Starting Helicopter Pilot Training

Let us let you live your dreams...

Helicopter pilot training with Astral Helicopters offers several important advantages that put our students ahead of the competition:

• commercially experienced instructors,
• based from Rotorua International Airport for exposure to busy airspace, yet with?our bush training areas?only a two minute flight away,
• modern and highly maintained aircraft?with real-time GPS flight tracking and onboard moving map GPS ,
• our small family-like operation where you will receive one on one training and not become just a face in the crowd,
• and our close working relationship with the international job market.

Choosing a helicopter flight school that can offer all of these things is the most important decision you will make in your career.

Come and relax with a coffee and a chat and see for yourself just how Astral Helicopters can help you begin this fantastic journey. The first step on the road to becoming a helicopter pilot is to take a trial, twenty minute introductory flight with an instructor where you will get the opportunity to take the controls. You will see what its like to fly a helicopter and will probably become addicted right there!

Discover our Introductory Helicopter Flight gift vouchers.

Once the helicopter flight training begins the first goal is to achieve solo flight, the big day where you will fly a helicopter on your own.

Everybody is taught at a pace that suits them, and when your instructor is sure that you are safe and competent, he will climb out of the aircraft and you will fly solo in what many people call the most rewarding experience of their life! The childhood dreams of levitation are happening right now and you are in complete control.

The first licence you will achieve is the Private Pilots Licence or PPL.

A PPL requires a minimum of 50 hours flight time, 6 basic exams and a flight test. This licence will allow you to fly friends and family enabling them to share the experience. Once you're licensed, Astral Helicopters aircraft are usually available to take away overnight to different areas. You only pay for the actual flying time on trips away.

Some people are happy with a PPL, to be able to fly to a friends farm for the weekend, visit the mountains or the beach, or to show their partner the city lights by night. Others wish to fly helicopters full time as a career. They will continue on to their Commercial Pilot licence, or CPL.

A CPL allows the holder to fly the aircraft for which they are rated for hire or reward. A job! Civil Aviation requirements state a minimum of 150 hours flight time (all your training so far counts toward this) a further 6 exams and a flight test. This is the minimum requirement to start looking for that job.

Some students continue toward a C Category Instructors Rating, which will allow them to instruct and build valuable flight time. From time to time Astral Helicopters hire students that began their helicopter pilot training with us and have continued on to their C Cat. We cannot make any promises here, as it depends on the person and the marketplace at the time. Other students do an Agriculture Rating or an Instrument Rating.

Astral Helicopters plans to introduce helicopter Instrument Ratings in the future. Contact us for details. Otherwise we can point the qualified students in the right direction for that ground job - dispatching, loading or helping in a hangar that often leads to the first flying job. There's always a fresh coffee at Astral Helicopters and you may even meet your first employer right here at our hangar!

Fly Astral Helicopters and welcome to our sky