Turbine Training, Is it worth considering?

[hoshmaster]

Hello all, I am curious about what everyone thinks and feels about paying to train in turbine helicopters. I have read all the forums but some say do it, your resume will be put to the front of the pile and others say never pay for turbine time your company will do it for you and even if you have turbine time you are not anymore desireable then someone with all piston time. Well I see that turbine time does seem like a better thing to have then not but I am here asking for your personal feelings and experiences regarding this. It would be great to here from any employers who might read this because you have a unique place to speak from.

 

There are two schools that I have found that offer all turbine training

1. Van Nevel Aviation Academy

2. Marpat Aviation

 

Both offer turbine training for reasonable prices and seem to be good programs. I know by doing these types of training situations you are potentially limiting your first jobs aspects if the flight schools do not hire you as a CFI and you might have to find a CFI job teaching in piston helis and purchase additional time to be certified to teach in some aircraft. But even if that is the case you would still have turbine time, and from what I have found a good majority of desirable jobs require you to have a substantial amount of turbine hours, so you are justputting yourself in a position to be marketable that much earlier.

 

Hope to hear from anyone that could shed some much appreciated light on the topic. Hope you all have a great day and good Thanksgiving holiday.

[fast03cobra]

Hello all, I am curious about what everyone thinks and feels about paying to train in turbine helicopters. I have read all the forums but some say do it, your resume will be put to the front of the pile and others say never pay for turbine time your company will do it for you and even if you have turbine time you are not anymore desireable then someone with all piston time. Well I see that turbine time does seem like a better thing to have then not but I am here asking for your personal feelings and experiences regarding this. It would be great to here from any employers who might read this because you have a unique place to speak from.

 

There are two schools that I have found that offer all turbine training

1. Van Nevel Aviation Academy

2. Marpat Aviation

 

Both offer turbine training for reasonable prices and seem to be good programs. I know by doing these types of training situations you are potentially limiting your first jobs aspects if the flight schools do not hire you as a CFI and you might have to find a CFI job teaching in piston helis and purchase additional time to be certified to teach in some aircraft. But even if that is the case you would still have turbine time, and from what I have found a good majority of desirable jobs require you to have a substantial amount of turbine hours, so you are justputting yourself in a position to be marketable that much earlier.

 

Hope to hear from anyone that could shed some much appreciated light on the topic. Hope you all have a great day and good Thanksgiving holiday.

 

I say if you have the money to spend, then do it... All though you'd probably be better off doing your initial training in a piston (read cheaper) helo, and then transition to a turbine.

 

Don't know if that helps any or not, but there you go.... Good luck.

[Chi-town]

So.... You get all your training in the turbine and then at 200 hours what do you teach in?? You'll have to get at least 50 hours in the R22/R44 to teach in that and almost as much in the Schweizer to be confident enough to teach in it. How about teaching at Marpat or Van Nevel? Good luck. Not many people have the money to train in those. Paying money for a turbine transition is a waste. If you can get it for free, it's a nice bonus. You r bread and butter will be the robbie or schweizer until you get your 1000. Then go to an employer that will pay you to learn on their turbines.

 

It's hard enough for new CFIs to get jobs in the most common training helicopters. Don't screw yourself by limiting yourself to a helicopter that is not a common trainer and, frankly, has a questionable record as of late.

[apiaguy]

uhh, care to define your "questionable record" comment??? Both of those aircraft have outstanding safety records. I don't know what Marpat's current status is but it DOES NOT have to do with the aircraft they fly... merely a paperwork issue on there aircraft that only some of that model aircraft are subject to merely by coincidence and the FAA's idiocy.

 

If I had to do things from scratch with a "school" approach for a professional pilot program I would seriously consider one of these turbine options. Maybe just to be different and stand out from all the robbie and schweizer guys. I think it would be worth it. So maybe if you didn't get hired by the company you'd have to spend a little more to get qualified in the other piston heli's but the turbine time would still be a bonus for your future employment. IMHO.

[jehh]

For what it is worth, you'll generally need more than 50 hours in a Schweizer to be able to teach in it. I can only speak for my insurance company, but if someone comes to me with 180 hours of turbine time and 50 hours in a Schweizer, they would not be covered to teach. They would be with all piston time.

 

Insurance does not like to cross piston and turbine time in my experience.

 

The prior poster is correct, you'll need 50 hours in a R-22 to teach in it, so you're going to spend that money.

 

All of the above being said, if you have the cash to burn, by all means go for it.

