Why is the Helicopter Industry so Inaccessible, and How can we Fix it?

It’s no secret that becoming a pilot, and especially becoming a helicopter pilot, comes with a lot of barriers that are hard to get around. I absolutely love being a pilot, and would do it all over again.

However, my personal journey of entering the helicopter industry included:

🔸Getting into huge amounts of debt

🔸Having to move abroad, leaving my social circle

🔸Losing a long term relationship

🔸No job guarantees after spending all that time and money

🔸Working for a very low salary for the first few years, often 7 days a week

Because of these and many other reasons, a lot of people feel like this career is simply not an option for them, and the current state of the industry proves it!

So what are the main reasons this industry is considered inaccessible? What effect does a lack of new pilots entering the industry have on flight safety, and what can we actually do about it?

Let’s take a look ⤵️

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⬇️ Why a Lack of Pilots can Reduce Flight Safety

For a few years now, less and less people are pursuing a career flying helicopters. This, combined with an increase in the amount of pilots retiring, has quite some impact on a few things.

Most importantly: Flight Safety

This might sound like a bit of a stretch, but hear us out:

Let’s say you want to select the top 10% of a pool of applicants for 3 job openings. Pretty good idea, right? Not unheard of in many other industries either. Here’s the problem: that vacancy only gets 4 applicants…

So now what?

Well, we’re now forced to take on 3 out of 4 applicants. The complete opposite of picking the top 10% of applicants.

Again, this might sound extreme, but it really isn’t. It’s very common (at least in Europe and the UK) to receive only a handful of qualified applicants for a position. You simply can’t pick the best of the best in that situation.

Over time, this erodes standards, and people who should not be hired will get hired anyway. This further reduces the quality of a team that is required to perform on a high level.

🛡️ 5 Key Barriers to the Helicopter Industry

So let’s talk about the main reasons why less people are choosing a career as a helicopter pilot:

1️⃣ High Training Costs

Training costs are getting significantly worse. For example in the UK, where a helicopter instrument (IR) rating now costs almost the same as an entire fixed wing commercial pilot licence!

Just one rating! Paying £70,000 for the IR is not unheard of. That’s about $89,000…

This is on top of the already expensive CPL(H) training, and a flight instructor rating that most pilots utilise to get started in the industry. If you add it all up, it can get well above £150,000, which is almost $200,000.

It is getting to the point where the commercial career track is only an option for those who are extremely wealthy.

It is a very very hard sell. Especially if banks, parents, or other third parties get involved financially and understandably want to see a return on investment.

2️⃣ Limited Locations

The helicopter industry isn’t as big as other branches within the aviation industry. This means that moving around is often a requirement, for both training and employment. Not just within your own country, but for many people to the other side of the planet.

Now this doesn’t have to be the norm for everyone, but for those who insist on staying where they are brought up (or are currently living), your options of becoming “successful” will significantly reduce (depending on your definition of successful of course).

Not everyone is in a position to just leave everything behind and move to another country. Finances, visas, commitments, family, the list for reasons to not move is big.

The eventual result is that only those who are willing to sacrifice a huge part of their already established life will / can make the jump to start a career in helicopters. Even more so than what is already the case for pilots in general.

3️⃣ Physical and Mental Health Requirements

Pilots aren’t special, we’re just humans. Here’s the thing about humans: they’re not perfect!

Physical health can be challenging for many people. Staying healthy, moving enough, and managing genetic diseases are all challenges that many people will have to deal at some point in their lives.

If you’re a pilot though, you could lose your licence if these aren’t manageable or acceptable to regulators. There are many stories of pilots who have developed diabetes, dizzy spells, or other illnesses who have lost their licences this way.

I personally know many pilots who have had to leave the career they enjoyed, because of physical or mental health issues. It’s heartbreaking to witness.

This is another barrier for those who seek a little bit more comfort and security in their career. It is unfortunately a huge risk that we are all forced to take when pursuing a career as a pilot.

We’ve previously covered mental health and how it impacts flight safety here:

The Hidden Impact of Pilot Mental Health on Flight Safety

4️⃣ Larger Sacrifices vs Smaller Benefits

If you put all the sacrifices and benefits of becoming a pilot on paper, it often doesn’t really make any sense if you (or those around you) look at it objectively.

Sure, we’re the ones that are passionate and want to follow our dreams, but third parties that are also impacted by our decisions, like partners, families, friends, or even financial backers, do not have the same dream. Without the passion, it instantly becomes a very different story.

Most people make decisions by weighing off pros and cons. Travelling to the other side of the planet might make a lot of sense if the rewards outweigh the sacrifices, and vice versa.

As time goes on, the sacrifices people entering our industry have to make are increasing. Costs are going up, requirements are going up, and salaries are not going up at the same rate (although progress has been made over the years).

