I'm wondering about helicopters too. I was a helicopter pilot for a few years. We rarely flew much higher than 1,000 feet AGL, but we crawled all over the aircr

I'm wondering about helicopters too. I was a helicopter pilot for a few years. We rarely flew much higher than 1,000 feet AGL, but we crawled all over the aircraft during pre-flight, drew fuel samples, etc. While deployed in a flying position, we'd log 50-100 hours per month. It would be a quarter of that when not deployed. Over a 20-year career, 5,000 hours seemed typical for Army warrant officers; commissioned officers (who spend a lot of time on "non-flying duty 'for career progression'") would get more like 1,000-2,000 hours. I'm pretty sure that civilian commercial pilots fly a lot more than that.