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Chopper School Shopper
- Thread starter WRENCH
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FracCapt
Clown punchers, unite!
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2004
- Posts
- 1,415
I've heard bad things about a school in NV I thought it was 'silver something' keep researching though cause I would hate to badmouth a school that didn't deserve it.
Hope your are doing this for fun or you have cash to spend, helicopter ratings won't likely ever really pay for themselves. Sure is fun though ...
Hope your are doing this for fun or you have cash to spend, helicopter ratings won't likely ever really pay for themselves. Sure is fun though ...
FracCapt
Clown punchers, unite!
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2004
- Posts
- 1,415
WRENCH said:
I've heard some good, but more bad, about Silver State. It seems that people either loved the place or hated it. I wouldn't recommend it, but I can't tell you to avoid it, either, since I have never even seen the place or spoken with anybody there. Their rep isn't the best, though.
Look into HAI(www.heli.com), Palm Beach Helicopters(www.palmbeachhelicopters.com/), and Air Orlando Helicopter(www.orlandohelicopter.com/). Those are the ones I'm familiar with, all in Florida. There are also a couple schools out in Phoenix/Scottsdale area, many in California, and tons of them in Dallas/Houston areas. Think of an area you're interested in training(take into account weather for the time of year you plan to go, social life, etc), and start searching. If you come up with specific schools, ask about them here.
I've been told good things about these guys from helo friends. If I had enough $$ to take time from work and $$ for training I'd go here and do my RW stuff. I'd love to to part-time pipe/gas patrol in a helo.
Chesapeake Bay Helos in Chesapeake, VA (southwest of Norfolk)
Plus the school has Schweizer equip. IMHO better than a R-22
http://www.cbhelos.com/index.htm
Hope it helps
My soures are:
close helo friend who flies medavac and my old traffic boss who flies S-76's for a major drug company. Both have tons of helo time and exp.
Chesapeake Bay Helos in Chesapeake, VA (southwest of Norfolk)
Plus the school has Schweizer equip. IMHO better than a R-22
http://www.cbhelos.com/index.htm
Hope it helps
My soures are:
close helo friend who flies medavac and my old traffic boss who flies S-76's for a major drug company. Both have tons of helo time and exp.
Thanks for the comments. Seems to be a lot of negative feelings towards Silver State Helicopters....bummer. They give the impression that there is a lot of opportunity to branch off into other lines of flying (law enforcement, pipeline patrol, ect) They do have a huge student base....which would be great when one gets their R/W CFII. My biggest concern is that they say the program takes 12 mo+ Nothing should take that long if you are focused ( and hold all fixed wing ratings) Thanks again everyone and any more thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
No, they don't have a huge student base. They have a huge base of gullible people who were foolish enough to give them money up front. Big difference.
Branch off? Like they're going to hire you to do these things? Not a chance. Take a look into the number of their aircraft that have been destroyed, and that should give you a starting point for the willies.
One story of many, a friend decided he'd take his chances there, and gave them some money up front. He got soloed but found that more often than not, he would arrive and sit all day, with instructors drinking coffee or not showing up, and never fly. He'd ask to go fly, and he was told they were too busy. One day he went out for a solo, and did pattern work for quite a while, taking the opportunity where he could. When he landed, the instructors told him he'd been out too long (nobody else waiting), said he couldnt' fly there any more, and told him as he had paid up front, there were no refunds.
A certain attorney in Las Vegas, a certain high powered attorney, heard enough of these stories he volunteered to sue Silver State for no charge, for every person who had a complaint. Silver State likes to open up branch offices, make a lot of money, wipe out a few students, and then go somewhere else and do the same thing. This attorney locked them up, froze everything, and forced them to cough up and play fair. When my friend came to visit, a phone call dropping this attorney's name was enough to force them to play ball.
Even then, they refused to pay him back. They said they'd give him a few hours, what worked out to be a couple of hours, in a turbine helicopter instead.
Will they hire you or get you a job? Probably not. Are you qualified to go get a job when you're done? Not at all.
Don't be convinced that because you're adding ratings you have an advantage with fixed wing experience. You don't. It's more like a liability. You can read a chart and know how to navigate and talk on the radio, and that's about all the commonality that there is between fixed wing flying and rotor wing flying. Be prepared for a certain amount of re-education.
I mentioned Quantum out of Phoenix because they have a long respectable history, they only hire their own students as instructors, and after nine months to a year, you're most likely to get hired into a turbine helicopter flying on the gulf...that's where all their people go. You won't see that opportunity at most flight schools.
Yes, they use the R-22, but that's the most common training platform out there in the civvie world right now. Having a R-22 background is no liability. Some say that if you can fly the R-22 safely with students, with it's low blade inertia, then you can fly most anything else comfortably. Try it and decide. If you have the R-22 training, you can transition to other helicopters to fly or instruct without much difficulty. However, if you don't have the R-22 experience, you cant' transition into a Robinson to instruct or spray or whatever without some expense. Just a thought.
Branch off? Like they're going to hire you to do these things? Not a chance. Take a look into the number of their aircraft that have been destroyed, and that should give you a starting point for the willies.
One story of many, a friend decided he'd take his chances there, and gave them some money up front. He got soloed but found that more often than not, he would arrive and sit all day, with instructors drinking coffee or not showing up, and never fly. He'd ask to go fly, and he was told they were too busy. One day he went out for a solo, and did pattern work for quite a while, taking the opportunity where he could. When he landed, the instructors told him he'd been out too long (nobody else waiting), said he couldnt' fly there any more, and told him as he had paid up front, there were no refunds.
A certain attorney in Las Vegas, a certain high powered attorney, heard enough of these stories he volunteered to sue Silver State for no charge, for every person who had a complaint. Silver State likes to open up branch offices, make a lot of money, wipe out a few students, and then go somewhere else and do the same thing. This attorney locked them up, froze everything, and forced them to cough up and play fair. When my friend came to visit, a phone call dropping this attorney's name was enough to force them to play ball.
Even then, they refused to pay him back. They said they'd give him a few hours, what worked out to be a couple of hours, in a turbine helicopter instead.
Will they hire you or get you a job? Probably not. Are you qualified to go get a job when you're done? Not at all.
Don't be convinced that because you're adding ratings you have an advantage with fixed wing experience. You don't. It's more like a liability. You can read a chart and know how to navigate and talk on the radio, and that's about all the commonality that there is between fixed wing flying and rotor wing flying. Be prepared for a certain amount of re-education.
I mentioned Quantum out of Phoenix because they have a long respectable history, they only hire their own students as instructors, and after nine months to a year, you're most likely to get hired into a turbine helicopter flying on the gulf...that's where all their people go. You won't see that opportunity at most flight schools.
Yes, they use the R-22, but that's the most common training platform out there in the civvie world right now. Having a R-22 background is no liability. Some say that if you can fly the R-22 safely with students, with it's low blade inertia, then you can fly most anything else comfortably. Try it and decide. If you have the R-22 training, you can transition to other helicopters to fly or instruct without much difficulty. However, if you don't have the R-22 experience, you cant' transition into a Robinson to instruct or spray or whatever without some expense. Just a thought.
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