Want to Learn to Fly a Helicopter? Which is the Best Training Helicopter - For You?

hello and welcome i'm rick the pilot teacher and if you are thinking of becoming a helicopter pilot you gotta train a helicopter question is which is the best one to do it in [Music] so in this video we're going to kind of go over the four most common training helicopters you've got the r22 you've got the r44 you've got the schweitzer and you've got the cadbury g2 which one's the best one each one has their pros and cons so in this video we're going to look at which one is going to be the best aircraft for you to learn to fly helicopters so all of these aircraft are fantastic aircraft they are used all over the world every day and i've trained tens of thousands of pilots throughout the decades now the one that you want to fly in and you are budgeting for maybe kind of have to be changed after this video it may be something that you've not thought of so what i'm going to do is just going to go through each of these aircraft find out which one is going to be perfect for you so first one robinson r22 this has been the training helicopter of choice for decades it's a two-seater two-bladed piston engine with a carburetor and because it's carbureted it is prone to carburetor ice but you learn to live with that it's a very nimble very agile helicopter some may stay unstable um it teaches you how to fly it teaches you how to get good hands and feet because it is very twitchy and usually on average it's going to take around about 10 hours for people to kind of start to get the hanger hovering but it is a great great training aircraft yes there is a stigma behind the r22s and i know a lot of uh older pilots who have never even seen them a black hell no there's no way i would ever get nr22 and i've got over a thousand hours in one i love the machine it's fantastic but it's like any aircraft you've got to fly it within its envelope of limitations you go out there yeah and it does bite you but as an aircraft it's a fantastic training aircraft it's nice and fast you can easily cruise around 70 knots if you get a bit of a lighter chrome and a lighter fuel load you can wind it up to 90 which is great when you're doing your cross-country flights especially solos you can wind it up to 90 knots and just rip it and it's great because then it reduces your hourly rental cost it's two seats and it is quite a skinny cabin uh it's only 44 inches wide um so if you are have wide shoulders wide hips um it can get real cozy like even with me i'm only five foot six and i'm rubbing shoulders with the people next to me so uh it's quite tight if you're tall um you kind of have to kind of get shoehorned into the cockpit um but it does work the big issue with the r22 from a student's point of view is it does have a maximum seat weight limitation of 240 pounds so if you are over that you cannot fly in the r22 so if you budgeted for the r22 you're over 240 pounds sorry but you're out of luck you're gonna have to look at a different helicopter so hourly rental costs for the r22 solo it's gonna be around about 280 bucks an hour with an instructor the dual rate roughly is around about 345. i kind of tried to average it out over everything that i've found in the u.s at this time 2022 it's uh it's around about 345 bucks per hour give or take so you're probably wondering how much does it cost to do your private pilot certificate on an r22 well faa states the minimum is 40 hours forget that not a chance i'm not even seeing any shooting get close to 40 hours the student average roughly is around about 60 hours again give or take so 60 hours is kind of where i usually base a lot of my ballparks on so um as part of the requirements you've got to do a minimum of 10 hours solo so your solo time is going to be 2 800 bucks your dual time so 50 hours gonna be around about 17 250 something like that so total cost for an r22 for a complete private pilot certificate 60 hours is going to be just over 20 grand which isn't too too bad but the main thing is you've got to consider is the seat weight limitation and if you are especially broad shouldered and wide in the hips um you might not physically fit in the r22 but if you do it's a great training aircraft you'll have so much fun learning to fly in that because it is a challenge especially when you're first starting out okay the second helicopter on my list is the schweitzer and it's either the 269 or 300 depending on the model and this is a helicopter that's been around for decades while the pedigree of it has and i believe it's originally designed for the us army to train all the um pilots around fort rucker or wherever it was um great great train aircraft and it's a it's a lot wider cabin it's about 52 inches so depending on the model some even have the three seats in there so you can actually fit three people which makes it greater for students that can't fit in the r22 um especially if you've got wide shoulders wide hips the other cool thing about the schweitzer is it doesn't have a maximum seat weight limitation so providing you an instructor stay within the limitations of the center of gravity um you can be whatever weight you are and fly in there so i had a student that came to me when um when i was instructed way back when and the he was a super nice guy he was a big guy he was about 320 pounds very broad shouldered and he planned on doing his training in the r22 and we got there he had no idea of how small the r22 was or the seat weight limitation um so we had to bump him over into the schweitzer not an issue it was a little bit of a different hourly rate back then um it's a little bit more so it cost him a little bit more um but we still managed to get him trained up and he loved it in the schweitzer so the fighter is basically it's got three blades it's a fully articulated road ahead depending on the model it may be