Answer - Helicopter Pilot Salary Survey  

Three years?  Take Envoy, probably the largest regional.  Most junior captain was hired in 2018.  I would be wiling to bet they are KLGA based on probably on Reserve. So they have no schedule and get paid the 75 hour minimum.  Six to seven years is more realistic upgrade time if you want to hold a line and stay in your domicile, unless you go someplace like AW or Commutair then starting pay isn't $90 an hour anymore and you get to based in Newark and live in a Hoboken crash pad.  

Last two guys I know hired by a major airline, one was at a regional for 12 years, the other 16 years.  A third person got hired by Atlas, but soon discovered being gone three weeks out of every month isnt very conducive to having a family, and left Atlas and took a job with a local Part 135 operator.  

I write this from the comfort of my home, not a Drury Inn in Rochester New York.  Tomorrow I will have to be in at 0800 and I will be back home by 1500.  I cannot fathom what good an additional, say $40,000 a year, would do me if I don't have the time to spend it or what good it would do leaving extra money to my kids after I die when it would be more valuable spending time with them now when I am alive