But Critics Say The Amount Paid By The Government For Flight Training Is Too High

Helicopter flight schools that train veterans under a post 9/11 GI bill have come under fire from critics who say they are gouging U.S. taxpayers.

An article in the Los Angeles Times outlines how the flight schools are allowed under the bill to partner with public colleges and universities ... many of the community colleges ... to offer degrees in aviation. The flight schools work as contractors for the institutions, which keep some portion of the tuition for themselves and pass along the rest to the flight school. The "loophole", some critics say, is that there is no cap on what the flight schools can charge for pilot training.

Flight schools had been barred by the Post-9/11 GI bill because the Congress did not want to include payments to veterans who were not studying at institutions that didn't offer educational degrees, according to the article.

The LA Times says it counted 15 businesses offering helicopter pilot training in 10 states through the GI Bill. Two of those companies have some 430 veterans enrolled, and they are planning to add more expensive aircraft to allow them to charge more for training, the paper says.

Sean Reid, the owner of Upper Limit Aviation, one of the companies highlighted in the article, said that the arrangement gives a lot of veterans jobs. "They're not committing suicide. They're not homeless. They're using the benefits they've earned," he said.

While there has been substantial growth for some of those companies, it may be short lived. Nearly 7,000 helicopter pilots have left the Army and Navy since 2007, and companies in the private sector in need of pilots may look to those with more hours than fresh graduates from flight schools.

Netjet estimates that the number of civilian U.S. helicopter pilots has grown 17 percent in that same period.

(Image from file)

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