Helicopter Pilots?
Author
Discussion

wadsy

Original Poster:

369 posts

286 months

Friday 13th January 2006
quotequote all
Any pilots out there or anyone involved in flying 'copters who could give me advice or even a trial flight? I am looking into the possibilities of training to be 'copter pilot!

Jubal

930 posts

259 months

Friday 13th January 2006
quotequote all
Pal of mine did a helicopter flying course and qualified for some kind of rebate via an NVQ scheme. It never ceased to amaze me that our taxes were part funding his dream.

jitsukadave

2,101 posts

286 months

Friday 13th January 2006
quotequote all
Jubal said:
Pal of mine did a helicopter flying course and qualified for some kind of rebate via an NVQ scheme. It never ceased to amaze me that our taxes were part funding his dream.


Thread drift: Sounds fab - can you get some details, I'd like to get some of my tax back. I'm sure it'll be a tax break too!

Back to thread: Where abouts in the country are you? I know a few places that could help you out, but only in the Coventry area.

anonymous-user

84 months

Friday 13th January 2006
quotequote all
I got NVQ tax relief when I became a pilot (fixed wing). I've got a feeling that it may no longer be available though.
www.pprune.org is a good place for info on all things flying.

centurion07

10,395 posts

277 months

Friday 13th January 2006
quotequote all
Not involved but I can tell what I was told when I looked into it about 5/6 years back.....

A guy at my local airport (Blackbushe) said that to go from zero flying experience to Professional Heli licence could cost up to around £25,000 depending on how quick you could pick it up. He also said it would probably be cheaper to learn the basics of flying in a fixed wing as that would take care of most of the map reading/radio operation etc etc before moving onto the far trickier practicalities of helicopters.

A friend of a friend who is/was an instructor at Middle Wallop (trains the army pilots) said that if I was looking to do it as a job, I would be competing against ex-army fliers with umpteen-thousands of hours under their belts so the only thing I had on my side at the time was my age (being early to mid twenties).

Apparently flying oil rig guys to work is a bit of an exciting one to end up with, if you can stand flights so rough that you have to turn around after an hour or two because you've wasted so much fuel just keeping the thing in the air!

wadsy

Original Poster:

369 posts

286 months

Friday 13th January 2006
quotequote all
Thanks for the input guys
I'm in the Reading area - so Coventry a bit out of the way.
I'll checkout that pilots link
Hope I haven't left my potential career change too late at 36!
Cheers
Wad