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I didn't want to pony-up the $70K all up front to attend SSH in San Diego, so I fly at Civic Helicopters in Carlsbad, CA. So far, so good with cost & availability of R22's. The only hurdle I've had thus far is the weather. I chose to begin flight training in San Diego's "rain" season, which meant that my first 7 hours or so were all hover work on the compass rose. No visibility to do anything else. Very harrowing for a rookie! Located at Palomar Airport, they are well positioned for either a coastal departure to buzz the surfers or terrain manuvers out toward Ramona. It doesn't take long to get to where you have wide open space to open up and explore your bird. Aside from busy fixed wing traffic, I am digging it. I seem to be a magnet for citation pilots who like to turn on the pad and wash out my hover. Civic has an honest program with friendly instructors who love what they do. That's all you need.

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Does anyone have any good recommendations in the NY/NJ area? I did my intro flight at Pegasus Flight in Linden, NJ but can't seem to find much information about it. I'm looking to obtain my commercial pilot's license so want to go to a reputable school. Any suggestions would be most appreciated !

I went to Pegasus Flight this past Sunday and they were closed. I did stop by Liberty Helicopter who are located a few hangars down, and they told me that Pegasus Flight was known to lead their students on by stating that the student is not prepared to fly solo and must purchase more flight time and the student never gets to solo. They recommended nassau helicopters in Princeton, NJ. I like you was looking for a school closeby (I live in Staten Island, NY) and would rather travel a little bit just to go to a more reputable school. Hope this helps. Good luck.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Has anyone gone throught the Silver State Helicopter school in Raleigh, NC? From what I have seen so far, there are two schools in the area (NC Rotor and Wing up in Louisburg and SSH in Raleigh). Any reviews for either school or suggestions for additional/alternative schools in the area are welcome and appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Kelly

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Has anyone gone throught the Silver State Helicopter school in Raleigh, NC? From what I have seen so far, there are two schools in the area (NC Rotor and Wing up in Louisburg and SSH in Raleigh). Any reviews for either school or suggestions for additional/alternative schools in the area are welcome and appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Kelly

 

O.k. Did a little research of my own and (through this forum and others) found some disturbing info about a class action suit pending against SSH in Mesa, AZ. If you search on "Silver State" and "class action suit" you should find several articles that explain details.

 

This was only the Mesa location that I saw had an issue.

 

Kelly

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  • 2 weeks later...

I originally looked into SSH in Mesa, AZ, but their financing company was not able to handle the fact the I already had outstanding student loans from my college days. So, I went in search of another school and found Quantum Helicopters (www.quantumhelicopters.com) in Chandler, AZ. They have multiple student funding companies and I was able to get the financing I needed. I'm about 15 hours into my program and couldn't be happier.... well, at least I will be once I manage to work the last couple of kinks out of my hovering... :-)

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I originally looked into SSH in Mesa, AZ, but their financing company was not able to handle the fact the I already had outstanding student loans from my college days. So, I went in search of another school and found Quantum Helicopters (www.quantumhelicopters.com) in Chandler, AZ. They have multiple student funding companies and I was able to get the financing I needed. I'm about 15 hours into my program and couldn't be happier.... well, at least I will be once I manage to work the last couple of kinks out of my hovering... :-)

 

 

THE ONLY SCHOOL that I could find that met my criteria was a school that would guarantee me a job. I only found one with the balls to put it in writing. I was looking for a school that also operates helicopters on contracts such that I kew they would be there to offer me a job once my money ran out. www.HelicopterAcademy.com is the only school that guarantees a job. They have 13 helicopters, are an RHC Service Center with three full time mechanics and one instructor for each helicopter. New York, Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, Houston, Chicago, Cleveland, Long Beach and Portland are places they can teach you. I went through the program several years ago and found impeccable maintenance, sensible management and just like it says on the website that once you hit 300 hours of time built with HelicopterAcademy they will give you a job and they had me pretrained for the position. I made it to 1,000 hours within 365 days of arriving and had a blast doing it. There is also a program if you transer from another school with a private license. Check it out! Best School BAR NONE to train you to a guaranteed position and they train you with dignity in a one on one environment like you are part of the team. It worked well for me and all the students before and after that I came in contact with.

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I went to Pegasus Flight this past Sunday and they were closed. I did stop by Liberty Helicopter who are located a few hangars down, and they told me that Pegasus Flight was known to lead their students on by stating that the student is not prepared to fly solo and must purchase more flight time and the student never gets to solo. They recommended nassau helicopters in Princeton, NJ. I like you was looking for a school closeby (I live in Staten Island, NY) and would rather travel a little bit just to go to a more reputable school. Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

 

Check out CFI Chez Fogel who flies from Caldwell, Westchester and Republic you can get his number at http://www.helicopteracademy.com/contact/contact.htm He's quite a well like and seasoned helicopter pilot that went through the school of hard knocks so you don't have to. I've flown with him a lot over the last two years and he's GREAT!

