I wish I had balls of steel! I am probably more dangerous by now then a starter student!
I am sure my reflexes suck ass. My feet are lazy due to gyro flying.
I could still pull some life saving stunt but it would be probably pretty ugly.
Gyros are much easier to fly although they will make you slower and less responsive.
When I flew Eddy's R44 I had a hell of a time with that T handle!!!!!
I absolutely hated it.

Now the Bell 47 was no problem. But again it's a big guy and heavy so it is stable.
Plus it has throttle that I prefer over a governor or correlator.
The wooden blades have no time limit on them!!!!!

Good Lord, that picture of you in the helicopter is from 20 years ago!!!
Do you mean to tell me that in twenty years you couldn't find a way to take 1 lesson a month?

When I started flying, I worked off most of my lessons turning wrenches with my CFII/AP/IA. I also washed and polished airplanes, cleaned out hangars if someone needed help, stripped aircraft, organized parts, etc. Anything that I thought would get me some stick time in someones plane, I did. I got to fly several planes any time I wanted because the owners knew that it would be put up cleaner than before and I always replaced the fuel I burned, and then some.

And this wasn't while I was a school kid. This was in 1996, I was 29 years old, and working a full-time job. I gave up on new vehicles, motorcycles, and anything else that got in the way. Every spare dollar went for flying.

People on the field took note of my work and I was offered a well paying part time job for an aerial application outfit as their machinist, welder, and all-around fixit guy. Then I was able to pay for the toys I wanted.

That's how you make it happen.
Or you can sit around tinkering with one-off projects and waiting for good things to happen to you.

That reminds me of one of our guys at Tomlinson. He used to work for a carpet cleaning company. Every time they came to clean the carpet this guy was in the hangar cleaning helping and all.
He became a CFI free of charge after being hired by Neil to handle paperwork and the phone.
He would learn to fly by the guys taking the machines for the test flight after annuals.
It is very possible! I have seen it. He wasn't a young guy either. He was I think 34 when he got his CFI ticket.
He flies for Panther helicopter services. But to be fair he put in the longest hours and no weekends off. Still I think it was a good trade off. Others paid big money for that ticket.

When I started flying Grummans (AA1, AA5 and Tiger) in 1978 at Pegasus school of aviation at Tauranga airport in NZ (where that Calidus went for a swim ), I hung around the airport and used to sweep hangers and clean the bellys of planes.... on the backboard/creeper with the bottle of cleaner and rags (man that shit sticks ).... then got to gassing up planes and doing the first dailies, checking oil and doing the gas/water checks tire pressures etc etc..... only ever got paid in flying time.... but went on a few x country flights and got some hands on .... Ahhhhhhh nostalgiaaaaaaa

Good examples how to achieve your goals for flying or other hobbies. This takes money , and where I come from..it takes work.

The checks usually don't land in my mailbox without a lot of effort.

All my gyro builds and my helicopter kit were bought by taking on an extra job requiring extra hours to pay for it. The satisfaction is priceless accomplishing your goals. Sure, life gets in the way sometimes, but you dig deeper.

The more effort one puts into something, the more reward and satisfaction received.

Over the many years on the RWF and here have been scores of examples how people have achieved their goals. Sacrifice and work usually are the two key ingredients.

Big BIG money!
There's a Bristow Academy training facility here in New Iberia. It used to be Vortex Helicopter until Bristow bought them out. We hire a lot of students from there trying to break into the ag business.

Unfortunately, the quality of the students is dismal. Most of them know only enough to pass the oral and practical. And how they managed that is a mystery to me. They can't plan a cross-country flight, have no concept of MOA's, can barely navigate without a GPS, etc. The school runs them through as fast as possible while blowing sunshine up their butts about the exciting career opportunities awaiting them.

We start them out as drivers for the batch trucks after getting them their Class B CDL. Then they move up to a Turn-key position, coordinating with customers, getting chemicals, making sure the batches are mixed correctly, filling out ap reports, arranging water and jet fuel, hotels, etc. Along the way they may get some stick time in the helicopter building their turbine time. Then if they stick it out until an pilot position opens up, they get a shot at the seat. But it's a rare occurence. We only have 4 spray ships at the moment, so our turnover rate is pretty high among drivers. Long days during the spray season, bouncing all over the country, living out of a hotel for months will seperate the wheat from the chaff. 90% end up moving on to different ag companies or different jobs altogether, dragging a trainload of debt behind them.
Here's Bristows prices:
http://www.heli.com/student-services/2-tuition-and-fees-FAA.php
And that's just gets you a fresh ticket with no marketable experience.

