Mil RW to Civ FW - logbooks and Americans!

[CollectiveProtest]

Hello all, having been an active pprune stalker for a few years I thought it was about time I tapped into the wealth of knowledge available - thank you very much in anticipation! After a hugely enjoyable 12 years of helicopter flying, I have just swapped the cockpit for the dreaded desk and with one eye on the exit I think a second career in the airlines beckons. I’ve renewed my PPL(A) and am enjoying a slow trickle of hours building in some museum worthy Cessnas and have also purchased a shiny new Jeppesen logbook which I have no idea how to start! To any out there who have trodden the path before, should I transfer each line from my military log book (eek!), each FW line only (assuming I won’t fly helos again) or a one liner with the FW total prior to the individual civvy FW entries? Searched high and low and couldn’t find an answer elsewhere, but happy to be corrected and steered appropriately! Also, any knowledge of the less well trodden path of UK military RW to US FAA FW licensing would also be very very well received. Thank you forthcoming bally heroes.

[Chauderon]

So I’ve done this journey... I just have an excel spreadsheet where I collate my various hours under civil / military / fw / rw. etc. However, if I did it again I would advise starting a new civil logbook and putting it all in there. It’s all about the hours, and if you can record all your flights with taxi time then that may save you some hours building (which gets very expensive). Also you need certain hours for certain jobs and this will keep on coming up throughout your career. Will take some hours to write, but might save you a lot - and you don’t need to be doing these SEP hours when you have thousands of mil RW.

Every time logbooks come up on here you get different takes on it, but that’s mine...

On the FAA side, the recruitment opportunities are amazing. There are companies (check commutair, Mesa, psa, Skywest. GoJet) that have rotor transition programs. Worth a look to see if they will take you on - I would think so. The pay won’t be stellar but they’ll cover the conversion, licensing, rating and hours... which is worth tens of thousands.

I went mil RW to EASA to FAA, so the long expensive route.

Do you have the green card already? If not, think about timing, it takes ~ 6 months to process and once issued you have 6 months to move.

In terms of where you want to work, there’s a website called pilotdomiciles that shows each airport with the airlines serving it.

The airline worlds are sine waves and UK is steady / slightly down and US is going up (right now), so good timing to be looking there.

Finally check out RTAG - Rotary to Airline Group. It’s catered for US personnel but may be useful to check out the opportunities.

Good luck!

[Asturias56]

"Do you have the green card already? If not, think about timing, it takes ~ 6 months to process and once issued you have 6 months to move"

If you mean the Permanent residents Card that can only be issued with an application form an employer - about 22 million people applied for the 50,000 available in the "lucky dip" method last time round - you are unlikely to be lucky..............https://www.uscis.gov/greencard

[Chauderon]

...or maybe CollectiveProtest is just eligible for an Immediate Relative visa, like I was?

[meleagertoo]

Why not continue using your military logbook as I did?
A double red line under the last military flight and a suitable annotation, ditto in the summary page with totals, then start (in blue ink for FW, black for rotary in my case) civvy entries on the next page. Keeps it all neat and in one place. Different coloured ink for f/w and rotary is useful, or of you're not going to do r/w again maybe a different clour for civvy hours to keep them apart.
There is certainly no need to transfer anything but totals and sub totals across to a new logbook if you wish to go down that route, nor is there a requirement for any particular logbook to be used as long as it allows you to record the required categories which your UK Mil logbook does. Personally I wouldn't have a logbook with columns to record clock-time of take-offs and landings, it's just too long winded.
I also used one line (per airframe) per day with total day and night hours in the relevant columns or else you spemd half your life writing it up sector by sector and going through logbooks like they're disposable. CAA were perfectly happy with that.

[SASless]

Going from the UK to the US FAA will be far easier than the other way around!

I did it from the US Military/FAA to the UK CAA and it was a proper pain in the butt!

I would suggest starting a new logbook....importing totals from the Military logbook!

Also, contact the FAA directly, explain your situation and see what requirements you will have to meet.

[RAFEngO74to09]

"Do you have the green card already? If not, think about timing, it takes ~ 6 months to process and once issued you have 6 months to move"

If you mean the Permanent residents Card that can only be issued with an application form an employer - about 22 million people applied for the 50,000 available in the "lucky dip" method last time round - you are unlikely to be lucky..............https://www.uscis.gov/greencard

Incorrect - the EB-3 Visa route would be the applicable one to try for anyone seeking employment as a US civilian airline pilot or in the burgeoning Red Air aggressor industry.

