Kenny Keller examines whether helicopter pilots are actually in short supply. Flight schools need instructors, airlines are recruiting helicopter pilots for fixed-wing roles, and new CFIs are landing jobs fast, but the signals are mixed.
Helicopter pilot job shortage. I want to hear your thoughts down below. Specifically, if you are a new CFI trying to get in the industry, how tough are you finding it to be? Or even if you're a flight school, how much trouble are you getting new CFIs into your organization? And I want to give you my opinion on it. But I also want you to put your opinion down below. This is a pretty heated topic and I know we did this video about 2 1/2 years ago and I know some things have changed in two and a half years. Two and a half years ago, what we were hearing and everybody says, well, not everybody. Again this is heated topic. Many say there's a shortage, others say no there's not. So I want to first cover what we heard at Heli Expo last year. First walk in the door, I see my first student from 20 years ago who went on to fly law enforcement and now he flies ems. And him and his other pilots with him, they were going, dude, we cannot get enough pilots. I hear the same thing from a 40 year friend of mine, 40 year pilot friend of mine who's been in flight helicopter for 40 years, he's in the EMS industry, he's held check airman position, recently went back to flying the line and he said, kenny, it is worse than ever. So could it be just qualified pilots? Okay, so what we hear firsthand all the time is there is helicopter pilot job shortage. Again, we heard this at Heli Expo. The other thing that we're hearing and many of you have probably heard, the airline ish airlines for fixed wing is shorthand pilots. And here's something we know, they're recruiting helicopter pilots to move over and transition to airplanes to help feel the job void in the fixed wing area of things. So the airlines are shorthanded, they're recruiting qualified helicopter pilots, transitioning them to be airline pilots. That tells me yes, there's still a shortage. I've had some, a couple flight schools that reach out to me looking for candidates, looking for instructors. You know, you would think a flight school would always have a new or a full line of people coming in that they're going to take those instructor positions. But I've had people asking me to help them out. So people are getting jobs. I know that I'm gonna put a couple links down below. One of two of them, two of our helicopter line ground school members that firsthand went off the street to CFII in less than six months and both got jobs. I'm gonna put a link for both of those down below These are young guys that were motivated, put their nose to the grindstone, got the ratings and went right into jobs. But, but they're sharp individuals, they sold themselves and they got out there in the world and worked for it. And I think a lot of times, just like any industry, just because you have the training doesn't mean you're going to get hired. You do have to sell yourself and you got to get out there and you got to study hard and you got to be the best you can be. So again, I want to hear your comments down below what you're saying. Whether you're new to the whole situation or you're a 40 year pilot running a flight school, I'd really like to see this conversation going down below. As things have changed again in two and a half years, a lot of things have changed, especially with the airline shortage and the airlines taking helicopter pilots and moving them in. So I'm assuming a lot of people are going to say the problem is qualified pilots. Right? A lot of new CFIs get their CFI and they struggle to get a job getting to that level of 500 hours, 1000 hours, 1500 hours, 2000 hours to fill the EMS jobs. But sure, you're not going to get the cream jobs until you be a road dog. I still believe if you're motivated and you're going to sell yourself and you're going to get out there, you can do it. And we have some of our ground school members that have proved it and they've done it just in the past year. We got one young man, Kyle Parish, I met him last year at Heli Expo. Great kid, comes up, starts talking during lunch. He's like, man, I got my private years ago, but I'm saving up to get the money to go to cfi, but how am I going to ever get a job? And I told him the same thing as I just said a minute ago. I'm like, sell yourself, study hard, be the best you can be and go out there and network and meet people. I go outside, five minutes later, after we get done eating for a smoke break, run into the guys from Sevier county choppers and they're like, hey, come here. You know how we always have people training with us and we put them right in jobs? And I'm like, yeah, it's great, it's a great deal. And they go, we got nobody. I said, you're kidding. And he goes, we don't have any students. So I put a quick video on Facebook and this young man, Kyle, boom. He's ringing my phone. Three minutes later he sees the live video, comes in, finds me. I hook him up with Sevier county choppers a couple weeks, boom, he's there training and now he's a double eye and he's been working in the industry for them. So the connections happen. There are jobs out there. But again, love to hear your opinion on the helicopter pilot shortage. Where are you at in the world? What are you seeing at your level, in your position? So put those comments down below like and share on this video please. I'll put a couple links down there for a couple of our Helicopter Lane Ground School members that you can check out the video on how they went from off the street and and got to their jobs plug for our own business, Helicopter Land Ground School, we have private commercial CFI instrument and then a professional pilot program that includes everything. We have yearly and monthly memberships. You know, something for everybody's budget. So I'll put that link down below too for helicopterground.com so go down there if you're interested in getting some help with getting through these ratings and you want to get out there in the world and make a name for yourself. So please give us a like and a share on this video. Put your comments down below and we will see you in the next video.
