My wife got me a 1 hour (30 minutes flying) intro Helicopter flying lesson. Pretty frikkan' awesome. I was looking and I got excited when I saw the GI Bill can be used to earn a commercial pilots license when I was looking at their web page last night; still have lots of benefits left. Then I was sad to see that they will not pay for the private license which you need to obtain first.
I guess that sort of make sense, since they'll also pay for a CDL, but you need to have your private license first. The big difference in my eye is the 12-16k a private chopper license costs. Still awesome though, and I will just have to take good notes
I read 12-16 and 14+ on a couple of fairly unbiased sites. That's to cover ground schools, minimum time flying with an instructor, minimum solo time, etc. You could obviously easily run over if you need more than the average bear. commercial is that plus 30 some.... Not cheap for certain. Anyway even if it is 12 it is out of the ralm of what I can afford so it's a moot point.
One way you can use the GI Bill for the whole thing is to enroll in a university and the since the private is required to obtain the degree they will pay. Of course the end goal is to have a commercial license if you attend a program like that. To top it off we have a uni just down the street with such a program. Alas it is daytime classes only; no weekend/evening classes so it does nothing for me... So again mostly a moot point.
