Think Outside the Box

[sactown77]

For most the road from 200 hrs to 1000+ hrs is long and winding. And those who think they will get a full time, stable job right out of training are sadly mistaken in most cases. I challenge new CFI's to think outside the box. You have the right skills, the right certifications, and a can do attitude, but one thing is missing. A helicopter.

 

So here's a suggestion. Step one: don't quit your day job. Step two: Find someone with a helicopter in your area.

 

Rather than asking for a job, create your own job. Ask the owner of the helicopter "If I could get paying customers to fly with me 2 times or more a week, would you allow me to use your helicopter?" In most cases, after a check out ride, they would allow it.

 

Now you're a privately contracted flight instructor and with a little advertising and persistence you will fly at least twice a week.

 

Will you get 1000 hrs in a year. No. but at least you are slowly gaining experience and not losing your skills.

 

I hope this helps someone. It's really sad to see CFI's not flying.

 

One last thing. How do I know this works? because it's what I'm doing right now. .

Edited May 3, 2009 by sactown77

[tattooed]

You are 100% correct, and this is EXACTLY what I am doing. I am building my own "school", so to speak. I have a helicopter at my "disposal", and if I can bring in some students, I can instruct them. He's already promised me some demo flights as the come in. Things are a bit slow now.

 

Time to get creative. Fortunately for me, I am also a Licensed Veterinary Technician, and I am keeping my current 3x week work schedule, and making myself available to my CFI for demos, and "soon to start" Inst/II training. I think if I am patient and flexible, things will happen. But I have a job, and I have my Inst ratings to work on, so I'll just keep pushing forward.

 

 

Interesting topic. Will be interesting to see other's posts.

 

~S

[JDHelicopterPilot]

That is a great thing to do and am glad to see some are able to keep working towards thier goal. Keep it up. There are ways to keep going and this is one of them.

 

JD

[Hovergirl]

You have the right skills, the right certifications, and a can do attitude, but one thing is missing. A helicopter.

 

Two things, actually: a helicopter and a student. It's possible, and a great idea, but hard to drum up that business when people are generally looking for a school, and you need to find a way to get their attention and trust...

[TheLorax]

good post, hopefully gives some people a jump-start.

[Regan]

Sounds like a great idea, but a couple things to look into when going that route:

 

The heli is now being used for commercial work where it may not have been before. 100hr inspections are going to be needed. (They are not required on privately operated ships, correct?)

 

The current insurance on the ship may not cover training flights.

 

Anyone have anything else that I left out that is needed for training and isn't needed for non-training or private ships? And if any of this is incorrect, please correct me!

Edited May 4, 2009 by Regan

[500E]

More maintenance costs general wear & tare, insurance, you would require quite a few hours to cover overheads, + if a Robinson depreciation as the rebuild gets ever closer.

Do the sums & if it stacks up not a bad idea, but factor in an hourly cost for your time & expertise, don't do it just to build hours, it could backfire when you look for a job as some would see you as taking legitimate customers from them, at unrealistic price.

[sactown77]

In my case, I am sub contracted by an existing school, so the maintenance and insurance costs are already covered. As far as finding students, again think outside the box. I'm not going to give away all my ideas, but at least think beyond your typical career student. remember you are licensed to do more than just teach. And get creative with advertising. and offer a lower rate than the guy down the street. this is about survival. Those who are pessimistic will not survive. Those who are not creative will not survive. So if you're sitting at home counting the months since you last flew, go out and make a move.

[SquirrelFlight]

This is somewhat along the lines of some mental masturbation I was doing a couple months ago.

 

Bear in mind that this is currently an "aha!" idea that I haven't had time to critically pick over yet, so there are probably lots of flaw; probably many of them fatal.

 

Anyway, I've recently taken an interest in cooking. Enough to ponder whether or not I could afford/schedule going through a culinary school (I haven't made any decisions there yet; it's another area of mental masturbation). So, I started thinking, what if I could outfit a mid to large helicopter with a mobile kitchen and fly to places where people might not have ready access to "gourmet"-ish food and cook it for them. Sort of a taco truck in the sky with better food. I'm not exactly sure who that would be (oil rig workers? forest fire fighters?) or if they'd even be able to afford it (I'd have to support both myself and the helicopter with my income, afterall).