[Chi-town]

Apia,

 

I'm not talking about the Alouette. Marpat and Van Nevel are currently using the FH-1100. Back in the day ot was a pretty good ship. Go to florida now and go see the "factory", you may change your mind.

 

Your logic on "standing out" from the robbie and Schweizer guys is curious. I don't know how far along you are as a pilot, but entry level operators in turbines (GOM, Canyon, Alaska) are looking for 1000 hour pilots period. Turbine, piston doesn't matter. 1000 hours and a professional appearance and demeanor. The question for someone deciding to start training to be a professional pilot is how to get to that 1000 hours as cheaply and quickly as possible. The answer is to learn to fly in a helicopter with cheap operating costs that is also widely used with a wide student-interest base.

 

Students are already shelling out a load of cash getting into huge debt to get into this business. I get emotional about this because I hate seeing schools squeeze more cash from the uninformed by offering "turbine transitions".

 

The day the GOM operators, tour operators in Alaska and the Canyon say they'll take 500 hour pilots as long as it's all turbine, I'll agree with you that it's worth it.

[apiaguy]

well chi-town, I'm only speaking of myself. I have no interest in the Gulf, canyon or Alaska. I just can't stand the R-22 and the size and power difference of flying a turbine powered helicopter would be fun. I understand you generally need 1000 hrs. to meet insurance requirements for most operators. I hate it when I hear you say you just want to get there as cheap and quick as possible. Yes, I understand that it becomes a necessary evil in this industry as not everyone can afford proper training and years of "apprenticeship" in the industry. I just don't like to hear it because it makes me think of a bunch of punk kids that don't know anything but a bunch of traffic patterns in an R22.

It really makes me think that as the switch to the R44 as the training aircraft continues to evolve, how long will it be until people are making the R66 their primary trainer because it opens the door earlier in their career to offer more than flight training.

 

ps..I'm far enough along as a pilot to not want to fly more than 2 hours a day.

[bossman]

Apia,

 

I'm not talking about the Alouette. Marpat and Van Nevel are currently using the FH-1100. Back in the day ot was a pretty good ship. Go to florida now and go see the "factory", you may change your mind.

 

Your logic on "standing out" from the robbie and Schweizer guys is curious. I don't know how far along you are as a pilot, but entry level operators in turbines (GOM, Canyon, Alaska) are looking for 1000 hour pilots period. Turbine, piston doesn't matter. 1000 hours and a professional appearance and demeanor. The question for someone deciding to start training to be a professional pilot is how to get to that 1000 hours as cheaply and quickly as possible. The answer is to learn to fly in a helicopter with cheap operating costs that is also widely used with a wide student-interest base.

 

Students are already shelling out a load of cash getting into huge debt to get into this business. I get emotional about this because I hate seeing schools squeeze more cash from the uninformed by offering "turbine transitions".

 

The day the GOM operators, tour operators in Alaska and the Canyon say they'll take 500 hour pilots as long as it's all turbine, I'll agree with you that it's worth it.

Chi town,(have you been there?)

By all means, go to the factory in Century FL. and check out what George Van Nevel has done. It will impress you. The facility is one of the best you'll find. I had a couple of our graduates visit while they were in the area. They currently own a 300C and are looking to go turbine. They did a tour and a demo ride and came back with a very positive review. I am very sure that they will very shortly be the proud owners of a 0 time factory refurbished turbine helicopter, for about $550,000.00. This includes the latest and greatest C20B engine.

As for turbine verses piston. Everyone knows where I stand on the issue. Get all the turbine you can.

Your comment about the operators in the Gulf is wrong. I know that they will take pilots with only 600 hours turbine time and put them in their 2nd. in command program. Especially those that show several different types of helicopters in their logbooks. So, "turbine or piston", does matter. Your 50 hours in a R22 will get you just that, more time in a R22. If this is the road someone chooses to take, then go for it. I would support their decision because I would hope it is based on research, location, personallity, equipment, availability, and economics.

If you come see us, looking for a job, we are going to evaluate you upon your ability to become, not just a flight instructor, but a pilot that we can use in all our operations. We do not own a R22. Not many commercial operators that are not in the flight school business have R22's that they operate. The flight training portion of our business is just a small sector. It is a part that we all enjoy because we get a since of pride and satisfaction when one of our students gets hired with another commercial operator. We are kind of old school. We still cut off the shirts and hang them on the wall. I've said it before, go ahead and get your private in whatever you can afford as fast as you can. Build the time needed for the commercial in different aircraft. All the time counts. You'll enjoy the time building phase even more, if you try a varity of machines. When you get the required time, jump in whatever you will be taking the ride in and do the test prep.

bossman

[500E]

bossman ? Any further ahead

[Chi-town]

Apia: Why do you assume that getting to 1000 as cheaply and quickly as possible it has to be burning holes in the traffic pattern? I didn't think my post mentioned anything of the sort. Yeah, it would be great and fun if I could train students in turbine ships, but it's not economically feasible or practical. New and future students come on this site everyday looking for the answers and I think we are doing them wrong by filling their heads with pipe dreams and stories of the 1% of people who did it a different way.

