Hi Eddie,
I'm glad to hear you're interested in learning to fly. I am about 5 months into my training at a school here in Oregon called Hillsboro Aviation and it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done, I can’t recommend it enough. But, before you get involved with Silver State PLEASE do some research. I’ll post some links and a letter I received from a guy on this forum who just about saved my life, his name is Elvis and his letter really opened my eyes.

“A big part of my job at Rotor aside from teaching is answering phone calls and responding to inquires via email about training, how you should go about it, what it should cost and how long it should take. I have received many calls from people training at Silver State. I have attended their "free employment seminar". They opened up an office in Long Beach and I have witnessed and delt with their pilots and CFI's in the air and over the radio. I have also read every NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) accident report involving R22’s R44’s and Schweizers over 2003, 2004, 2005.

I wish big egos were the only negative thing about them.

I want you to know that in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM am I trying to sell you anything! You live in Oregon, I would recommend you go to Hillsboro before anywhere else. They’re in your state, have a good reputation and I have never heard anything negative about them. Our prices are fairly average for around here. In SoCal, you get a difference of +/- $10 an hour, some places more. Nationwide they are below average, mainly because of our weather. In other parts of the country the weather is not as consistent, therefore those schools cannot fly as many days a month as we can, therefore their prices have to be higher so they can stay in business. With us and most others, to get your ppl, instrument, cpl, CFI, CFII, R44 transition, and 27 hours in a Jetranger with a transition, it’s will cost about $47K and if you were to go for it, more or less full time, it would take you about 10 months and then you could be teaching. I’m not exactly sure what they are advertising, I thought it was around $55k or so. SS used to have financing with Key Bank. When you signed up and you were approved, you were also approved for a loan from Key Bank. Key Bank no longer gives loans for SS. I think too many people were unhappy with SS and quit, demanding their money back so Key Banks dropped them and ruined it for everyone else because Key Bank will no longer give helicopter training loans to anyone period. I also thought that if you did want to quit SS, you will get your loan money back but they get to keep $5000. I’m pretty sure that SS contract says that they can take up to 2 years to give you your CFI.

In the last 2 years I’ve gotten several phone calls from people already enrolled in SS program. All have had major complaints. One guy actually came over and had a flight with us. He said “I can’t believe I’ve been in a flight school for 4 months and I have to go to another flight school to actually fly in a helicopter.” Another guy told me he was unhappy because “there are 100 students here and only 2 helicopters so getting air time is a real bitch so I don’t get to fly very often.” Someone else told me that he and some other students were considering filing a class action suit against them.

My business partner and I went to their seminar last fall. The place was filled with average Joe’s hoping for a better life, being gloriously deluded and signing up in droves. First of all, there is nothing practical about going through the entire ground school and taking all the written tests before you fly, which by the way won’t be until around 6 months after you start attending classes. Nothing could be more reinforcing than reading about something, then going out right after and experiencing it in real life.
They said that you could only do 2 sessions a week. Why? If you have the money and the time, you should be able to train as often as YOU like/can. Consistency and frequency are the best, cheapest, fastest and most effective way to get through your training.
The seminar also mentioned that after you do get your CFI, they will not hire you until you have a 2 year associate’s degree in Aviation Sciences. I can tell you right now that I have never met a pilot with such a degree. I have never heard of any company besides SS hiring a pilot requiring that they have such a degree. Far be it for me to tell anyone that additional knowledge is a bad thing. When asked if the individual could get the degree while they were training with SS the answer was that they discourage that for reasons that I could quite understand. It is mine and other’s belief and opinion that SS is trying to “put off” their students as long as they can, which fit’s into their business model. They get 100 students to sign up at once all paying up front. With that money they buy the heli’s outright so they have no bank or lease payments. They can’t buy enough for everyone to fly when they want so they only let you train once or twice a week, which is a lousy way to go about it. After you and all the other people get their CFI they now have 100 students and 100 CFI’s with not enough work to go around so they tell you to get an irrelevant degree so that the last batch of CFI’s starts to work. In the end, they have eventually fulfilled their contract and have collected their money. It is also the opinion of myself and others that it’s not “if” this business if going to collapse but “when”.

As far as their pilots go, I think they are hacks. I giggle every time I hear the control tower bitch their pilots out for constantly doing the wrong thing. Airports have letters of agreements with helicopters operators as to specifically what procedures we will use getting in or out of the airport and I have found myself on a head on collision course with SS pilots because they were not following the rules. The tower has also called my office to ask if this heli was one of mine, which happened to be SS. When the tower calls you looking for the operator of an aircraft, it’s almost always cause someone fucked up.

In the last month I read all the accidents from the NTSB for R22’s, R44’s and Schweizers for a project I am working on. I have since mandated it that all my CFI’s read at least a years worth because even at my time (which is not so huge) I found that to be the best learning experience as a CFI that I’ve had in years. Most of the accidents were stated to have been caused by the CFI failure to correct something in time. In 2005 SS had 5 or 6 accidents that I am aware of because SS was named as the operator of the aircraft in the accident report. Not all accident reports list who the company operating was so there could have been more. At the seminar he brought up that issue from the start blamed it mostly of the high density altitude in Nevada, which is in fact an issue, to a degree. Density altitude was not an issue when their pilot was ferrying an R44 back to Nevada and didn’t want to wait for the weather to improve. He crashed in the desert and was killed.

Ok, I may have freaked you out by now. Or maybe you might think I’m just another SS hater who’s full of shit. Either way, I hope I’ve at least given you some questions to ask that you may not have thought to ask before. Don’t think for a minute that you are totally committed and have no choice any more. They may still have a fee for quitting. It may be a hard decision to eat that fee. Weigh it against the cheaper cost of another school and years of your time and frustration. Don’t forget that your time is worth something, not just theirs.”

www.thesilverstatetruth.com

verticalreference.com/helicop...ndex.php

verticalreference.com/helicop...ndex.php

verticalreference.com/helicop...ndex.php
verticalreference.com/helicop...ndex.php

There is a lot of info for you, good luck.