a carbureted piston engine or maybe a fuel injected piston engine fuel injection gets rid of the carbi issues um but the main thing with the schweitzer is it is slow that big glass bubble on the front is like trying to drive a bus through the air and if you get a bit of a headwind oh man your ground speed could just really drop um i remember trying to do some far trading we were coming down at ils at 60 knots indicated i was looking at the gps we got 20 knots ground speed we just had a headwind and it was horrible we turned around and we went back to back to base in no time um so for cross countries especially long cross countries if you're going to be doing them in the schweitzer try and pick them like kind of first thing in the morning when there's no wind because if you get a headwind oh it's going to cost you that thing is going to be so slow but around the airport traffic patterns it's a fantastic machine it's very stable to hover it's very docile and it autos well it is a prone to ground resonance so you have to be a bit careful with that but they do have oleo struts on it so it's kind of like it as you put it down it gives it a nice bit of a cushion it's great aircraft but it is a little bit slower when you're going point a to point b so the cost of the schweitzer again it's around about 345 bucks an hour for dual that i've seen and for solo it's around about 280 bucks an hour so same price as an r22 um they're not as common so it might be a bit more difficult to find a flight school that's got one um if you're looking at going to a flight school that's near you and they don't have one and you can't fit in the r22 yeah then you may have an issue you may have to look elsewhere um but if you're over 240 pounds the schweitzer is a great training helicopter okay so helicopter number three is the cadbury g2 from helicopters gwimbell i think that's how you pronounce it it's it's french so if any of these that speak french if i'm just cannibalize that name i apologize um but it's the new kid on the block it's basically been designed by a former eurocopter engineer and as you look at it you can definitely see the eurocopter heritage in there it's a three-bladed fully articulated road ahead it's got a finished drone tail rotor system on it um it's got composite main rotor blades it's got a crash resistant fuel tank um so it's got a lot of good safety features built into it which is what you want in a trained aircraft because you know you're training mishaps do happen so um yeah these things are all overall nice to have it's a great training aircraft all round it flies well in the pattern it's nice and stable um it's actually got a cyclic in it so it feels a bit more like a helicopter like the robinsons with their t-bar um it's a lot of space in it it's you know it's it's not the biggest is not as wide as a schweitzer but the cabin on it is 48 inches so there's a bit more room than the r22 the other cool thing with the cadbury is that there is no seat weight limitation so just like the schweitzer provided you can keep it within the center of gravity limitations you and your instructor are good all day so another option if you are too heavy for the r22 the main problem with this one is it's hard to find because it's the new kid on the block it is slowly start it's working its way into the flight schools but it's a it's a brand new aircraft so it's it's hard to find um if you can find one it's a great great option the other cool thing with the g2 is the inside is very comfortable you've got some digital display in there so it's almost like a glass cockpit which is nice it gets you used to reading analog gauges and digital gauges um it's a piston engine so it's carbureted too so you do have to be wary of carbice but it's fast you know same as r22 doing cross countries 80 knots all day long um buzz around in the airport traffic pattern no problem auto is like a dream um three bladed rotor system so again you've got to be wary of ground resonance but it's a fantastic training helicopter if you can find it now cost yeah it's a little bit more than the r22 on average it's around about 350 bucks an hour and around about you know the 270 280 bucks an hour solo so it's a tiny bit more if you're doing 60 hour private comes out to about 20 200 um [Music] but it's just hard to find so if you are looking at um which flight school to go to um if you're moving away from home um you know try and look for a flight school that's got that speaking of which if you are going to be doing your pilot training soon um go check out pilot teacher.com um i've been working for the last month just putting together an awesome course to help you guys save money on flight training now it doesn't matter what aircraft you're flying whether it's fixed wing helicopter if you're doing a recreational pilot certificate private or a full professional program i've designed this kind of course so it's all in module so you can pick out all the bits that are applicable to you and it's all about how to save money in so many different areas of your flight training so that more people can get training in the helicopter because the cheaper it is the less money you have to borrow the less you go into debt and more people can get flying so go check it out um when i release this it might not be ready just yet i'm just getting the finishing touches put into it i want it to be perfect for you guys um so keep an eye out on pilot teacher.com and if it's there go over i'm telling you now this course will pay for itself 10 times over just in the savings that you'll make at flight school and it's also going to teach you how to kind of select the right flight school to suit you personally so the fourth helicopter on the list is the robinson r44 this is basically the the larger brother of the r22 this one's a four-seat helicopter it's newer than the r22 r22 was frank