Expert: David A. NewMyer - 9/12/2007

Question
HI, my name is C.J.Easter, a am 18years old. I want to go to a civilian helicopter flight school in hopes of reaching my dream as a ems air evac pilot. I know air evac pilots are experienced, have many flight hours and most have been in the military. I am told it is very hard to get a job as a pilot after school, especially having no military experience. It makes me scared paying all that money for flight school and being uncertain I can even get a career started.So after school how do i get a job so i can build up my flight hours. I want this as a career very much and am willing to go the distance to do it, so could you recommend any schools and the rout I should take to achieve my goal.THANK YOU FOR YOU TIME. C.J.Easter

Answer
HI, C. J.:

Thanks for your question....it is a good one.  The civil helicopter pilot side of aviation will not grow quite as fast as the fixed wing side, and there is military competition as you indicate in your question (meaning, the majority of civil helicopter pilots ARE trained in the military, particularly in the Army).....but, there IS a market for civil helicopter pilots.  And, I understand that the minimum flight times for EMS pilots are coming down from previous highs of 3000 hours or more to 1500 hours and sometimes less.....

My recommendation is that you find a college or university aviation degree program where you can combine getting a bachelor's degree with getting all of the ratings and certifications that you need for your career field.  The more education you have, the more flexible you will be later as you search for aviation careers.  I am not sure of the schools that offer helicopter training, but, there is a directory of schools that offer aviation education programs that you can buy from the University Aviation Association....check their website at www.uaa.aero and look for THE COLLEGIATE AVIATION GUIDE.  This publication lists the vast majority of aviation schools in the US by state and what they offer.  Relatively few offer helicopter flight training, but, some do direclty and some do by contract with local helicopter trainign companies.

As far as being a civil EMS air exac pilot, some of those pilots work for private EMS companies, some work directly for hospitals or chains of hospitals and some work for law enforcement or for fire/EMS agencies.  All of those agenices and employers have differing requirements for the job.  The key thing will be the flight experience requirements....if you earn your helicopter flight ratings and certifications on the civil side, the problem will be earning the flight time to build up to working in EMS.  It looks like the magic number is to have 1000 to 1500 hours of flight time......What I would do is stay in touch with the EMS industry by visiting the National EMS Pilot Association website at www.nemspa.org and other similar websites to find out what the entry level job criteria are and what people are doing to meet those criteria (meaning, how do they build their flight time in helicopters?).  The NEMSPA website has job listings, etc.  So does Air Jobs Digest, which you can order by calling 1-800-AIR-JOBS or by checking their website.  The problem is similar on the fixed wing side, but, the minimum times are a bit lower (around 500 hours to get that first entry level job).

I wish you the best,

David A. NewMyer, Ph.D., Professor and Chair
Aviation Management and Flight
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
http://www.aviation.siu.edu