Originally Posted by
BluSdUp
Berlioz
If in Europe I would imagine with years of time on helicopters You could get a airline to sponsor You somehow.
Professional , mature pilots with command time is hard to find and the industry is getting absolutely desperate by next spring.
Do keep the H active for a few years , as You might miss Your freedom.
Good luck
Cpt B
I found a surprising number of Chief Pilots who believed that any amount of helo time was irrelevant and had no transferrable benefit. These were generally but not exclusively civvy trained people.Military experienced people know better but are fewer and fewer in number.
The transferrable benefits of helo time are immense, especially if you've used your IR procedurally.
imo Captaincy develops in a helicopter far faster than in a comparable sized f/w simply because of the diversity of things you are expected to do in it and the independance required of so many helo ops. And immensely faster than an f/o in any f/w.
Best of luck, you'll find your helo time immensely useful in f/w. As ever luck plays a huge part, right place at right time is everything.
I had about 3500hrs helo time when I defected o/w about 1000 was procedural N Sea. The rest was Jetrangers and Squirrels all europe VFR.
My first f/w job was P1 single turboprop self-managed bush flying. (900hrs)
Second was P1 turboprop small commuter twin scheduled. (150hrs) from which I resigned due to their lax standards.
Third Quadropuff P2 for a year, then command. 350/500hrs.
Fourth 737 command and onwards.
I didn't get there by being anything special as a pilot - I'm just average ability, merely struck (very) lucky.
But bludsup's right, you'll miss your freedom. Much/most airline work nowadays is little more than 100% knowlege of and rigid adherence to sop's and the word Capta***y has been eradicated from the dictionary and is never uttered - and I mean
never uttered in some. It can feel suffocating but that's the price you pay for confidence in earning mortgage and pension payments in the future.