimes daily) for flight school.

Summit is a good school, as is Sky in Garland. I have been to both.

Give Longhorn Helicopters a look. They fly out of the Denton Airport. They have three 300C's with 2 more on the way. Plus two 206's. Super great bunch of instructors and the owners are the best!

Edited August 11, 2008 by SkyJock

Darren Hughes · August 11, 2008

It sounds like you've done some research on schools in the area already. What was it that you didn't like about them? Don't know anything about the Texas area, I'm just curious.

jdog · August 11, 2008

I'm from Salado. I looked at Brazos, but I've read/heard a lot about their safety being very, very poor (falling from the sky). I heard that Longhorn was to put a school in Waco, but that deal fell through. There's no school in Austin, Georgetown, Killeen, Temple or Waco.

I wish someone like Summit, Sky or Longhorn would open a school somewhere around here. I know many people who want to get their license, but don't want to drive 2+hrs to go train.

atom · August 11, 2008

You know lots of people that want to fly? Go in on a lease. Get your CFI and train the "lots o people" to make your money back and get a bird in your area. Who knows maybe you can do tours yourself after you get your wings...

Just a thought. There arent any schools here so I am going to have to move to get training. All my friends are more broke than I am......

Good Luck.

a

aviatr · August 11, 2008

I fly with All American Helicopters out of Denton airport. Very professional flight school that are career oriented. High time military trained instructors. Check them out too while you are shopping around. I highly recommend them - they have been really good to me and totally deliver on their promises.

sj7162 · August 12, 2008

It sounds like you've done some research on schools in the area already. What was it that you didn't like about them? Don't know anything about the Texas area, I'm just curious.

I have been watching these forums as a visitor and this is my first post. :-)

I too am looking at schools in the Dallas area. I found this article while researching the schools mentioned here:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...r.4a05d300.html

jehh · August 21, 2008

First off, great website! I'm off course wanting to become a helicopter pilot. I'm looking to gain hours through tours rather than CFI. Would it be better for me to do all of my flight training in the R44?

Thank you for your time.

Generally you would not want to do that, however I dislike absolute statements...

First, if you do all your flying in the R-44, you're limiting yourself to just flying that type of aircraft when you teach. Not many companies are going to want to hire you to just fly the R-44 when you have only 200 hours of flight time. I'd consider it, if we trained you, however that is putting all your eggs in one basket. I wouldn't touch you with a 10 foot pole if we did not train you, it would be unfair to my other CFIs and students.

Second, you probably don't want to know what 200 hours in the R-44 are going to cost you. At $500/hr, that is $100,000, not counting the extra costs that end up in there, so count on $120,000. That is a lot of money to spend on this, you might consider just buying a helicopter instead to do your training in if you're prepared to spend that much money.

Fly Safe!

TitleistMatt · August 21, 2008

I just completed my private in the R22 as well as a transition to the R44. I did my training at Epic Helicopters in Fort Worth, TX. They are a newer school that is very well run with very nice (and practically new) machines.

There is no need to do all of your training in a 44 when you can train in the 22. The transition over was very easy.