Helicopter Pilot Jobs: Shortage? Fact or Fiction?

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• published: 16 Sep 2016
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Helicopter Online Ground School: https://www.HelicopterGround.com Helicopter Pilot Jobs: Shortage? Fact or Fiction? Helicopter pilot shortage fact or fiction. We just had this question posed from our friends at The Helicopter Page on Facebook, that is their top, number one question coming in to The Helicopter Page. I'm Kenny Keller, the creator of Helicopter Online Ground School, and I told our friends at The Helicopter Page I'd do a video on what I know and what I'm seeing, so I have three main facts that I want to cover that I think that most any of us could agree with. Fact number one: The Vietnam era pilots are retiring. We know this. When I first started back in the late 90s, my instructor said, "Hey, it's going to be a good time for you over the next 10-15 years because the Vietnam guys are going to be retiring and that's going to open up jobs." I know of one specific air medical base out of four pilots, one guy is younger and the other three are all Vietnam guys that are getting ready to retire and they've been talking about it for the last several years. We know a lot of Vietnam era pilots hold the air medical jobs. Fact number two: The military has never trained that amount of pilots that they trained for Vietnam. I think we can all agree on that one. The pool of pilots over the years, as far as what the military has trained, as the military is downsized, they've trained less pilots. Fact number three: Last night I called a friend of mine who is a [inaudible 00:01:07] airman for the largest air medical provider in the world. We've been friends for about seven or eight years and I hear the same thing from him every time I talk to him so I called him last to verify and he said, "Yes. At this time, they do not have enough qualified pilots to fill the EMS positions." Key word here: qualified. We know at that level where we usually have to have say, 2,000 hours of flight time, they can't fill those jobs. Largest air medical provider in the world cannot fill the jobs and they haven't been able to fill the jobs and they are short pilots. I think the next thing is what about for new pilots, new CFIs, or pilots with low hours. That's the one that I'm not even really sure about. We'd like the feedback from you. What are you hearing? What are you seeing? What are your experiences as a new pilot or a mid-level pilot or more experienced pilot? Put your comments down below so we can kind of get a feel of what people are thinking and what people are seeing. I want to add what I think is an important point. When I got my first job, three months later, the events of September 11 happened 2001. We know what happened there. Nobody across the country was doing anything and once aircraft were able to fly again, the school that I was flying at, zilch. They were doing nothing. Everybody backed out, nobody wanted to fly, nothing was going on. In that tough time, I got on the internet at that time and I immediately e-mailed every single flight school that I could find within an 800-mile radius. I got a job when it was a really tough time to become a helicopter pilot. I think that if you're thinking about doing it for a career, you just to go in with the mindset that maybe even if the job market is a little tough, you're going to have to sell yourself. You're going to have to get out there and you're going to have to be willing to be a road dog or what we would call a 'gypsy'. Go anywhere, do anything, to get that time, I think is a big part of whether you're going to get that job or not. Let us know what you think in the description box below. We can tally these up over time, then maybe we can come up with kind of an idea of how tough it really is now for the new CFIs and mid-level pilots. Please give us a like and share, put your comments down below, leave your feedback, and if you'd like to learn more about our Helicopter Online Ground School, go to helicopterground.com. Type that in your browser or go in the link in the description box below and we'll see you in the next video. Helicopter Pilot Jobs: Shortage? Fact or Fiction?