 

Bossman: I knew an owner of a flight school who waited a year and a half for his 0-hour refurbished C20B engine-equipped FH 1100. It was ready for delivery a YEAR after the promised date. It ended up crashing on the ferry flight back from Florida in the woods of Louisiana. Cause undetermined as of yet.

 

A piston pilot with 600 hours can also get an SIC position in the Gulf. I know it is "possible" to make it with turbine time, but it isn't "probable" and will certainly take longer.

 

With all the hurdles new students need to overcome, they need practical answers. My 2 cents.

[IFLY]

ps..I'm far enough along as a pilot to not want to fly more than 2 hours a day.

 

I've been flying since the 70s and still wish I could fly 8 hours a day.

 

[EC120AV8R]

I've been flying since the 70s and still wish I could fly 8 hours a day.

 

 

Amen to that. I don't think anyone flys to get rich, so if you don't want to do much of it, why do it?

 

My two cents on the whole turbine training thing: If you have already completed your training through at least CPL AND you have the money to do it, the by all means. I wouldn't do my initial training in a turbine, unless I had a money tree, not worth it.

[apiaguy]

I've been flying since the 70s and still wish I could fly 8 hours a day.

 

 

 

I can only imagine you "wish" you could fly 8 hours a day because you DON'T. If you were truly flying 8 hours in a day, that would suck.

I fly for fun or for money. Usually they don't go together, but sometimes they do. I'm over the fascination of a "job". It's a JOB people!!

[EC120AV8R]

I can only imagine you "wish" you could fly 8 hours a day because you DON'T. If you were truly flying 8 hours in a day, that would suck.

I fly for fun or for money. Usually they don't go together, but sometimes they do. I'm over the fascination of a "job". It's a JOB people!!

 

Sure its a job, but a really fun job. I work a 9 hr shift and fly at least 5 of the 9 hours. I constantly tell myself "I can't believe I'm getting paid for this". Like the old saying goes: "Find something you love to do, then find someone to pay you to do it". If you aren't having fun, then quit.

[bossman]

Apia: Why do you assume that getting to 1000 as cheaply and quickly as possible it has to be burning holes in the traffic pattern? I didn't think my post mentioned anything of the sort. Yeah, it would be great and fun if I could train students in turbine ships, but it's not economically feasible or practical. New and future students come on this site everyday looking for the answers and I think we are doing them wrong by filling their heads with pipe dreams and stories of the 1% of people who did it a different way.

 

Bossman: I knew an owner of a flight school who waited a year and a half for his 0-hour refurbished C20B engine-equipped FH 1100. It was ready for delivery a YEAR after the promised date. It ended up crashing on the ferry flight back from Florida in the woods of Louisiana. Cause undetermined as of yet.

 

A piston pilot with 600 hours can also get an SIC position in the Gulf. I know it is "possible" to make it with turbine time, but it isn't "probable" and will certainly take longer.

 

With all the hurdles new students need to overcome, they need practical answers. My 2 cents.

Chi town,

I know the incident you are referring to. It was a sad day. I do not know the circumstances involved with the delivery of this aircraft. I can only relate to you my own experiences. George Van Nevel has been nothing but up front with us. Before making our decision to go with the FH 1100 we did a lot of research. Everything we can find on the machine tells us it is a good bird. We've talked to a lot of pilots that have flown the 1100 and they really like it. Why do you make the statement that it is not probable to make it with turbine time? Why do you say that it will take longer? The hours required do not change. At $370.00 (fuel keeps going up) per hour the cost is not that much different. I know that our approach is practical, we do it everyday. Ours is not a pipe dream. We try hard to make some dreams come true. We just got approved for a FAA 141 course in external load using our Huey. It will include Bambi Bucket and up to 150' longline. We fought a hard battle to be able to use a restricted category bird in formal training. So you see, we even sometimes make our own dreams come true.

bossman

[bossman]

bossman ? Any further ahead

500E,

Don't get me started on lawyers and how they are only looking after my best interest. They never seem to understand the urgency of a situation. We are moving forward on our lawsuit in federal court in Charleston, Wes Virginia. This is what they tell me.

bossman

[500E]

Glad to hear of forward movement BM would like to bet every yard costs, hope things start to move faster.

