Pro Heli Training around the world

ryuzu wrote:

I want to study full time, have the funds available - around £40000 (about
$55000 US) and am looking to start in the next few months, probably before
christmas.

can anyone give me opinions of these places?

Well unfortunately first impressions are usually lasting impressions.

Being snide ( if it was me with that amount of cash ) I would send
another e-mail back to each of those companies and inside the e-mail
I would put a bold headline something like the following.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
BUSINESS MUST BE GOOD AT YOUR HELICOPTER TRAINING CENTRE
WHEN YOU CAN AFFORD TO BLOW A CUSTOMER OUT THE DOOR
WHO HAS FIFTY FIVE THOUSAND AMERICAN DOLLARS IN THEIR HAND.

Since you don't have time to respond with information about YOUR
facility perhaps you wouldn't mind sending me an e-mail with the
address of your main competitor.

Competition being what it is, they will probably want my money more
than you do.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Something like that should get their attention.

After that it would be up to you as to whether or not you actually
would want to do business with them and give them that sort of cash.

On Sat, 6 Sep 2003 23:41:28 +0000 (UTC), ryuzu wrote:

OK, so like many before me, I'm looking at a professional heli career.
Let's assume for now that the decision is made.

I'm a UK citizen looking for HPPL,HCPL,IR,CFI,CFII + 200hrs - CFI/I job. I
want to study full time, have the funds available - around £40000 (about
$55000 US) and am looking to start in the next few months, probably before
christmas.

At the moment I'm favouring Hillsboro Aviation in the USA - but I still
have some reservations.

I've done a lot of research about Australia, USA, South Africa, New Zealand
and a little on Panama (!) and so far I'm stuck as to which to choose.
Anyone care to comment on the following?


USA Schools - Decided I need a J-1 Visa school for this to work

Hillsboro - Looks good for J-1 training (course is 200hrs too) and answered
my first email saying they'd get back with a detailed response. However,
they haven't responded (5 days now) to the 4 questions I sent them
regarding accomodation, instructor to pupil ratio and some other things.

Boatpix.com - guy accepted me for training with a 2 line response - for
$30000 I wanted more information. Asked about 13 questions visas, work,
accomodation, costs etc. No response (6 days now).

Vortex - M-1 only... Responded to my first email. Asked some further
questions re total costs, instructor ratio, availability... No reponse (6
days now).

Helicopter Adventures - I've looked at this school but not contacted them
primarily because they are significantly more expensive than others for the
ratings I'm talking about.
-snip-
Thanks all.

r.

r, remember that hindsight is 20/20.

These guys are most likely reflecting back on what happened on 9/11 (like a lot
of businesses), and don't want to train a possible suicide pilot with a
helicopter. Mostly in the name of saving the local farmers barn as a helicopter
ain't big enough to do a large office building.

That was, of course, being snotty about why they do that. What they are doing
is beyond brash. One place to consider is Colorado Northwestern Community
College in Rangely, Colorado, USA. They teach pilots to fly and they also teach
mechies how to fix planes. I think they at one time did choppers, but not sure
if they do it anymore or not.

Wish you the best, r!
TM

--
Toadmonkey: "Now now. Brain popping and world crashing may be hazardous to ones perception of reality.
Very dangerous business that can lead to madness or something worse for some, truth."


Remove "3+4" from addy before replying


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I recommend http://www.westtexashelicopter.com/
These guys are great and will arrange a place for you to stay etc.
Weather in this area is excellent (location of Reese AFB where all Air Force
pilots were given their initial training until a few years ago when the
govt. moved training to New Mexico a few miles west of here)
Check with them on prices -- promise they will be competitive.
Gaylon

Just a different viewpoint...

I've found that a terrible amount of businesses don't respond to e-
mail. From what I've seen, it tends to be considered the responsibility of
the IT person, which is rarely a full-time staff member if even an official
position, Many businesses set up their websites and contact lists because
they felt obligated to, but aren't really sure what to do with them.

Try sending letters instead. This will a) differentiate your requests
from the spam that may be flooding into their servers, b) differentiates
you from the causal, curious, or bored e-mailer that they may see too much
of, and c) allows them to respond with forms, packages, pamphlets, folders,
or whatever that they already have available, most of which never made it
into electronic form.

You may be surprised at how different the response is . Or you may
not. But it'd be a shame to lose out on a good school because they're not
concentrating on their web presence.

- Al.

--
To reply, insert dash in address to separate G and I in the domain

ryuzu wrote:



I'm a UK citizen looking for HPPL,HCPL,IR,CFI,CFII + 200hrs - CFI/I job. I
want to study full time, have the funds available - around £40000 (about
$55000 US) and am looking to start in the next few months, probably before
christmas.


Australian Schools
PHS - emailed twice re costs, accomodation, add on ratings. No Response (8
days and 4 days).

