Highest Concentration of Flight Schools

[slick1537]

What area has the highest concentration of flight schools? The reason I ask is because when we move, my girlfriend will be attending a two year college near where ever we go. I want the highest possibility of being able to find an instructing job where I am, since I cannot really relocate a second time and leave my girlfriend wherever we go while she is still in school. I would really love to train in hawaii, but I am afraid there might not be a big job market for CFI/CFII there which would leave me with no job, earning no hours until we could move again, in which time I might get rusty on the flying anyway. A quality education is also important to me, I would like to attend a good school that offers education zero throught CFII. Thank in advance for the help.

[HelliBoy]

no brainer: central florida

[cptcoma]

Los Angeles Area

[slick1537]

Are there a lot near Las Vegas?

[Voluptuary5]

I don’t know about anywhere else, but there seems to be quite a few in Oregon (at least for the population). There are 2-and-a-half in the Portland area – Hillsboro Aviation and Applebee (the half comes from Hillsboro Aviation also running a helicopter out of the Troutdale Airport about 30 minutes east of Portland). There is Precision Aviation about 30 minutes southwest of Portland in Newberg. There is a school in Salem about 45 minutes south of Portland and Avia/Corvallis Aero in Corvallis (about 1.5 hours south of Portland). Further south there is also Timber Mountain in Grants Pass and I know there are 1 or 2 others in the bottom part of the state but sorry I forget their names. There are also some up in Washington but I don’t know anything about these schools or how far they would be from the Portland area.

 

Also, there are quite a few community colleges in the Portland area and all up-and-down the I-5 corridor for that matter.

 

-V5

[Heli_Girl]

There also seems to be quite a few in Texas from what i've noticed...maybe not as many as the other places, but im in the Houston area and know of...about 4 near me, then quite a few more in the Dallas area.

 

So they are options for CFI jobs, and once you get enough hours there's the Gulf right here, so you may be able to get a job flying to the rigs which would keep you pretty stationary, unlike a few other jobs that would require you to move to wherever they needed you to work.

[fry]

I would really love to train in hawaii...

 

Hawaii? Any idea what it costs to live there? You seem to be particular about the quality of life where you live so, have you considered what living on the gulf coast as a working pilot will be like? Here's a description from the JH board:

 

A friend of a friend asked me what it's like to work as a helicopter pilot in the GOM. He was never in the armed forces. He works at a desk job, and is getting bored. I told him to imagine the following:

 

1. Drive 100-400 miles to your workplace the day before your 7 day hitch starts. You make the long commute because where you work is a place nobody would want to raise a family. If you don't have a family, it still doesn't matter- because where you work is a place even you would not want to live.

 

2. Wake up at 3:30am - 4:30am every day for the next 7 days in a row, dressed in brown or blue/white polyester clothes.

 

3. Preflight your aircraft in complete darkness as you are swarmed and bitten by enormous clouds of mosquitoes.

 

4. Get in your aircraft that is full of hungry mosquitoes and fly smelly customers to smelly locations, or lay around at the base on smelly couches all day, watching the History Channel.

 

5. Get stuck off-shore and spend the night in a very small room with 2-3 smelly ex-convicts that off-gas their deep fried dinners all night. Enjoy the cigarette smoke that is pumped through the air-conditioning system into your room. Wake-up and stand in a moldy, filthy shower the next morning while being watched by an perverted, obese man.

 

6. Do not drink alcohol for 7 days in a row.

 

7. When you sign out at the end of your 14 work hour day, drive or walk to your company's mini trailer park, where you will now a very small space with everyone that you worked with all day, sometimes even your manager. Either watch what he is watching on TV, or go to your sleeping room and listen to what he is watching on TV. Can you imagine sleeping in the same trailer as your office administrator, boss, and co-workers for 7 straight days? Remember that there is nowhere else closeby to go....no town, no coffee shops, no restaurants, etc...

 

8. Eat at the local gas station, or drive 30 minutes for a meal, or drive 30 minutes to a substandard grocery store and then cook your own meals in your trailer.

 

9. Drive 100-400 miles home, at the end of your 7th work day. Or don't drive home, because you have been mandated for workover, and now you are going to stay another 3 days. Call the wife- I'm sure she'll understand (again).

