Outlook for flying helos, at least at PHI or other similar operations:

Better money out of the gate. Tipover point is about 2-5 years where the guys at a major catch up, depending on how bad 1st year pay is at the major.

Regionals, if you go there, and never go major, probably about the same 10 year earnings, if you make Captain at the 4-6 year mark.

Yeah, you need a butt-ton of Turbine Helo time to have a fighting chance at getting on with PHI or similar. I'm in the weird spot where I have borderline mins for both.

@Ski, every major or decent regional does the "helo hours don't count" or "helo hours not good beyond x hours, or discounted at x rate" so it's kind of a battle across the board for guys with substantial helo time.

For those not familiar, last I saw for the percentages military pilots of each branch that is helos is about:
Navy 55%
USMC 67% (includes tiltrotor)
USCG 75%
USAF 5% (included tiltrotor)

So there are a bunch of guys with a ton of military time, that unless they got a training command or station pilot tour, are boxed out of the majors without massive civil time building.

I'm not sure on the Army percentage, but I'd be shocked if it was under 80% helos.