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2 Answers

Rotary transition

Asked by: 2101 views Commercial Pilot

Does a military helicopter pilot that holds a FAA commercial helicopter certificate,  that wants to get his commercial Airplane have to get their private airplane before getting their commercial airplane? They already have a commercial certificate in helicopter. 

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2 Answers



  1. Kris Kortokrax on Apr 17, 2018

    You don’t have to, but I would recommend that you do. The reason is that 61.129(a)(2) requires that you have 50 hours of PIC time in an airplane. Since you are not rated in airplanes, the only way you can get PIC time is to fly solo. Now, 61.129(a)(4) allows you to credit 10 hours of time performing the duties of a PIC with an authorized instructor on board, but that is it. You would still need 40 hours solo.

    I took the same route when I added on helicopter to my certificate. I first got the Private, then any time I spent getting dual toward the Commercial, I could log as PIC. I could also take passengers along on pleasure flights, rather than having to do them solo. It makes even more sense going from helicopter to airplane, because the maneuvers for Commercial are different than for Private (unlike helicopters).

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  2. FixedWing on Apr 28, 2018

    The better option is to add Sport-Airplane privileges. From that point forward, all time would be PIC. There are no flight experience requirements for a certificates pilot and all that is required for the checkride is a second CFI. The only hassle is that the checkride must be done in a Sport qualified aircraft.

    Stephen

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