State?s First Helicopter Flight School Opened

Camron Mcahren opened the first helicopter flight training school in Arkansas in December. Arkansas Helicopters LLC operates out of the Fayetteville Municipal Airport with one instructor and one helicopter, he said.

Mcahren, who is one of the five students taking classes at the school, hired Cliff McCarley from Arizona as an instructor. Arkansas Helicopters offers private and commercial pilot’s licenses; pipeline and power line patrol; photo flights; rides; and personal or commercial property surveying.

“We’re primarily a flight training school, but we can offer other services as well,” Mcahren said. “We can fly customers out to a piece of property they’re thinking about purchasing, drop them off to take some pictures and take them back to the airport.”

The school currently has one two-seater helicopter but will purchase a four-seater to use in Northwest Arkansas and in the Branson, Mo., area, Mcahren said.

Training prices per hour are $225 for students and $235 for non-students. Student loans are available through participating foundations. The school is also an elective at the aviation program at the Northwest Arkansas Community College.

Mcahren said he’s applied for a charter license for his company, which is different from ride flights. Charters allow the pilot to take customers from one place and drop them off at another. Rides only allow the pilot to pick up and drop off at the same place.

Mcahren said with the booming economics and population in Northwest Arkansas, there might be a need for helicopters to roam the sky for traffic reports, or when his company receives its charter license, he’d like to expand his market to executives who would like to make a shorter trip from their business to the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Highfill, which could turn a 45 minute car drive into a seven minute helicopter ride.