Helo Next

[Jack123]

Hello,

for all the helo pilots out there, what are your thoughts on the new Air Force helo next? Also, what kind of jobs would be attainable for a grad with 10 years of helo flying both in and out of the cockpit?

 

[raimius]

The helo only track? I think it is a bad thing for the AF and new AF pilots. We are going away from proven training systems to ones closer to those we previously tried and rejected. It's quantity over quality.

That said, if you want to fly AF helicopters, it's a way to do it. With 10+ years of experience and 2,000+ hours, you have a lot of possible jobs in helicopters. (Not everyone is likely to get 2k hours in that time, but the flyers that prioritize hours might). As an officer with 10yrs, you should have a good amount of leadership/management experience as well (so, a variety of those kinds of jobs are also a potential).

 

[justdoit19]

Wait. This is NOT usna HELLO night…

 

[WT Door]

Hello,

for all the helo pilots out there, what are your thoughts on the new Air Force helo next? Also, what kind of jobs would be attainable for a grad with 10 years of helo flying both in and out of the cockpit?

Your post piqued my interest, so I looked it up. I agree with @raimius. The Navy’s take is that training helicopter pilots in fixed wing aircraft makes for a more skilled aviator. It will be interesting to see how this plan works out for the Air Force.

Some of the helicopter piloting jobs, with the requisite hours and qualifications, are: Executive/VIP transport, EMS transport, law enforcement, news beat, firefighting, heavy lift transport, off shore platform support, tourism flights, and flying for the various three letter agencies. Out of cockpit occupations: Flying an LMD (large mahogany desk) – high level corporate work, education, art, and whatever else you can imagine. Good luck. If you strike it rich, get you either a Bell 206 LongRanger or an MD 500E.

 

[OldRetSWO]

Also, what kind of jobs would be attainable for a grad with 10 years of helo flying both in and out of the cockpit?

For what its worth, right off the bat, I can offhand think of seven friends who were military helo pilots and of the Seven, one
is now an airline pilot after having flown MH53's in the USN. The others are two Army, one Marine and three Navy with occupations as follows:
Army Apache pilot (West Point) - businessman and now State Representative
Army '60 pilot - businessman
USMC 53 pilot - Financial Planner
USN '60 pilot - Businessman (large financial firm)
USN '60 pilot - lawyer and now US Congressman
USN 'SH2 pilot - retired Navy and now fulltime college professor

 

[raimius]

I realized my answer focused on the program, when the main focus should be the job.
Flying helicopters is a blast, so if you want it, make it happen!

Whether the new program is better than the old is more a matter for the trainers to argue about with the bean counters. If helicopters sound fun, go do it.

 

[UHBlackhawk]

I went to the airlines and fly for a major. Same with a few other friends. This is quite common now compared to when I did so in the 1990s.
A buddy went comptroller as a functional area and has done finance ever since.
Another is a civilian EMS pilot. He won’t be the richest guy in the graveyard, but he’s doing well and loves his job.
A WP grad I know went on to fly helicopters on the civilian side as well. Last I heard she was up in AK.
A friend in the 160th went to grad school and is now a VP for a major airline.
Another WP grad I know got his masters from the Army, then took an early release plus $25k. Now is a major player in finance making 7-8 figures.
So…. What do you want to do?

 

[HueyNation]

I didn't go through the Helicopter Training Next (HTN) pipeline so can't really comment on that. Advantage of going into Rucker with T-6 flying experience was primarily with formation flying - after learning how to fly fingertip with planes, flying 3-5 rotor disk separation with a Huey during the latter part of pilot training came about fairly easily. Downside of having a T-6 background, there was a lot of "unlearning" that had to happen, things like stick back vs stick forward on takeoff (you want to lean forward with a helicopter on takeoff to gain forward airspeed before you 'pop' up).

As far as helicopter jobs outside of the AF there're plenty - in the last few years several Majors and Lt Cols got picked up for airlines, one guy got picked up to fly down at McMurdo Station down in Antarctica, another guy got hired as a contractor to teach the students at Rucker, lots of government agencies are always looking for experienced helicopter pilots (think border patrol, FBI, National Park Service, things like that). Oil rig offshore transport is pretty big as well.

 

[AF6872]

Or you could do this and get both. Pilot to tower: can we land at the runway junction? Tower to pilot: Are you a helicopter? Pilot: We will be when we get there.

 

[Heatherg21]

This is an interesting thread. My MIDN was just sharing about the new designs for helos that are competing for contracts. He was super into it and you could tell his engineering classes were already paying dividends.