Jonny's guide to becoming a helicopter pilot - Hour building isn't about simply adding numbers to your logbook — it's about building the skills, experience and judgement that will make you a better commercial pilot.

Why Hour Building Can Become a Complete Waste of Time

Having trained many pilots who have gone onto become “Captains of Industry” we keep in regular contact, and one of the things I am finding is the helicopter world is now a “race to the bottom” ….

Want to become a commercial helicopter pilot?

·         Get the cheapest PPL(H).

·         Do 100 hours of cheap hour building as quickly as possible.

·         Learn enough answers to pass the CPL(H) theory exams.

·         Find the cheapest CPL(H) course.

·         Find the cheapest IR(H) course.

·         Congratulations. You now have an EASA CPL(H)/IR(H).

You also have what we call an “EASA mongrel”.

We jokingly call this the “EASA mongrel” - a licence assembled from the cheapest possible route through each stage of training, without necessarily building a coherent pilot along the way.  Done as quickly and cheaply as possible. 

You now want to fly a big twin… but you can’t.  Your skills are too poor, and your knowledge is woeful.  

I do actually say to these “Captains of Industry” – it’s actually partly your fault.  As long as you do not sponsor or support the lower levels of the training industry the pilot will nearly always go for the cheapest option.

So, where can you improve, make yourself stand out from the crowd, and be a better pilot?

Too many hour builders just go to burn holes in the sky – is this going to stand you in good stead for later on in your career?

One of the things that Chief Pilots tend to do if you reach an interview is look through your logbook.  100 hours in your local circuit in 3 weeks…. This immediately raises a red flag.

When an experienced Chief Pilot looks through your logbook, they're looking for evidence of how you've used those hours.

On the other hand, a pilot who has “done things” and been places, and gains experience is a far more interesting candidate.  It demonstrates all sorts of good practices, learning and instantly more hireable.

A logbook isn't just a record of how many hours you've accumulated. It's part of your CV.

Consider some of the options below:

Go to different places – do navigation exercises. 

This is one area I find in commercial flight training is always extremely weak.  The student has spent 100 hours flying on GPS, bumbling around, following a magenta line.  Now we want accuracy and precision on a map and it is simply not there for commercial level.

Go to unfamiliar airfields, cross borders, go off airport, navigate, learn fuel and weather planning.

Positioning a helicopter across Europe gives real world experience on how to really operate a helicopter.  Something many pilots miss, they can fly, but can they really operate away from base?

It also gives you the opportunity to visit other helicopter companies, have a coffee and a chat.  Pilots are like fishermen, get a few together and before you know it were talking stories about “the biggest fish”.  This means that you are not a CV, you are a face and a person.

Fly professionally.

Yes, have some fun, take friends and family flying, enjoy the hour building, but that does not mean you cannot be professional.

Do the flight planning, do the MATED Brief, take the helicopter flying seriously and professionally.  Again, this will stand you in good stead when it comes to CPL flight training.  You will be expected to present yourself and the helicopter as checked and ready as a professional pilot for each and every lesson.

Also, “wanging” into an airfield, with a downwind wing over may be extremely cool, but that helicopter company that is based there and their Chief Pilot saw you – may not be a great introduction.  People remember.

You may want to video your exploits, and post all over social media what an amazingly gifted pilot you are – do we check your social media before interview?  You bet…  The helicopter industry is a surprisingly small world. The person watching your video today may be sitting across the interview table from you two years from now.

On the other hand, turning up for hour building wearing a pilot shirt, 4 gold bars and insisting everyone calls you “Captain” may also not go down too well.  Dress smart, dress comfortably.

Learn new skills – flying

Never flown in cold weather?  Go to a flight school and do some training or self-fly hire, get some weather experience?  Same goes for flying in different airspace, or over water, or hot weather, or high altitude.  All of these can really bring your flying skills up, as well as learning new techniques.

Try mountain flying, or even different countries, it might be cheaper to fly abroad, but it can also broaden your knowledge, skill base and network for the future.

Here’s an interesting one for you…  my mentor when learning to fly and hour building (yes, we ALL have one!).  Thinking about hour building, I could go and get 4 or 5 type ratings.  Once done them and after my CPL I would be a commercial pilot with 5 type ratings – surely more hireable!!  His reply:

“There are two types of pilots in the industry, ones who fly a few helicopter types very well, ones who fly lots of helicopter types very badly.  Which do you want to be?”

Looking back – he was right.  Flying 5 different types, means so many differences and systems that you would struggle to really know each helicopter extremely well.  Having a few hours on lots of types would not necessarily be any benefit to you.  More type ratings do not automatically make you more employable.

Things to do hour building with Balearic Helicopters

Keep training

Do not just go off into the sunset and burn a 100 hours.  Remember “Skill Fade”.  On your own, you will probably end up doing something like this:

Startup – Take off - Hover 5 minutes – fly level 50 minutes – Hover 5 minutes – Land – Shut Down…

Repeat 100 times – Job done!

This means there are a lot of things you are not doing, and some that you probably cannot do without an instructor.  So, every, say 10 hours, get an instructor on board.  Do things you want to practice and really improve, be it advanced hovering manoeuvres, confined areas, and train with your instructor emergencies, practice forced landing and engine off landings – all of this is required to a very high level for CPL training, so being “on-the-ball” when the course starts and you will find the course a lot less stressful!

Most flight schools out their will happily put together a structured hour building package for you, including fun flying (remember that’s why you learnt to fly!) specific exercises, self fly hire, navigation and all sorts of learning you can do, so rather than just go off and fly, put some thought process into it! 

You are in charge, so you can even set out a schedule and “wish list” of items you want to cover.

Or, you could just howl at the moon…

Jonny Greenall is the Head of Training and founder of Balearic Helicopters. With more than 25 years of helicopter flying and training experience and over 9000 hours, he has extensive experience across private, commercial and instructor training.

The views and advice in this article are based on Jonny's experience of helicopter flying and flight training.

Hour building doesn't have to mean simply accumulating numbers in a logbook.

At Balearic Helicopters, we can help you structure your hours around navigation, positioning flights, different environments, advanced handling and real-world helicopter operations — while still leaving plenty of room to enjoy flying.

If you're building hours towards a CPL(H), have a look at our Advanced PPL / Structured Hour Building options.

Things to do hour building with Balearic Helicopters