Press release

[500E]

Jerry Airola, president and CEO of Silver State Helicopters, will be hosting a career opportunity seminar in Fort Worth on Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 7 p.m. The seminar will be held at Meacham International Airport located at 4701 North Main Street, Hangar 45N.

 

Airola, who will be speaking at the seminar, will educate local residents about the exciting benefits of becoming a professional helicopter pilot. Potential students will have a chance to meet certified flight instructors as well as get an insider’s look at the aviation industry. The seminar will last approximately 90 minutes and there is no charge to attend.

 

There is currently a shortage of qualified helicopter pilots available in a field that is expected to grow as much as 60 percent in the next 10 years. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there has been a 13 to 17 percent decrease in commercial helicopter pilots since 1994. Silver State Helicopters is helping to fill that void in communities across the nation.

 

For more information on the career opportunity seminar, please contact (888) 91-PILOT.

 

Silver State Helicopters was founded in 1999 and is a full-service commercial helicopter operator with flight and air traffic control academies. Operations include search and rescue, air ambulance, aerial tours, photography, law enforcement air support, agriculture and fire fighting, along with many other services. Silver State Helicopters has operations at more than thirty locations in eighteen states. Silver State Helicopters is the largest flight academy and the fastest growing rotorcraft company in the world today. For further information, please visit their website at www.silverstatehelicopters.com.

 

[fry]

There is currently a shortage of qualified helicopter pilots available in a field that is expected to grow as much as 60 percent in the next 10 years. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there has been a 13 to 17 percent decrease in commercial helicopter pilots since 1994.

 

Actually, according to the FAA there has been a very slight (3.75%) increase in commercial helicopter pilots since 1997,

 

http://www.faa.gov/data_statistics/aviatio...dia/air7-06.xls

 

And a 23% decrease since 1990.

 

That would seem to indicate the rather than growing 60% in the next ten years (to more than 35,000 working pilots?????) "the field" has shrunk and will continue to remain flat just as it has been for the past ten years.

 

Airola's full of bullshit statistics!

[Galadrium]

SSH should get into selling timeshares or work-at-home get rich schemes. If you're foolish enough to get into something because of what you hear at a "seminar" you deserve what you're going to end up with.

Edited October 11, 2007 by Galadrium

[BOATFIXERGUY]

I didn't learn at SSH, but with all I hear negative about them, how in the world do they stay in business? Most comanies couldn't survive with all the negative stuff, true or not. The helo industry is so small, a bad rep will kill even the best operation!

 

john

[RHS1]

Jerry Airola, president and CEO of Silver State Helicopters, will be hosting a career opportunity seminar in Fort Worth on Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 7 p.m. The seminar will be held at Meacham International Airport located at 4701 North Main Street, Hangar 45N.

 

Airola, who will be speaking at the seminar, will educate local residents about the exciting benefits of becoming a professional helicopter pilot. Potential students will have a chance to meet certified flight instructors as well as get an insider’s look at the aviation industry. The seminar will last approximately 90 minutes and there is no charge to attend.

 

There is currently a shortage of qualified helicopter pilots available in a field that is expected to grow as much as 60 percent in the next 10 years. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there has been a 13 to 17 percent decrease in commercial helicopter pilots since 1994. Silver State Helicopters is helping to fill that void in communities across the nation.

 

For more information on the career opportunity seminar, please contact (888) 91-PILOT.

 

Silver State Helicopters was founded in 1999 and is a full-service commercial helicopter operator with flight and air traffic control academies. Operations include search and rescue, air ambulance, aerial tours, photography, law enforcement air support, agriculture and fire fighting, along with many other services. Silver State Helicopters has operations at more than thirty locations in eighteen states. Silver State Helicopters is the largest flight academy and the fastest growing rotorcraft company in the world today. For further information, please visit their website at www.silverstatehelicopters.com.

 

Wow, thats great

Glad to see an operator with such a great rep is conducting seminars giving the public a glimpse into the world of being a pro helicopter pilot . I have heard that these guys are the best .

 

TO ALL POTENTIAL HELICOPTER STUDENTS OUT THERE RESEARCH EVERYTHING YOU CAN ABOUT THIS SCHOOL AND LISTEN TO WHAT FORMER STUDENTS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THEM .

 

IF YOU ARE TRULY INTERESTED IN THIS INDUSTRY THERE ARE GOOD PLACES TO TRAIN AND GO ON TO A GREAT JOB BUT IT IS NOT EASY AND ITS ALSO NOT FOR EVERYONE EVEN THOUGH SOME OPERATORS OUT THERE IN THE INDUSTRY WOULD LIKE YOU TO BELEIVE THIS.

[Wally]

There is a helicopter pilot shortage, relatively speaking. A decade or two ago, there were lots of experienced pilots, pilots with thousands of hours of PIC time. This came from two large training groups that had bumped the pilot population up- the Vietnam-era military; and the the GI Bill. Vietnam wound down in the early '70s, and pilots training under that GI Bill evaporated 10 years later. The clock ticks on, and those pilot populations decline.

Another fact- attrition is, and always has been BRUTAL in the industry. It's high in the selection process (making the training thing happen, somehow), the drop-out rate in training is pretty high, but the real grind comes as you start working. There's a very limited market for low-timers... Once you get a few thousand hours, you're able to move a little more freely in a very small market. The industry is growing, but it's SMALL.

[Gomer Pylot]

There is a shortage of qualified, experienced pilots. But as Wally said, the total number of the shortage isn't that big. If a thousand people start training, and 10 percent stays with it long enough to get the total time needed, then the shortage will probably be taken care of. The total number of openings for helicopter pilots rarely reaches 100, and is usually much smaller. I normally see more in the range of 10, and those are asking for thousands of hours, not hundreds. The total number of helicopters isn't growing very fast, and by far the greatest number of new ships sold are replacements for existing, or formerly existing, ones. Aircraft age, and need to be replaced, and even more get destroyed in accidents. The total number of jobs isn't growing at a huge pace, but the openings stay relatively constant. I see pilots resign all the time, a few to go to a better flying job, many getting out of the industry entirely when they realize they can make more money, under far better conditions and have much more security, doing other things. The attrition is pretty constant, thus the shortage of qualified, experienced pilots. I don't think there is a shortage of newly-minted commercial pilots, but those are almost unemployable. Getting the license is the easy part; getting the needed experience is far harder.