Myrtle Beach Tours for time building?

[thatguy]

I've heard people joke about building hours in Myrtle beach doing tours if they don't want to go the CFI route. I have no problem instructing, I'm just wondering if there is any appeal to taking that route? Also, how are they able to do tours for $20 per person? You are looking at a max of $60 per flight, doesn't seem right.

[rotormandan]

That $60 might be for a 2 min ride or something in the ballpark. I did tours at one of the East TN operators. We had an intro flight. $10 a head. 3 pax minimum. 1.5 minutes. This was in the jetranger.

 

I believe the Myrtle beach folks fly R44's and require 500 hours minimum. Truthfully though I very well may be wrong on that as I have no experience there.

 

The appeal is you could probably build time fast in a season and there is nothing wrong with building time via tours. Some will say experience as a cfi will make you a better pilot then experience as a tour pilot. I believe that to be true but when you're a low time pilot, take the 1st job you can get and fly as much as you can. An R44 tour pilot and a cfi both get paid crap to fly in circles and neither will keep you from advancing your career.

 

Whay will hurt you is if you only plan to doing tours from the begining and skip getting your instructor and instrument ratings.

[eagle5]

They still prefer to hire cfis, so skipping that rating is probably not a good idea, plus you still have to get to 500 hours, 100 R44 somehow.

 

I would imagine that a 1000 hour pilot with 500 hours of R44 tours would have a better shot at the entry level turbine tour jobs than a 1000 hour cfi who just taught.

 

I believe Helicopter Adventures claims to pay $2k a month. I don't know what Oceanfront pays.

Edited April 18, 2015 by eagle5

[rotormandan]

at $2k/month (24k per year) you'd be better off teaching at semi busy flight school paycheck wise. I was at $21-$24/hr as a cfi and came in at $28kish per year. It might've been more but we got put on salary for the busy summer. Then our boss decided to bump us back to hourly when things slowed down in the fall. The things you deal with for hours.

 

Truthfully instructing is more fun. It's more interesting and you do get to do different stuff then just fly circles around the airport. Tours where a lot of fun for about a month or 2. You feel cool that you're out of the flight school environment but it becomes mind numbingly boring pretty quick. You have to work hard to keep it interesting. A lot more random stuff happens when you're an instructor.

[BH206L3]

Nothing wrong with doing hop rides, other than it may not pay enough money for you to cover your bills- especially if you borrowed money to finance you flight training! Myrtle Beach is a pretty nice spot- I spent a winter there, quiet and very laid back! I think the flight times they want is a little bit on the much side, I did hop rides for a bit starting out and I just had what I gotten to get my certificates and ratings, around 135 hours in a Bell 47! Flew a 47 doing hop rides, three minute turns - I ended up with 225 hours maybe a bit more- then I when and took a job flying an airplane for a fellow that also had a helicopter, that was how I gotten in, if you can say that, I gotten all the instructor ratings, for a time I was the only CFII for both Airplanes and Helicopters east of the Miss River! Didn't ever count for much, its a hard nut, hard back 32 years when I made the transition and I would guess its as hard now, maybe even harder with what it cost to go into the field! In many ways I am glad that I am almost at the end of it!

[HawaiiCFII]

I worked at Oceanfront. The pay is low but the tips were amazing. On a busy day you can expect 300-400 dollars if you try hard to make the passengers feel safe and give a good tour. It is busy from July 4th to Labor Day, progressively slows down to almost nothing in the winter. There is a short tour, about three minutes, but flying a 5-6 minute tour is probably average and it ranges up to a 30 minute tour. You will fly all day somedays. 8-12 hours in the seat, no AC, 95 degrees, humid, and sunburned is standard in the summer. Busy airspace, two radios going at once, obstacles around the pad, no hover landings with dozens of tourists standing just feet away, and max gross almost every time. The chief pilot is also a great guy. It is a good experience and you will definitely learn how to fly where every second counts.