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| Mountain Landing During my PPL |
In 2008, I moved from Spokane, WA to Beaverton, OR to go to flight school at Hillsboro Aviation. I had experienced my first helicopter flight months before at Inland Helicopters in Spokane, and I was hooked. The thrill of flying helicopters was addicting. I started training in September 2008 and got my Private Pilot Certificate in March of 2009. Exactly one year later, to the day I got my Commercial Pilot Certificate. I was having a lot of fun, learning a lot and ready to start my CFI certificate so I could get my career started. I started my CFI Certificate, and made it within about 5 hours of my checkride and I ran out of money.
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| Flying Simulated IFR "Under the Hood" During My CPL |
If you have any experience with the civilian helicopter industry and training, you know that it costs way too much money to get certified. I had taken out loans to finance my training, and at this point I was out of money so I took a short break. During this break, I got the biggest news of my life. My wife was pregnant with our first child! This was exciting and life changing news. But, I couldn't continue with my plan of becoming a CFI. CFI's don't make very much money, they don't make steady money, and they don't have any sort of healthcare or other benefits. Also, at this time the CFI market was super saturated with competent CFI's without jobs. The collapse of Silver State Helicopters had a lot to due with that. Anyway, I decided to wait on my CFI certificate.
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| Taking my wife for her first helicopter flight. |
Fast forward 2 years and I started looking into joining the military. I have 2 really good friends that are in the military (Marines and Navy), and they really inspired me to look into it. I was pursuing a degree in software engineering at the time, racking up more debt, and so I looked into joining the Air Force as a Computer Programmer. However, after 3 trips to the recruiting station, and them being closed every time, one of my friends told me about the WOFT (Warrant Officer Flight Training) program. I researched it and it sounded perfect. I already wanted to serve my country, and I loved flying helicopters. And if I wasn't selected, there was no obligation to join (and I could look into the Air Force again).
The WOFT program is a US Army program that allows civilians to apply and if selected become Aviation branched Warrant Officers (AKA Army Pilot). I'm going to talk more about the application and selection process in my next post.