 

10. Wait for a check in the mail that is nearly half of what you where making at your desk job. Wonder how you will ever save enough for retirement. Wonder what skills you will have in 25 years when you can no longer qualify for a flight medical.

 

11. Your children grow-up, and your spouse grows distant, while you spend half of every year away from home. Soon, you realize that the 5-6 days that you are at home on break don't even matter anymore, because everyone thinks that you are the invisible man, or that you really don't exist at all...

 

12. You don't discuss your work days with your family anymore, because more often than not, it is humiliating to you, unless, of course, you make up flying stories that are not based in reality.

 

13. When the hurricane comes, you will not be going home- the company needs you. Your house might get wiped out, and your family may need you, but you will be expected to work through the disaster, while your family fends for themselves. You may not return home for more than a week after your house has been damaged.

 

The glamorous life of a professional pilot.

[warpig]

well i went to palm beach helicopters in palm beach obviously, and there are roughly 6 or so schools within 45 mins of one another.

[slick1537]

Fry what field are you in? As far as getting up early a working in shitty conditions, don't worry about it, I get up at 2:45 am and work in a freezer maintained at -20º F 6 days a week for about $24000 a year before taxes in NY, and NY is one of the highest taxed states in the union. As far as quality of life, hawaii is a best case senario, you only live once, as long as I can make ends meet, money doesnt really matter to me, you cannot take it with you when you die, might as well make it worth while, instead of being so negative. BTW, I said nothing about working in the gulf, someone else did.

 

warpig I will have to consider that, how did you like your school?

[RotorWeed]

I say go for it. I have never talked to anyone that said they regreted becoming a helicopter pilot. I would do it all over again.

 

RW

[fry]

Fry what field are you in? As far as getting up early a working in shitty conditions, don't worry about it, I get up at 2:45 am and work in a freezer maintained at -20º F 6 days a week for about $24000 a year before taxes in NY, and NY is one of the highest taxed states in the union. As far as quality of life, hawaii is a best case senario, you only live once, as long as I can make ends meet, money doesnt really matter to me, you cannot take it with you when you die, might as well make it worth while, instead of being so negative. BTW, I said nothing about working in the gulf, someone else did.

 

Did not mean to diss you...it does sound like flying would be an improvement over what you're doing now and I understand how sunny beaches would appeal to you. As far as being negative, there's lots to be negative about when you're talking about spending more than $50k on flight school (three times that if you finance it) and then appenticing for a couple of years while possibly not making ends meet. The risk is real that you will not make it to a full-time flying job but will still have a pile of debt. Don't consider it just baseless negativity consider it...and let the fear help motivate you.

 

Everybody says, "money doesn't matter" when they are young and unattached...that'll change. Finally, regarding the gulf, that's where the work is.

 

If you do this flying thing...may I suggest that everyday you stick your head in the freezer you remind you of where you're coming from. You'll need the motivation. Sincerely, good luck.

[flingwing206]

Hawaii? Any idea what it costs to live there? You seem to be particular about the quality of life where you live so, have you considered what living on the gulf coast as a working pilot will be like? Here's a description from the JH board:

This is kind of a worst-case GOM scenerio. Things are evolving rapidly as the big operators compete for pilots (both new and experienced). For instance, average starting pay has gone up almost $10,000 in the last 18 months.

 

However, helicopter training is an investment in a lifestyle, not a lucrative career. If you're looking for the best return on training dollars, go into IT, specifically networking and network management. Double the pay, none of the risk. Me? I choose a lifestyle, not an income.

[slick1537]

Actaully suprisingly enough, I have a computer repair certification, and just got done with 2 years of working on a the computer Networking CCNA, I could probably pass the CCNA test but I never took it. I have recently come to the relization however, that there is no way in hell I could work with computers for the rest of my life, even though I just seem to be naturaully good with them, I know I cannot work a regular 9-5 job for the rest of my life. I like hands on things, and I like mechanical things, and staring at a computer screen in a cubicle is something I know I couldn't do. I am not looking to get rich, but rather go to work, enjoy it, and bring home decent pay. If I have to do a shitty job for two or three years, so be it.

 

Fry, sticking my head in the freezer is probably going to end up being a very good piece of advice and I will remember it in my travels.