Here's the company I work for: http://www.tmaviation.com/index.htm. Some of the pics are out of date, but you can see how the helicopters land on top of the batch trucks to reload and refuel. We are getting away from using OH-58's. The parts are drying up and getting expensive. We have two 206B's, three 206L's, one OH-58, two Cessna 188 AGwagon's (for mosquito control), plus a few fixed-wings for charter, instruction, general use, etc. Most of the work I do is plumbing on the trucks, repairing pumps and valves, general truck maintenance (we do have a diesel mechanic though), straightening and rebuilding back decks and platforms (when they flip a truck out in the woods), rebuilding spray systems when they smack trees and dig into the corn, rebuilding Dry-Breaks, maintaining the mosquito spray systems on the Ag Trucks and the ground support equipment, machining out parts and tools for the A&P mechanics, etc. The dumbass drivers could break an anvil with a rubber mallet so I always have something to fix. Job security for me!

every weekend every lunch time every spare second was in a rented helicopter to get a pvt cert. every job at an airport I had contracted flight time with the work done (even sweeping floors, twisting wrenches) Every test flight after maintenance, Then my commercial cert Tuna boats ,rides, frost control, photo flights, anything to fly (Even lived in a hangar loft ) anything to fly. Anywhere. Anytime...

What good did it do me? I'm still here. . Still ugly. Still unwashed, Still wanting to fly more.

Yaaaayyy Mine coasted me only 72 grand! What a bargain?

That is crazy!!!!!

Seems to me education only pays the schools and bankers...

$47.000 no loans, pay as I went, Over 5 years 150 hours commercial cert, 1979 prices,,,,,,,,

.

I did it wrong ... I WORKED TOO HARD !!!

There is a lesson here I think

I painted cars Monday to Friday and net $660 circa 1979 - 1980 .... gave $500 to the fight school for an hour training on Saturday and an hour on Sunday ... then back to work painting cars on Monday

If I had to do it over again I would have swept some hangar floors .... helped the Bell 47 mechanics with some volunteer detail and painting .... drank a few gallons of coffee with all the crew at the flight school .... learned some camaraderie and fellowship with helicopter guys .... I would have been better off

Hard work is good but there is more than just that .... my dream would be to sweep floors where guys like Hillberg hang out. He knows more than I could even dream about

.

Mine was a 2005 price. Don't owe anything but that was a deep hit.....

.

True confession .... I had lots of trouble managing the throttle on the Bell 47 .... once I got it figured out I became a typical narcissistic helicopter pilot who poked fun at R22 drivers and Helicycle drivers who had governors .

Apologies to all whom I may have offended , I really mean that.

Throttle management was the one thing that messed me up the most during training .... I cursed myself for that day after day ..... before I even set foot in a helicopter I completely understood every single control , what it did , and why , I was ready to go and be trained .... or so I thought anyway

Then comes that ficking twist grip Harley Davidson Throttle Control on the end of the Collective lever. It phucked me up to no end. Everything else was easy by comparison

I flew 3 different Bell 47's and had 3 different instructors . My first instructor was impressed by how (reasonably) well I knew the controls and could even hold a hover for about three seconds.... but he was a bean counter and lectured me on watching the tachometer because my engine rpm was too low most of the time. He said he would fail me if he was my flight examiner

So I glued my eyes to the engine-rotor tachometer and kept it perfect .... by then the helicopter was all over the place and the instructor told me he would fail me because I could not control a helicopter in the most basic manner. He told me to keep my eyes on the distant horizon and that way i could sense any movemrnts in the helicopter fuselege and correct for it

That worked pretty good until I asked him how the phuck do I keep my eyes on the horizon and the tiny little tachometer at the same time.

Next Saturday they gave me a different instructor.

His name was Gerry MaCarthur and he was the owner of the flight school .... a Bell 47 guy thru and thru .... mechanic too ..... he said Arnie ..... pull yourself up into a hover .... glance at your tachometer and adjust your rpm until it is perfect ..... then take your time and hover around a bit and train your ear to the sound of the 435 cubic inch Lycoming and Bell 600 transmission at proper flight rpm

From then on I was fine , my ears had nothing to do anyway ..... and my eyes could be out scanning the horizon where they belong .... I had it aced .... or so I thought anyway

Next phucking Saturday the put me in a different Bell 47 that had a totally different sound from a non-turbo Lycoming 435 cubic engine with a different transmission ..... and I was all phucked up again

Throttle management is never easy .... my apologies again to those whom I may have mocked for flying governed helicopters

Guys like me try to justify our inadequacies by poking fun at someone else.

I love the camaraderie of helicopter pilots and gyroplane pilots .... and I love this Wolverine forum .... we can all be what we are without apologies for being who we are

Such a thing is an honest man.

Maybe you just needed different glasses Arnie?