Helicopter Flight Training Technique and Information Helicopter Pilot Training Schools

Helicopter Flight Information

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Promoting Safe Helicopter Flight Through Knowledge

Difficulty getting the results you want? Try flying by numbers, it works!

The Art of Autorotation - Oil levels and Consumption

Gyroscopic Precession and the Helicopter Gyroscope

Flight School in Tennessee! The Lift Equation Defined Medicals and Pilot Health - Should you care?

Hot Fueling - Is it safe? Is a career change really possible?

Do you need Mountain and Long-line Training? Package Deals - Are they good for YOU?

Should you train in Robinson Helicopters? Who can be a pilot UPDATE!

Transition to Turbines in the Jet Ranger!

Are you FLYING LOW ON FUEL? The Airport Traffic Pattern

The ATP and First Class Medicals; Do you need them, and when?

The Robinson R44 vs. BELL 206 and MD 500 Are they equals?

PERFORMANCE MANEUVERS - What are they? CONFINED AREA OPERATIONS Update!

ROTOR EFFICIENCY - Where is your rotor rpm? The Robinson R66

Deciding on a Flight School? It can be a hard decision!

Logging Flight Time - Honestly? Test your knowledge - Food for Thought - question.

Helicopter Flight Training: There are many flight schools to choose from but you cannot depend on honesty from all of them. Honesty and integrity remain paramount in the operations of those linked here.

Links: To some of the best sites on the web. Make sure you check these out.

Flying: Here you will find general topics concerning day-to-day flying. These pages are updated daily also, so check back often. Also, here you will find information on aviation accidents, the causes, and how to avoid them.

Information: Here you will find advisory circulars that are pertinent to normal operations. Also included is information on the conversion of foreign pilots licenses, as well as the conversion of FAA to JAR licenses. Other miscellaneous information will also be placed here.

Communications: There are so many problems with communications in aviation. Some of it is inadvertent error, and some of it is taught wrong. I will post chapters of this book here from time to time. I was going to post only one chapter per month, deleting the past. I have now decided to post the whole book one chapter at a time including the figures.

Maneuvers: Contained in this text are normal training maneuvers as well as emergency procedures and more.

News: Under news, you will find new information as it becomes available. This could be recommended Helicopter Flight Schools, Jobs, or some of the other news in the industry.

This site is intended to improve awareness, and to spread knowledge to pilots, and even more to unsuspecting students who could end up with a bad instructor or at a pilot-mill-school that does not look out for the long term well being and safety of students which ultimately spreads the disease of bad technique which always results in accidents. This site is here for your benefit, and it is expensive to maintain therefore contributions are encouraged. See: About this site.

A special thank you to those readers who contribute to this site! Every dollar helps to ensure this site will be here another day for others to read. Thank you, you know who you are!!

You may make a donation here using any major credit card or your Pay Pal account.

Please help keep this site running, skin a couple of those singles from your wallet and mail them to: 405 Burke Mill Rd., Rockwood, TN 37854, USA. Others will appreciate your contribution to keep this site running.

What will Helicopter Flight Training cost? A lot of course, but keep in mind that there are a variety of ways to accomplish your objective. 1: The lump-sum commercial-pilot-package method, you can accomplish your training from 0-time to a paid flight instructor in 3-months at a cost of $54,000 to $70,000 ($70,000 is a rip-off) depending upon the school you choose. There are many alternatives and financing is available. 2: The pay-as-you-go method. This is the way I did my training combining with 3. I flew every Wednesday and Sunday for an average of 1-hour. It was the only way I could afford to do it and it worked. It took me longer than the lump-sum method, but I still achieved my goal from 0-time, start to finish, in 11-months. 3: The combined helicopter/airplane rating method. Most helicopter pilots don't really care about flying airplanes at least in the beginning, I know I didn't, but my instructor talked me into it and I am so glad he did. Flying an airplane is easy for a helicopter pilot so why not? It can shave $10,000 to $20,000 off your total training costs if you do it right.

What is an 'Approved' flight school and what does it mean to the student? There are two types of flight schools in the US which are commonly known as FAA conducted under FAR Part 61 and/or Part 141 schools. There is also another worth mentioning (however less known in the US), those conducted under JAR of the JAA. There are also numerous other variations of these schools or the related certificates issued around the world; it really just depends upon where you will be flying. We don't really give a hoot how they do it in the other parts of the world since we are talking about training in the US here which is where the majority of aviation training occurs.

A Part 61 flight school is one by which training is conduction under and in accordance with part 61 of the Federal Aviation Regulations also and hereinafter known as FAR. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a part 61 flight school (this is where I trained and had a good experience). A part 61 school is under which almost all single aircraft training is conducted and encompasses the majority of small schools.

A Part 141 flight school is one conducted under and in accordance with FAR part 141. This is a program where the school operators have demonstrated a certain training program format which has been inspected and approved by the FAA. Training at a part 141 school may be conducted either under part 61 or part 141 however the school must complete a percentage of its students under part 141 with a specified pass rate. Due to the approval process, part 141 schools are approved to shorten their programs as compared to part 61 programs, and many schools use this shortened program as their selling point. An example is, a private pilot rating under part 61 requires 40-hours where under part 141 the same rating only requires 35-hours. Ultimately, this don't mean squat for several reasons. 1: The average student will need 50-55 hours or more to complete the rating regardless of the part trained under. 2: No instructor in his/her right mind would sign-off a student for a helicopter check-ride with 40-hours much less with just 35. 3: No examiner in his right mind is going to sign-off on a pilot with only 35-hours. Most won't sign-off on a student with less than 50-hours. I don't care what kind of lie the school is telling you to get your money. There is absolutely no assurance that you have any protection from rip-offs, or that they are any more likely to occur under a part 141 school verses a part 61 school.

JAR is the European Joint Aviation Regulations under the authority of the JAA. For students who will eventually fly commercially in Europe, it will be necessary to convert or change to JAR/JAA at some point. The JAA is a consortium of European countries and is a quite uppity organization which ultimately would like to restrict aviation world-wide if it had its way. There is a less restrictive European counterpart known as the CAA and also known as the same in other parts of the world. The basis of difference between the FAR under US law and the JAR/CAA under European law is ultimately that the US and consequently the FAR is based on freedom in the air where European law and consequently the JAR/CAA is based on order in the air. Freedom is a key word here, once you give it up, you never get it back. There is no place on earth where you will enjoy the freedom as we know it here in the US and little by little, it is being chiseled away. Enough said on the JAA/JAR, for those who will need to convert, there are web sites/pages etc., for that purpose.

Thank you for visiting this site, and please give me some feedback so I know where to improve. If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I will do my best to answer. If you find links that don't work, or material that doesn't seem right, please let me know so that I can fix the problems.

This web site was initiated November 1, 2003

Contact Information

Email is my only method of contact. This is a private site, therefore there is no associated business phone number. Please send editorial comments to the email address below

Email: General Information and all correspondence: info@helicopterflight.net