About David A. NewMyer Expertise Can advise people thinking about beginning and aviation career and espcially those thinking about an aviation university program. Can also help with aviation scholarship questions. I am particularly strong in questions related to starting a flight career, choosing a university flight or aviation management program, aviation internships and aviation scholarships. Also, I can assist with questions about airport management and planning careers and oveall aviation industry employment questions.
Experience
Past/Present Clients Prepared In addition to aviation education, I work at a major university, I have worked as an airport planner preparing airport system plans, airport master plan and environmental assessment reports for the Chicago area in general and for several
individual Illinois airports.
Question Hi I am a 14 year old, 15 in about a month. I have always had a passion for driving things and flying things and have an interest in flying. I want to pursue a career in aviation, but I didn't want to always be traveling and gone a lot, so I was thinking about being stationary as an air lift helicopter pilot for a hospital. I also think it would be really fun and exciting. I'll be graduating in three years and just wanted a heads up on what I should do. What are the steps I should take to get into this career. A lot of people have suggested the military to begin an aviation career, but I was just wondering if you could help explain the steps and give me an idea. Thank you!"
Answer Hi, Benjamin:
It is nice to hear from you....I will try to assist!
As far as a career in flying, it is certainly the nature of flying careers for you to be gone a fair amount of the time. You are right in that flying for a medical-first responder/evac type of operation might allow you to be more of a stay-at-home pilot than a traditional fixed wing pilot who works for an airline or a corporate flight department. But, there are also fixed wing pilot jobs that can keep you close to home, too.
The thing is that, the types of jobs that keep you close to home are generally jobs that require a fair amount of experience to get. Nearly all helicopter medical first reponder/evac pilots have prior work experience in the military or civilian helicopter world because of the demands of that type of flying (landing on hospital rooftops, flying in marginal weather conditions, landing near accident scenes, etc).
So, the challenge for someone with no experience and no helicopter flight certification is to get the certification/training and the experience that you need to work in that environment. The recommendation that you got to go into the military to get the certification/training, and experience was certainly a good idea in that, if the military accepts you for helicopter flight training, they will pay you to train you. If you go the civilian route, you will have to pay for all of the basic helicopter training on your own.
Another aspect of your decision is that there are many more fixed wing airplanes in the USA than there are helicopters....that means that there are more careers available in flying fixed wing aircraft than there are in flying helicopters. For example, there are very few scheduled helicopter operations (airlines using helicopters) in the USA---yet, there are many scheduled airlines that fly fixed wing aircraft in the USA and they have nearly 100,000 pilots working for them. On the other hand, there a quite a few helicopters used in hospital first responder/evac duties as well as in law enforcement in the USA. In numbers, there are nearly 11,000 helicopters in the USA today out of a total of 234,000 total aircraft in the USA....so, about 233,000 aircraft in the USA are fixed wing. I am sure you see that there a lots more opportunities to fly fixed wing aircraft!
The key for you is to decide if you want to pay for your helicopter training or not. I would suggest checking on the Helicopter Association of America website at www.rotor.com and seeing if they have a listing of training providers. Check the prices and see what you can afford. Then, check the military options....of course, ask how much time you are committed to each military unit once they train you. Those commitments might be as long as six to ten years.
I hope that this helps answer your questions.
All the best and follow up if you wish on any other related questions.
Sincerely,
David A. NewMyer, Ph.D., Professor and Chair
Aviation Management and Flight
Southern Illinois University Carbondale http://www.aviation.siu.edu
