Chopper Career progression

[c_172pilot]

Hey all, I am doing my conversion to rotary wing flying and to be honest I don’t know much about the industry. I have always been in awe of the versatility of helicopters and have admired the skill that chopper pilots have. But I have been fairly ignorant of the industry as a whole. That being said what is the typical career progression of a chopper pilot? I understand that my fixed wing time won’t count for much of anything when it comes to real world employment but being a double threat (fixed wing and rotary) may be a help though.

So what kind of jobs are there in the rotary world? What can you expect after slogging it out for years to build time? Is their a top of the pile when it comes to chopper pilots like there is with fixed wing? What sort of hours are you going to need to get a stable job that pays decently? I never had ambitions of an airline job I would have preferred to stay flying floats and perhaps getting into fire suppression so chopper flying may be more in line with my line of thinking. What is the demand like for chopper pilots?

Thanks for taking the time to answer some of my questions any guidance is greatly appreciated. I am sure that I will come up with more questions.