Originally Posted by
ShyTorque
You are a professional crane driver, not a professional helicopter pilot. If you flew it as part of your working day, you ARE getting paid so the authorities would view it differently.
Very much doubt that. See chopjock's post. That seems to state the real legal position.
Whether what is proposed is a
good idea is another matter, but legally I doubt there is much to say about it.
I'm intrigued to know what "certified for patient transport" is, or why there is no such thing as a “simple helicopter for emergency standby". Are you forbidden to use a helo for "patient transport" without an extra burden of licensing? How would you fly someone with a cold in that case? Surely all helos, simple and complex, are capable of use in all sorts of "standby" modes without additional licensing.
If some poor sod needs a casevac does 26500lbs suggest it can't be done in the simple company pickup used for emergency standby with a crane driver at the wheel? Whyever not? Just because he isn't paid as an ambulance driver, has no casevac training and no taxi driver's licence? Or the pickup isn't "certified" for "patient transport"... the mind boggles.
So, in principle and as long, as far as I recall, that the "primary duty" of the driver isn't stated as "helicopter pilot" he probably could fly it quite legally.
But by the time you'd sourced a helo, ferried it there and arranged it's maintenance it would soon become a financial millstone without justifying it's existence on a regular basis and that probably would require a dedicated pilot. That might well require some extra training but even so not at all sure you'd need to be commercial licensed if the job was entirely in-house. After all, US cops fly Police helos on PPLs, don't they, on the basis that they are cops primarily and pilots second? CHIPS don't need taxi licences to drive cop cars with "customers" in them, do they?
I get the feeling that some of the posts above are rather long on knee-jerk and equally short on facts.