robinson's original then we did the r44 now they've got the r66 which is the turbine but the r44 is one of the most popular private helicopters because it's four seats it's really comfortable it's got lots of power and you can just fly your whole family all day long in this and it's a great great helicopter but i've noticed a lot in the past recent years that a lot of fly schools are trying to push students into doing all of their training in the r44 which is fine but it's going to cost you so much more money because you're paying for basically um an extra two seats and an extra two cylinders it is a bigger helicopter so the cabin is wider it's 50 inches wide so it's good if you've got broader shoulders and they have upped the seat weight limitation to 300 pounds so if you can't fit in the r22 and they don't have a schweitzer g2 you can go into the r44 but you've got to be careful with it because the hourly rate is a lot more so for joule it's going to be around about 515 bucks an hour the solo is going to be 450 bucks an hour roughly um so yeah your cost to learn to fly in it is going to be a lot more so you know a 60 hour uh private pilot certificate it's going to be about 30 grand 31 grand um so it's an extra 10 grand more just to do your private pilot certificate and if you're doing all your training in it oh it's going to be so much more and the flag schools are kind of yeah they're kind of being a bit sleazy with this they're like oh yeah do all your training in the r44 more employers will look at you you've been training in a much more better helicopter and you'll stand much better chance of getting a job if you've been doing all your training in the r44 and i'm like no i think that's bs um it's gonna cost you a fortune to do it all in the r44 whereas what i've always suggested is do your training in a cheaper helicopter than if you want to go onto an r44 just do 5-10 hours at the end just to get yourself used to it and get flying in that especially if you've been flying the r22 the r22 to the r44 they feel almost identical and it's not much of a jump at all but doing all your training on r44 that's that's a lot of money but the r44 it's great helicopter two bladed road system um it's got a bit more of inertia in it so there's uh less issues with the low road rpm stall there um and it's a lot faster you can cruise at about 100 knots in this thing a lot more fuel you can be taken so you can do a lot more but because of that it's going to cost you more so out of all the four helicopters which one would i pick if it was me and i was going to fight school tomorrow my first pick would be the cadbury g2 and the safety factors that it's got in there with the finished yarn the crush resistant fuel cell crash attenuating seats um they are what i look for in a training aircraft and because it's practically the same price as the r22 and the schweitzer um it makes it a no-brainer it's just a bit harder to find because it's not as popular so cadbury g2 is my choice um but it depends on whatever you can find so some of you may be asking well why not do training on a turbine helicopter if the whole point is trying to get a job everybody flies turbines now and yeah it's a valid issue the only problem with turbines is you best have really deep pockets i mean really deep so let's say you want to go and do all your training on a jet ranger let's just look at the private pilot certificate in a jet ranger the dual rental cost for a jet ranger on average is around about 1200 bucks an hour um solo is around about 11 35 40 something like that so just to do 60 hours private pilot certificate on a jet ranger it's gonna be about 71 000 so 20 grand in a schweitzer r22 or cadbury g2 or 70 grand in a jet box that's a big big change and that's just for private imagine going all the way through for a professional pilot program it's huge so again you don't need to do all your training in a jet ranger an a-star ec 120 anything like that do your training in a cheaper two-seater helicopter and then if you want to go and get your turbine some places call an endorsement it's not an endorsement most places call it a transition but basically it's getting some time in a turbine and that's what i did i got um i was up to about a thousand hours in the r22 and i wanted to go and get my turbine experience so most people do three five ten hours in a in a jet range or something like that and then it stands you in a good situation to go to an employer because you've already got kind of some turbine experience they don't have to put the training into you so turbines are great but you best have money is no issue because yeah 70 grand over 20 i know which one i would pick so what about if you are wanting to buy your own aircraft learn how to fly in that so many people do that um if you're fortunate enough congratulations i wish i was in your position and buying your own aircraft and learning to fly in it is a very popular option because it saves you a lot of money you're not paying the high instructor and school rate so let's take an r44 for an example you know at the school uh with no instructor the hourly rate is about 495 bucks if you own it yourself i think robinson's put it out to around about 260 280 bucks an hour so your cost is a lot less so what you can do is you can go and hire an instructor to come to your house or to your hangar wherever you keep your aircraft and basically you're paying them you know 50 60 70 80 bucks an hour and it's a lot cheaper so the aircraft rental well the aircraft cost is about 260 bucks plus their um cost of say 60 bucks you know you're up to just over 300 bucks an hour so it is a lot cheaper but the issue that that i personally see with training in your own aircraft is what if something goes wrong because incidents do happen in training it's that's what happens you know you're learning to fly not all instructors