And another Aus school (not Becker!!) - no reponse can't remember the name
right now (5 days).



There have been a few who have come from the UK to Bankstown (Sydney)
gain there licenses. Better weather is there excuses. Also cheaper with
the conversion rate. ( I have not found the US cheap)

I would also make inquiries as to the license compatibility after you
have gained it - or having to be re certified back in the UK if this
makes any difference.

Locally south of Sydney. http://www.aerowasp.citysearch.com.au

Also try a post to aus.aviation they will have a better idea who to go
with and more suggestions.

http://tinyurl.com/mik1

the yellowpages

Regarding Australian pricing, I haven't found that it is cheaper.

Australian CPL = 105hr min. Instruction requires 400hrs
US CPL = 150Hr min. Instruction Requires 200hrs.

So comparing costs, PHS is the cheapest Aus school I found with a cost of
roughly AUS$42575 to get to CPL (this is the 2001 price). Hillsboro though
quotes US$39,696.40 for it's CPL course (June 2003 price).

In the exchange rate conversion, Hillsboro looks expensive, but for the
Hillsboro price you get 200hrs and an immediate opportunity of a CFI job
whereas for PHS you only get 105hrs, no chance of instruction and little
chance of much else realistically. Plus Hillsboro gets you a CFI and IR
rating in the package too and includes theory training and so on.

Doing a 'loaded cost/hour' I found that PHS were charging around
UK£168/hour while Hillsboro came out at UK£141/hour.

Now it may well be my research hasn't been deep enough and I'm missing some
other costs in the US price or conversely underestimating the chances of
CPL non-instruction work in Aus. Do let me know if you think that is the
case.

Personally I'd prefer to train/study/work in the US, but Australian visa
requirements for the English are relatively easy to meet which is why it's
still on my list. The US on the other hand is locked down pretty tight
right now (understandably) for legitimate visa requests.

r.

ops wrote in


There have been a few who have come from the UK to Bankstown (Sydney)
gain there licenses. Better weather is there excuses. Also cheaper
with the conversion rate. ( I have not found the US cheap)

I would also make inquiries as to the license compatibility after you
have gained it - or having to be re certified back in the UK if this
makes any difference.

Locally south of Sydney. http://www.aerowasp.citysearch.com.au

Also try a post to aus.aviation they will have a better idea who to
go with and more suggestions.

http://tinyurl.com/mik1

the yellowpages

Hello "Ryuzu",

I saw your posting and as the owner of one of the flight schools mentioned
needless to say it caught my attention. I tried to reply to you
personally rather than posting to the group but for some reason hotmail kept
rejecting the message. I don't like it when companies use the group for
commercial advertising; I just don't think it's appropriate to use a
newsgroup to peddle one's wares, so no sales pitch here.

I'm sorry you have had such poor responses to your emails. If
you had contacted us I believe we would have done much better. However, by
way of an explanation, if not an excuse for my fellow flight school owners I
will say that sometimes the volume of email can be overwhelming. Even the
largest helicopter flight school (and I think that means us) is in reality
a small business, with only one or two people tasked with responding to
mail. Sometimes we get 25-30 email requests for info in one day, as well as
all the other general business email traffic. Often the info requests
consist of long lists of questions drawn from an article someone has
published in an aviation magazine on how to pick a flight school. It's true
that word-processors have made it much easier to answer these types of
letters but even the cut and paste method takes time. The longest info
request I remember had 37 questions, and we answered them all. (He wrote
back and said we were the only schooll that did) For all we knew it could
have been from an eleven year old kid doing a school project, or a
competitor trying to find out more about how we do business. Since email
provides so little info about the sender we have no option but to treat them
all the same.

Also, the individuals who take care of the mail may be temporarily
unavailable. For example, next week our Marketing manager is getting
married and I'm away in Norway and England for Helitec. Sure, a fill-in
person can handle the routine "please send a brochure" type stuff, but often
the requests are very complex and require a great deal of expertise. A
flight school would be unwise to allow any member of staff to answer
questions on issues like foreign licenses or visas. For these types of
emails a slow answer is certainly preferable to a wrong answer. Like I
say - not an excuse, just an explanation!

Just to clarify one other issue - you should have no problem obtaining a
visa to attend an appropriately qualified training school. It will take a
couple of weeks longer to process than it did prior to 9/11 but that's not a
big deal. In the past year we have had only one applicant rejected and that
was because the embassy official suspected that he would overstay his visa,
probably because of something he said at the embassy. Let me put it this
way, we are having no problems obtaining visas for our Middle Eastern
students (two young men started training last week after a 3 week visa
processing period), so I don't think an Englishman has anything to be
concerned about.

If hotmail does not surrender to my constant bombardment you are welcome to
contact me by email or to give me a call (Toll-free from the UK
0800-1698647). Hope to meet you at Helitec also.

Patrick Corr
Helicopter Adventures, Inc.


