PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Adding a Heli rating to an FAA fixed wing...
Old 12th September 2006 | 16:08
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rick1128
 
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 409
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From: Toledo, OH
Having recently gone through this process and having a similar background as you, I will point out a few things.

First, the minimums are just that minimums. If you can go to a school and work at it straight out, you MIGHT do it close to the minimum times. If you ttry to fit in lessons as you can, it will take much longer. The average this way is closer to 100 hours.

Second, forget just about everything you learned flying fixed wings. It will take several hours just to get used to the approach speeds. H-LL, I taxi faster than that!! Plus the approaches are not stablized like the fixed wing community understands stablized approaches.

You will do things much slower, as far as controlling the helicopter, that a F/W. But things happen much quicker. Some things do carry over. Cross country planning is much the same, as is weather and weight and balance. Many of the visual clues you use in the F/W work the same in the helicopter. If you go thisd route, find a good school that will work with you.
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