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I would like to add Universal Academy in El Monte,CA to the list of schools reviewed. I am currently attending this school and have had very good results from the one on one training. I got off to a slow start due to scheduling conflicts between my work schedule and the CFIs and the weather was no help in late September. Enough with the excuses and off we go. I am up to a paltry eleven hours but have been able to get a handle of hovering to the point that I can taxi and take off. This was through the efforts of good instructors. I hope to accomplish my pvt by the end of February at the latest. Then its on to the Comm. portion of the training.

I hope to keep posting good news in the days and weeks to come.

 

JFS

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Seriously looking into Bristow Academy (Titusville) due to my close proximity. Already took a tour and all that jazz. Just wondering if there are any Bristow Academy grads (Professional Pilot course) from the Titusville location on the forum, with any incite/opinions about their experience in Titusville?

 

Thanks a ton!

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  • 2 months later...
I went to Pegasus Flight this past Sunday and they were closed. I did stop by Liberty Helicopter who are located a few hangars down, and they told me that Pegasus Flight was known to lead their students on by stating that the student is not prepared to fly solo and must purchase more flight time and the student never gets to solo. They recommended nassau helicopters in Princeton, NJ. I like you was looking for a school closeby (I live in Staten Island, NY) and would rather travel a little bit just to go to a more reputable school. Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

Not sure who you spoke with at Liberty, but I got my rating from Pegasus this past summer (end of August '07) and soloed at just over the minimum SFAR-73 hours (I think it was 22 or 23 hours - and some of that was waiting on the wind to calm down to RHC limits for solo). I got my rating at just over 50h total rotor time. My instructor Marcus (who, unfortunately, went back to Germany) was fantastic.

 

The negative thing I can think of is that they only had one ship running (722pg) - the other one (116pg) was timed out and they didn't seem to be intent on fixing it. I wouldn't give them money in advance (like ANY flight school, who knows about their financial situation), but my experience was good. Of course with another instructor, YMMV, but I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to steer clear based on my experiences.

 

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about Pegasus.

 

John

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Anyone out there have any experience with Northern Skies Aviation in Laurel, MT? I'm considering doing my RW add-on ratings with them at some point in the future and they offer Part 141 training so I can use my GI Bill. Also, they have mountains available for training in and since I can't seem to find a Part 141 school in Colorado where I live, I figured they'd be a good option. Also, I lived in Missoula, MT for 8 years (a long time ago), so I'm kind of partial to MT as a back-up state for doing training. Any thoughts?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just posted, what I hope to be, a good and complete review of Hillsboro Aviation. Thanks for pointing the review section out in a "sticky"... would have missed it.

 

Just a reminder for registered forum members: please post your helicopter flight school reviews at the reviews page: http://www.verticalreference.com/helicopterreviews

 

Your forum username and password work for the login at the review page. Try to include the dates you attended and what ratings you obtained.

 

Thanks!

 

-Rey

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THE ONLY SCHOOL that I could find that met my criteria was a school that would guarantee me a job. I only found one with the balls to put it in writing. I was looking for a school that also operates helicopters on contracts such that I kew they would be there to offer me a job once my money ran out. www.HelicopterAcademy.com is the only school that guarantees a job. They have 13 helicopters, are an RHC Service Center with three full time mechanics and one instructor for each helicopter. New York, Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, Houston, Chicago, Cleveland, Long Beach and Portland are places they can teach you. I went through the program several years ago and found impeccable maintenance, sensible management and just like it says on the website that once you hit 300 hours of time built with HelicopterAcademy they will give you a job and they had me pretrained for the position. I made it to 1,000 hours within 365 days of arriving and had a blast doing it. There is also a program if you transer from another school with a private license. Check it out! Best School BAR NONE to train you to a guaranteed position and they train you with dignity in a one on one environment like you are part of the team. It worked well for me and all the students before and after that I came in contact with.

 

Forgive me for asking, but with the username boatpix this post may be looked at as self promotion. Were you a genuine student at Helicopter Academy?

 

If so I would like to ask you more questions on this training facility.if possible.

 

I'm from the UK and looking at training in the US for cost reasons, but the number of schools is mind boggling.

 

Thanks

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  • 2 months later...

Well ,

I had my first flight at nobel Avaition today. Nik Scott was my cfi for the flight. Had a really great time he was very professional and helpfull. Even though my kids were keeping the owner and others very busy. lol .... Everyone at the fbo were great people... Cant wait to go full time first of next month.

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  • 1 month later...