 

Plus, if I were to get the idea to take off, the "kitchen" could be made modularly so that one day I could fly a pizza oven around, the next I could fly a sushi kitchen (or whatever).... I've even wondered if were possible to fly around to state/county fairs with a set of deep fryers and sell fry bread and elephant ears (since any given fair would be several weeks long, that would cut down on the overhead of the helicopter).

 

Like I said, probably not that great an idea once all the pros and cons are hammered out, but fun to think about all the same.

[helonorth]

I don't get it. You're telling people to find somebody willing to hand over their helicopter so you

can do instruction in it? You say that is what you are doing but you say you are a contract CFI

at a flight school. Which is it? Putting hull insurance on an aircraft (to insruct) is BIG bucks. Who's gonna pay for it? Sounds like both of you that are doing this are working at existing flight schools.

Edited May 5, 2009 by helonorth

[Fizt4hire]

Going with what Squirrelflight was talking about, I've been toying with the idea of a helicopter pizza delivery service. The logistics are a nightmare though. The birds would be trashed from all the runup/shutdown cycles in just one night (unless the next deliveries were loaded with the blades still turning, but you'd need a lot of bussiness for that) and finding a crew that is capable of operating a hoist yet willing to work for min. wage would also be difficult. The way I see it, ordering a 'za from me would more or less just be a status thing, everyone on the block would see a helicopter hovering over the Jone's house and know that it's pizza night. The motto could even be "It tastes like sh*t, but it's delivered by helicopter!" Wow, I need to lay off the sauce.

[tattooed]

Dude, $400 pizza?....

 

 

Whirli-Pizza

Heli-Pizza

 

 

What would we call it?

[palmfish]

"How to make a million dollars: First, get a million dollars"

 

- Steve Martin

[Hovergirl]

What about restrictions on "Holding out" or advertising -- don't they also apply to flight instruction? Wouldn't you lose your Part 91 status if you were advertising your status commercially?

[67november]

Check rides should be like skirts -- short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover everything...

 

NICE

[jehh]

What about restrictions on "Holding out" or advertising -- don't they also apply to flight instruction? Wouldn't you lose your Part 91 status if you were advertising your status commercially?

 

No, offering flight instruction to the public is not holding out. Holding out is offering charter (or rather air carrier) services to the public.

 

119 has a list of stuff you can do outside of 135, with a few rules and restrictions, flight instruction is one of those.

 

Flight instruction (and all flying) is conducted under Part 91 of the regs, modified by any other parts you may be operating under, that is why Part 91 is called "General Operating Flight Rules" or whatever it says.

 

Now that I've said this, I'm sure someone will point out some obscure exception to the above rule, but in every case I can think of, it applies.

[tattooed]

jehh, you are correct. Fortunately for us, the FAA puts Flight Instruction into it's own, special little category, and we can "get away" with alot more than general charter operations can.

[helonorth]

jehh, you are correct. Fortunately for us, the FAA puts Flight Instruction into it's own, special little category, and we can "get away" with alot more than general charter operations can.

Care to elaborate?

[tattooed]

jehh already did.

[helonorth]

jehh said that flight instruction has nothing to do with part 135. What special privileges do flight instructors have that 135 operators don't?

Edited May 8, 2009 by helonorth

[tattooed]

no drug testing (135 req's)

can "hold out"

can fly more than 25 NM

don't need a LoA

etc etc.

 

I didn't necessarily mean just 135.

 

relax.

[tattooed]

And FYI, I was making a rhetorical, silly comment.

[SquirrelFlight]

Hmmm.... do you think there'd be enough heat generated from exhaust gasses to heat a mobile kitchen or oven? We could land the helicopter in a neighborhood park and cook the pizzas right there ;-)

 

Going with what Squirrelflight was talking about, I've been toying with the idea of a helicopter pizza delivery service. The logistics are a nightmare though. The birds would be trashed from all the runup/shutdown cycles in just one night (unless the next deliveries were loaded with the blades still turning, but you'd need a lot of bussiness for that) and finding a crew that is capable of operating a hoist yet willing to work for min. wage would also be difficult. The way I see it, ordering a 'za from me would more or less just be a status thing, everyone on the block would see a helicopter hovering over the Jone's house and know that it's pizza night. The motto could even be "It tastes like sh*t, but it's delivered by helicopter!" Wow, I need to lay off the sauce.