25th year of EMS  

I'm another dual rated pilot and have a lot of experience in both.  And i will say that both have advantages and disadvantages.   I started flying helos for 25k a year in 1988 and the most I ever made was 70k flying AG before swappig to fixed wing and started at the bottom again making 17$ an hour my first year.  That is one advantage you have flying helicopters is that if you don't like employer A you can go to employer B and probably get somewhat of a lateral pay rate.   Not like the guys at TWA that went to American and got stapled to the bottom of the list.  The airlines are a seniority based trap.  Swap airlines and you start out at 1st year pay.  I have always said that there is no pilot shortage but there is a shortage of airlines that understand the law of supply and demand.  You need pilots?  Well pay up!

This year I grossed over 300K as a 777 capt but as good as that sounds if you average out the 10 years I was at the regionals making less than 70k a year i'm still behind.   As a helicopter pilot I was never unemployed and I have been lucky in the airlines to have never been unemployed either but I know several pilots that have gone through multiple furloughs and have lost their houses and gone bankrupt.   They might have made a lot of money but they needed it to get through furloughs.

There are many advantages and disadvantages to both, Airlines have commuting, crashpads and endless reserve and unless you are senior your schedule can just be miserable.  Helicopters have weeks offshore stuck on a platform or weeks on end living in the woods on a fire or stuck at an EMS base with people that have never flown but yet know more than you.

As far as making 950K a year in a helicopter the only way I could imagine that possible is as a SAG pilot or possibly flying AG with a lot of work and a lot of flying.