 

Started in a 300 then went to a 500, glad I had the piston time it gives you less expensive flying for the first few hours if you then decide this is for me go for it, the turbine can be real easy in some respects and in others REALLY COSTLY if you get it even a bit wrong.

The consensus of people seem to think A.to get to the hours required for commercial work you are going to almost without exception have to teach.

B. Turbine jobs for low hour CFIs are scarce I would suggest.

C. If you are flying for pleasure most but not all fly piston, so the TT will be wasted you can all ways hire with instructor if you want a few hours later.

Saying that could not wait to fly turbine

[Eric Sharp]

I am currently a student at SSH in Ft Lauderdale, FL. I know that here they offer turbine training which is one of the main reasons I enrolled here. In my opinion, turbine training is worrth considering.

[Chi-town]

Eric,

 

Please let us know if that turbine time gets you a PIC turbine job prior to reaching 1000 hours. I'm just curious that as a student, on what have you based your opinion. This is not an attack on you, I'm just interested on what flavor kool-aid Silver State is serving.

[jehh]

Eric,

 

Please let us know if that turbine time gets you a PIC turbine job prior to reaching 1000 hours. I'm just curious that as a student, on what have you based your opinion. This is not an attack on you, I'm just interested on what flavor kool-aid Silver State is serving.

 

Oh, it is hard to resist, isn't it?

 

All kidding aside, if Eric is really enrolled with SSH, then good for him for admitting it here (since SSH gets its share of bashing, some deserved and perhaps some not).

 

That being said, it is possible to get a PIC turbine job before 1,000 hours, I've had a few in the past year do that. Depends on the person and how badly Air Log needs pilots that week.

 

All the feedback I'm getting from the Gulf is that they need pilots who can fly, meet their general requirements, and have a good attitude. Turbine time, piston time, doesn't really matter. What PHI REALLY needs is pilots with 1 year of GOM time to meet customer requirements. Those are hard to get these days.

 

My 3 cents... Fly safe!

[rick1128]

A couple of points. While turbine time is nice, you do miss a few things that will be helpful during your helicopter career. First is the operation of helicopters at or near maximum weight. It is a lot harder than it looks, maintaining rotor speed and lift. In training situations it can be simulated, but there is nothing like pulling more collective and seeing the rotor RPM droop. The other thing is the ability to manually control rotor RPM. In most type pistons, you are always doing this and it becomes second nature. If you lose the governor in a turbine helicopter you will be expected to control the RPM manually. When this is done during training, you can tell the difference between those who have piston time and those who only have turbine time.

 

That aside, I would give consideration to getting one rating at Van Nevel. It would give you several hours of turbine time and you would also have "Factory School". While there are very few 1100's flying around, to many companies the fact that you have factory school in any helicopter will make you stand out.

[Bradley P]

I would like to put in my 2-cents on this one. I would say turbine training is worth considering. It was well worth the extra money, at least in my opinion.

 

Take care all and have a great Thanksgiving.

 

Brad.

[helonorth]

Where I work in the GOM, the lower time new hires either have ALL turbine time (ex-military) or no

turbine time (civilian). If you can demonstrate that you can fly at your interview and do well in

training, they really don't care if you flew a home- built or a Chinook previously. What is really

that different about turbine time, anyway? Not much. Or should I say not enough to matter. I

wouldn't waste a nickel on turbine time or "turbine transitions" or any of that other b.s. I'm

looking at the ad for Marpat aviation as I type. If you live near there, great, I would do that.

You're not going to do much better than that in a recip, anyway. ( It's hard to believe they can offer

that when fuel is going to eat up a big piece of the $300, a 206 at Bristow is going to run you close

to a grand). As you're working towards getting your hours, you'll pick a few here and there to get

a taste of it. If you go to work for PHI as a SIC in a 412 do you think they give a rip about a

insignificant (less than 50 hours) amount of turbine time you have? No.

[ADRidge]

I could see how turbine training might be fun, but in the couple of months I've been training, I've watched a couple of people with nothing but piston time get their first turbine job. I think rather than focus on "piston vs turbine", I'd probably worry about a school's reputation, not that I'm bashing anyone connected with this site.

[IFLY]

I think your flying skills/hours are more important than where you got them. I turned 5 turbine hours into about 10 R22 hours since I don't need turbine time to get a job. When I get my CFI I'll teach my daughter to fly helicopters with the extra hours (she soloed at 14 in a sailplane)