"ryuzu" wrote in message
...
OK, so like many before me, I'm looking at a professional heli career.
Let's assume for now that the decision is made.

I'm a UK citizen looking for HPPL,HCPL,IR,CFI,CFII + 200hrs - CFI/I job.
I
want to study full time, have the funds available - around £40000 (about
$55000 US) and am looking to start in the next few months, probably before
christmas.

At the moment I'm favouring Hillsboro Aviation in the USA - but I still
have some reservations.

I've done a lot of research about Australia, USA, South Africa, New
Zealand
and a little on Panama (!) and so far I'm stuck as to which to choose.
Anyone care to comment on the following?


USA Schools - Decided I need a J-1 Visa school for this to work

Hillsboro - Looks good for J-1 training (course is 200hrs too) and
answered
my first email saying they'd get back with a detailed response. However,
they haven't responded (5 days now) to the 4 questions I sent them
regarding accomodation, instructor to pupil ratio and some other things.

Boatpix.com - guy accepted me for training with a 2 line response - for
$30000 I wanted more information. Asked about 13 questions visas,
work,
accomodation, costs etc. No response (6 days now).

Vortex - M-1 only... Responded to my first email. Asked some further
questions re total costs, instructor ratio, availability... No reponse (6
days now).

Helicopter Adventures - I've looked at this school but not contacted them
primarily because they are significantly more expensive than others for
the
ratings I'm talking about.


Australian Schools
PHS - emailed twice re costs, accomodation, add on ratings. No Response (8
days and 4 days).

And another Aus school (not Becker!!) - no reponse can't remember the name
right now (5 days).


South Africa
Lots of reponse from Learn-to-fly, but they're more expensive than US or
Aus - in fact probably not much different to UK...


New Zealand
Fairly cheap, but it's a small industry there and many of the schools
don't
seem set up for a proper CPL course.



So there you go, I'm talking about a large investement of cash and time,
and so far I'm struggling to get a second email from the schools in the US
and any response from Australia. I guess I'll make the phone calls next
and
get the answers direct...

Given that I've tried hard to follow the general advice about scoping out
schools and they're all failing the first test on customer service, can
anyone give me opinions of these places?

Thanks all.

r.

If you're interested in a smaller school where you'll have more one on one
attention, check out www.advancedhelicopters.com in the state of MI (near
detroit). They have some foreign students, a lot of law enforcement people,
and a few like me who plug away a few hours a week. The chief instructor is
awesome, a great teacher, very experienced, and someone more interested in
teaching than in just building enough hours to get out. Just a thought.

In article , toadmonkey
wrote:
I like your idea Bernie! Really sad that businesses treat customers like
garbgae, and it's more than *just* flying schools. It's everywhere.
TM

Yep, This lack of respect for customers is the only reason I have put
my helicopter flying on hold. The last straw was when the company
ignored my reservation for the R-22 for a Young Eagles rally for the
second time. The owner tried to rationalize it saying that I (a rated
pilot not seeking additional ratings) cost him more money (extra
insurance). I ended up and hung up on them and haven't gone back since.
I guess business is good enough that he doesn't miss my $6,000 of
revenue every year since he hasn't called since this happened a year
ago.

It's not all bad. I'm working on getting in the air by building a Van's
Aircraft RV-8A. Somewhere along the way, I'll need to get my
siezed-rotor rating. :-)

Steve

"ryuzu" wrote in message
...
OK, so like many before me, I'm looking at a professional heli career.
Let's assume for now that the decision is made.

I'm a UK citizen looking for HPPL,HCPL,IR,CFI,CFII + 200hrs - CFI/I job.
I
want to study full time, have the funds available - around £40000 (about
$55000 US) and am looking to start in the next few months, probably before
christmas.

At the moment I'm favouring Hillsboro Aviation in the USA - but I still
have some reservations.

I've done a lot of research about Australia, USA, South Africa, New
Zealand
and a little on Panama (!) and so far I'm stuck as to which to choose.
Anyone care to comment on the following?

Today I began my first enquiries along the same lines.
I live in Canberra Australia.
Spoke to a person at Heliair operating from Canberra Airport.

Commercial licence, total cost, around $40,000 Aus. and around 125hrs (I
assume this is the bare minimum).

The amount of help offered over the phone was amazing, considering they must
get a lot of less than particuarly serious "enquirers" taking up their
time. The lady I spoke to - Rebecca - was also Secretary for Helicopter
Association of Australasia, and gave me some very helpful advice on how to
evaluate various training companies, and strongly advised that I actually
contact a number of companies - not just the one she works for - before
making any decisions. So far I've been impressed, but my enquiry was by
phone, not email, and I'm a local, so I may have been given a status of
"more serious" than someone from a foreign country enquiring by email. But
I'll wait and see what the package of information contains that she is
supposed to be sending out to me.

Trentus