can rescue an aircraft and stop it from getting an engine over speed or a rotor over speed or a little bit of a hard landing in you spray the skids a little bit um do you really want to take the risk if you've just spent half a million bucks on your new aircraft i wouldn't so if it was me and i was just bought an r44 i would go and use the flight schools aircraft any issues you have an engine over speed you've got to have an engine overhauled that's a big expense and i would rather pay an hourly rate and have the flight school cover that cost than to have it on my own aircraft so i would go and do so let's say i want to learn to fly to be able to fly my family around gonna do your private pilot certificate in r44 at a flight school yeah it's gonna cost you a little bit more but then when you've got your private pilot certificate your nice shiny aircraft is still brand new and you're not going to be having any of the training issues or training stresses placed into that airframe the other thing you have to be careful of too is your insurance will probably get cranked if you're using your own aircraft to to training and insurance companies know incidents happen so yeah you have to make sure that you inform your insurance company that you're going to be using it for training and be prepared for the insurance rates to go through the roof so me i would use the flight school and then what i know i'm doing go fly my own aircraft so what about kit helicopters kit helicopters are pretty popular because of their cost they can be a lot cheaper than an r22 schweitzer or 44 cabbage g2 jet range or whatever um and kids are a great idea there's kind of a few issues with kids one is majority of the kits are all single seater and i can tell you now if you've never flown a helicopter and you try and pick a helicopter up into the hover no matter how much time you got off in flight sim that thing is going upside down it takes on average about 10 hours for most students to kind of get the grasp of hovering and you could try and do that by yourself your helicopter is going to end up in a wreck and hopefully you don't get hurt there are some kits that are two-seater and that is great because you can get the kit and you've then just got to try and find an instructor that either has the experience or the willingness to come into the helicopter that you built and teach you how to fly in your aircraft um not something i would do uh i don't know if i've got the trust in somebody else's mechanical ability um that's not in the factory to put their aircraft together strap my butt into it and then go throw it at the ground teaching them how to fly maybe if it was mine and i knew how it was built i could go teach them in mine if it was the same aircraft i don't know that's just my personal opinion um we're trying to find an instructor for the kit that you've built can be very difficult because it's a very small community very limited number of people that fly them and instructing them one of the options that most people do that i've seen that go into kits is they will go and learn in something like r22 schweitzer get this necessary experience to gain their pilot certificate and then go and fly in their single seat um that works out a lot better but the cost of training is still going to be a lot more because you're having to pay for that second seat next to you so um again kit helicopters you find instructor can be anywhere from 50 to 100 bucks per flight hour but you've got to try and find one that lives near you otherwise you've got to get to them and yeah it's just hard but kit helicopters they're great if that's what you're into but definitely do not go and try and lift up in a single c helicopter without any training it will end badly i can assure you so if i'm looking at fly score i'm going to be looking for a cadbury g2 second i'm going to be looking for a robinson r22 and a schweitzer then an r44 um we've gone through the pros and cons of why turbines yeah don't even bother get your pilot certificate out the way then do some additional training onto a um a turbine uh that's stupid expensive and uh yeah there's no need to go and spend all that money just to have turbine hours or 44 hours for a job because everything that i've seen unless there's two guys or girls sitting right next to one another this person's got 200 hours in an r44 this person's got 200 hours um in an r22 and then 10 hours in an r44 yeah they're probably the person that's got all their training in the r44 is going to get the job but they're going to be paying off so much more in terms of their cost to learn how to fly so yeah just do your training in the cheaper aircraft and then if you want to transition onto something that's um a helicopter that's going work for you personally whether it's your own aircraft or if you want to get into a career but all four of those aircraft are fantastic machines to learn to fly in it all gonna depend on your personal situation and the availability of those aircraft but no matter which one you pick you are going to be sweating bullets for your first 10 hours of your training and it's fun i'm telling you now i love teaching people how to hover it's it feels like hell on earth but at the same time it's one heck of a challenge so if you've not got into a helicopter yet go check a trial lesson go check out pilot teacher.com for the tips on saving money at flight school get yourself in a helicopter and go and have some of the best times of your life i'll see you next time you

Channel: Pilot Teacher

Views: 42,716

Keywords: Pilot Teacher, Helicopters, Aviation, Rotary-Wing, Learning To Fly, Pilot, Student Pilot, Private Pilot, Commercial Pilot, Flying Instructor, General Aviation, Aviation Enthusiast, Flight Training, How To Fly

Id: kc-N3S1HU0k

Length: 25min 55sec (1555 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 01 2022