Originally Posted by Whirlybird
A year ago, a friend and I, both helicopter pilots, were in the USA, and decided to just do an hour each of helicopter flying with an instructor. We phoned several schools...and they all told us they couldn't do it any more. I don't remember exactly what we had to have, but since we were foreign, we needed something official, even for just the one flight. Eventually we found a small school which was prepared to bend the rules for us - we turned up, and each had a nice little sightseeing flight with a young instructor who enjoyed being paid for doing next to nothing. But apparently, strictly speaking, even that was illegal!
which is why I'm not naming either the area or the school, and I won't - sad that's it's got to this, isn't it?
I believe that "intro" or "discovery" flights are exempt from requiring a clearance as far as I'm aware. I suspect many schools do not really know the rules and gave this answer just to be safe. I've found that many schools do not really know the rules and if you go to a CFI or club that largely attended by citizens they really have no idea what to do in the case of non-citizens. I really found this a problem. Hopefully it will get better with time. I was the first non-citizen my instructor has trained (1 year after the rules came into effect) and he had a lot of learning to do himself about all this. I believe he has 2 more sudents now who are also non-citizens.