This simply results in situations where people ask themselves “What am I doing this for if I also want a family, kids etc?”

5️⃣ Unclear Career Progression

Now, for most careers that you spend years chasing and spending hundreds of thousands, you usually expect some sort of tangible return when it comes to kickstarting your career.

If you’re training to become a lawyer, or say a doctor, the huge amount of investment it cost to get there will often pay off in terms of career progression.

For helicopter pilots though, as soon you’ve finished your training, you’ll be entering the wild west that is our industry.

Now, there are many ways to mitigate the risks here, and we’ll cover these in a future article. But compared with other professions, there is just so much more uncertainty that is only manageable for those who are passionate enough to keep going.

Joining a fixed wing training school often gives you direct links to the airlines, where the airlines themselves are even actively involved in your training progress. While the equivalent does exist for helicopters, it’s exceptionally rare.

It’s not enough if you have marks and grades that have never been achieved before: you still need to network. It takes a lot perseverance just to land your first job, and you’re competing with many other people for the same thing.

Of course, once you get more hours and qualifications, the tables turn completely – but you need to get there first!

✅ 5 Ways to Make the Helicopter Industry More Accessible

So what can we actually do about it? Quite a few things luckily, but these will only become a reality if key industry players agree on the actual problem first (hence this article). So, let’s have a look:

1️⃣ Scholarship and Government Programs

This is a pretty obvious one, and fortunately one that is growing already.

Many operators are starting to feel the problem first hand, and are coming up with ways to make it easier to access talent.

This doesn’t necessarily mean fully funded training (although in the UK there are options for this), but even getting pilots to pay back their training costs over time is a start.

Pilot bonds are very common. It goes something like this:

Let’s say the type rating costs $75,000. The company pays for the training, and then tells the pilot “You can’t leave us until X amount of years, during which we are going to reduce your salary”.

The salary reduction doesn’t always happen, but is not uncommon practice unfortunately.

And while hugely unpopular, at least this whole concept is one step up from the horrible practice of making pilots pay for their own flying certificates even though they’re employed. This still happens globally and should be widely called out to get it out of our industry.

Government grants also exist but are still very rare. Of course you could see the military as a way to get your training paid for, but this is not a viable option for some.

2️⃣ Commutable and Part Time Rosters

Attracting talent is very hard and keeping it can be even harder, if you don’t make a career or job attractive. This doesn’t always mean money. In fact, many people are starting to prioritise time off and having a life outside work, over making loads of money. Sometimes changes in family circumstances, mean a change in roster is not just wanted, but needed.

This means that the old tricks of promising promotions or salaries that are eventually quite high, simply do not work anymore.

Instead, it’s often the companies that allow commuting and part time rosters that are becoming hugely popular, both in the fixed wing and rotary industry.

3️⃣ Redefining Medical and Mental Requirements

As we mentioned earlier, pilots are just humans. This idea that pilots are somehow different and therefore don’t have health issues, mental health problems, or face any other ‘common’ challenge, is a little bit naive.

Regulators across the world are starting to understand this better. In the US, and now also in the UK, a pilot can have diabetes for instance. A health problem like this will obviously have to be actively monitored and managed, but giving people a chance is step one.

The other problem with this is: people will lie if this doesn’t change, as we covered here:

Fit to Fly? Why so Many Pilots Hide their Physical and Mental Health Struggles

4️⃣ Increasing Salaries

This one might cause some eye-rolls because of how obvious it is to some. However, the current reality of the industry proves that the compensation for all the hardship pilots have to get through is simply not good enough.

You can ask more from people if you compensate them fairly. At the moment, this balance is improving compared to years ago. It’s still far from perfect though, and has not had any noticeable impact on the perceived viability of a career as a helicopter pilot.

5️⃣ Partnerships Between Flight Schools and Operators

This is one that we can directly copy from the airline industry. They have absolutely nailed the concept of a ‘training pipeline’ in Europe (very different for the USA, as we’ve discussed in the article below).

Is Total Flight Time the Best Way to Measure Pilot Competency?

Pass selection, show up at X location and Y time, pass this exam, do that, do this, and if you do everything right, you will eventually end up in a 737 or A320 cockpit.

There are always exceptions of course, but the same can’t be said for helicopter pilots. After passing everything with flying colours, the real challenge begins.

This is starting to happen more in both in the USA, UK, as well as Europe, where flight schools know that they will get more students if they have attractive links to the industry.

💭 Conclusion

Being a helicopter pilot can be an amazing career. The problem is that not enough people feel like they can do it, or feel like it’s worth trying.

We’ve discussed the main things that keep people from entering the industry, why it’s such an issue, and where we can start to address it.

Have you got any personal experiences that we can include? Let us know!

We don’t publish all our Notes from the Cockpit (like this one) publicly, some are shared only by email. Get the next one sent straight to your inbox ⤵️