Welcome Guest. Sign in or Signup

2 Answers

Rotary transition

Asked by: 1926 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. 

Ace Any FAA Written Test!
Actual FAA Questions / Free Lifetime Updates
The best explanations in the business
Fast, efficient study.
Pass Your Checkride With Confidence!
FAA Practical Test prep that reflects actual checkrides.
Any checkride: Airplane, Helicopter, Glider, etc.
Written and maintained by actual pilot examiners and master CFIs.
The World's Most Trusted eLogbook
Be Organized, Current, Professional, and Safe.
Highly customizable - for student pilots through pros.
Free Transition Service for users of other eLogs.
Our sincere thanks to pilots such as yourself who support AskACFI while helping themselves by using the awesome PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad, and Android aviation apps of our sponsors.

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).

    0 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes



  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

    0 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes


The following terms have been auto-detected the question above and any answers or discussion provided. Click on a term to see its definition from the Dauntless Aviation JargonBuster Glossary.

Answer Question

Our sincere thanks to all who contribute constructively to this forum in answering flight training questions. If you are a flight instructor or represent a flight school / FBO offering flight instruction, you are welcome to include links to your site and related contact information as it pertains to offering local flight instruction in a specific geographic area. Additionally, direct links to FAA and related official government sources of information are welcome. However we thank you for your understanding that links to other sites or text that may be construed as explicit or implicit advertising of other business, sites, or goods/services are not permitted even if such links nominally are relevant to the question asked.