I got my private rotorcraft earlier this summer and currently am working on my commercial at a flight school called Fairfield Airventures, Fairfield County Ohio. Its about a 20 minute flight or hour drive from Columbus OH.

 

They operate Schweizer Cbi's in great condition, one is already configured to be an ifr trainer and the other is being upgraded to an ifr trainer. Scweizer's in my limited experience are the most forgiving and capable helicopters ive flown yet (I fly 520D's and 206 II's) and still dont think ive ever flow a helicopter thats quite as fun to fly around in.

 

The airport that the flight school operates at is almost completely dedicated to their flight programs, both rotor instruction and fixed wing instruction (however the rotor operation is the true heart of the operation.) Its called fairfield county airport (LHQ)

 

There are three full time flight instructors who operate for fairfield airventures, all of whom ive gotten to know very well. The head instructor who was my CFI, runs both the flight program and the airport, so its possible to fly whenever you want and wherever you want. This flight certified 10 of the 15 columbus police helicopter pilots.

 

All three CFI's are extremely talented pilots whos main concern is to teach new helicopter pilots to fly safe and to stay out of trouble, they let you learn through your own mistakes, but never allow you to get so far into trouble that you endanger yourself.

 

Im 17 and i decided, due to my summer time constraints to get my private in a little over a month and was flying for about 4 hours a day plus ground school, and there wasnt one time that one of the three instructors wasnt willing to go up and fly with me.

 

Although i have no basis to compare, i cant imagine that there are many flight schools who provide the same kind of service and knowledge as these guys did. I highly recommend this program to anyone living in pen, mich, ohio or any state within a reasonable distance.

 

http://www.fairfieldair.com/

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  • 3 weeks later...

I started my PPL at Los Angeles Helicopters in Long Beach, CA in August. I needed a part 141 school due to the fact that I'm trying to go through CFII and I'm using the GI bill and, after a bunch of research, it seemed like the best school around for the price.

 

When I walked in, everybody seemed friendly, explained the process to me, and even put up with my interogative questioning. Since I've signed up, I haven't looked back. There are a couple of schools around here that are a bit cheaper, but none of them offer an environment like you get at LBC. At first it was a bit overwhelming, but I'm sure I have a bit of an advantage dealing with congested airspace than someone training in the country.

 

The instructors have been great. They assigned me to a CFI they thought I would get along with (we both did the same job in the Army) and it's been working out great. All of the CFIs I've flown with have been extremely knowlegeable, patient, and are able to effectively teach the information in a way that's easy to grasp and absorb.

 

I just reached 21 hours today after my first solo. They have allowed me to progress at my own pace and didn't waste time beating details into my head that had already stuck. I do have a bit of experience on the maintnance side of the house, and the fact that they don't try to repeat a bunch of stuff I already know which is very cost effective. I realize that not everyone is in this situation, but the other students there are moving along quite quickly as well. I should probably also state that, while they keep you moving along, at no time have I felt rushed or like I wasn't comfortable with what I was doing. As I said, all these guys are very patient and are VERY good instructors.

 

This is probably a bit long winded and rambling.... The dangers of writing a school review at 0130. If anyone has any questions about this school, feel free to email me. I also looked into a lot of the other non-141 schools in the area so I have a bunch of info on them as well. Hope this helped someone out!

 

J-

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Still no word on if bristow in florida is any good i see. I keep hearin the scoolin is great but the place is packed with foreiners(not that this is bad) just getting flight time seames hard. I viseited the place in june and was turned off by how meny studednts where floting around. They definitly need to build a better bigger facility. Id still go there if i could figure out 9 months of funding my life and training everyone i met was supper nice. but a lot of students in a small place.

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  • 2 weeks later...

hey everyone i am new to the this forum but it seems like it has alot of information but i was wondering if anyone had information on palm beach helicopters or ocean helicopters in palm beach fl. i am currently living in gville working for us airways so i know i will have a job if i head to south florida. any news would be appreciated

 

 

thanks

 

sean

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Does anyone have any information about Precision Aviation located in Newberg, Oregon? BTW my name is Marcus. I'm a H-60 Blackhawk crew chief out of Ft. Campbell, KY. I've been looking into this civilian flight school for when I get out of the military in early 2010. I've spoken with the flight instructors over email a couple times, and they seem like really nice, very professional people and pilots. A company I use to work for back in 03', P.J Helicopters, out of Red Bluff, CA, gave me some insight about Precision Aviation in Oregon, and highly recommended them for learning to fly helicopters (Precision has trained a few of the pilots currently working at P.J's.) I just wanted to know if anyone has been through that area, and spoken to any of the employees, or know anyone that has worked or graduated from their flying course. Any information about them is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

- Marcus

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