The potential employer would have to make an application to the US Department of Labor and obtain "Labor Certification" from the US Department of Labor verifying that:
- There are insufficient available, qualified, and willing U.S. workers to fill the position being offered at the prevailing wage.
- Hiring a foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.

and also be making a full-time job offer.

https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-third-preference-eb-3

https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/permanent-workers

https://my.uscis.gov/exploremyoptions/eb3_permanent_workers

The EB-3 is not a lottery - as with any of the EB-1 > EB-5 employment based visa categories, success depends on complying with all the requirements in an accurate and timely manner - however irksome they may appear at the time.

Although EB-3 visas are limited to around 40,000 a year out of the overall total statutory limit of 140,000 for EB1 > EB-5, not everyone who gets one issued as a Conditional Permanent Resident is successful in getting their status adjusted to have the conditions removed.

The statistics here for the total of both "issued" and "conditions removed" show that in both 2017 and 2018 EB-3s were significantly under subscribed at 22.862 and 20,993 respectively.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/536014/eb3-visa-issuances-and-status-adjustments/

[CollectiveProtest]

So I’ve done this journey... I just have an excel spreadsheet where I collate my various hours under civil / military / fw / rw. etc. However, if I did it again I would advise starting a new civil logbook and putting it all in there. It’s all about the hours, and if you can record all your flights with taxi time then that may save you some hours building (which gets very expensive). Also you need certain hours for certain jobs and this will keep on coming up throughout your career. Will take some hours to write, but might save you a lot - and you don’t need to be doing these SEP hours when you have thousands of mil RW.

Every time logbooks come up on here you get different takes on it, but that’s mine...

On the FAA side, the recruitment opportunities are amazing. There are companies (check commutair, Mesa, psa, Skywest. GoJet) that have rotor transition programs. Worth a look to see if they will take you on - I would think so. The pay won’t be stellar but they’ll cover the conversion, licensing, rating and hours... which is worth tens of thousands.

I went mil RW to EASA to FAA, so the long expensive route.

Do you have the green card already? If not, think about timing, it takes ~ 6 months to process and once issued you have 6 months to move.

In terms of where you want to work, there’s a website called pilotdomiciles that shows each airport with the airlines serving it.

The airline worlds are sine waves and UK is steady / slightly down and US is going up (right now), so good timing to be looking there.

Finally check out RTAG - Rotary to Airline Group. It’s catered for US personnel but may be useful to check out the opportunities.

Good luck!

Sorry Chauderon - tardy response from me, off comms for a while! Really appreciate your considered reply. Think I’ll go with the less labour intensive log book options mentioned elsewhere but will definitely take the steers for everything else. Again, many thanks.

[CollectiveProtest]

...or maybe CollectiveProtest is just eligible for an Immediate Relative visa, like I was?

Visa not an issue!

Why not continue using your military logbook as I did?
A double red line under the last military flight and a suitable annotation, ditto in the summary page with totals, then start (in blue ink for FW, black for rotary in my case)......

Thanks meleagertoo for your advice, great suggestion and sounds sensible.

Going from the UK to the US FAA will be far easier than the other way around!

I did it from the US Military/FAA to the UK CAA and it was a proper pain in the butt!

I would suggest starting a new logbook....importing totals from the Military logbook!

Also, contact the FAA directly, explain your situation and see what requirements you will have to meet.

Sorry to hear British bureaucracy got in the way! Happy to learn that it’s easier going against the jet stream, appreciate your suggestions and will make an appointment with the local FSDO.

[RedcoatUSA]

No apologies for reviving this old post - I had no idea someone would be in the same situation as me.

CollectiveProtest I would be eternally grateful if you could PM me with your experiences of navigating the FAA with only a UK mil logbook.

If anyone else has experience of similar then I'd appreciate any advice or pitfalls you ran into pursuing FAA FW licenses using UK mil RW hours. For information - RTAG weren't able to help when I reached out given that I'm not a US mil veteran (same issue for reduced ATPL requirements, no doubt too).