I made a few queries into the tilt rotor's out of sheer curiousity & have asked Nick L his opinion on the topic & he prompted me to raise a thread on the issue, so without hijacking Dave's thread here's what i learnt;

(directly from Bell) minimum requirements for the tilt rotor endorsement is CPL(H) + CPL(A), with most crew likely to require ATPL(H) +CPL(H).

Bell have set up an academy for training in the BA609, i contacted them & just for the endorsement you are looking at a cool US$50,000 (+/- US$20,000!)....

Dave,
Rats, I missed the 60 minutes rotorcraft program.
Did the airscooter fly untethered?

These are not the future rotorcraft but rather they are schemes to bilk investers money.

A little detail such as autorotation capability seems to be ignored in these programs. Popular Science sells lots of mags every time they run a story on the future flying car.

Sure it will come in time, maybe not these machines.

I saw that Trek thing in the Hiller museum in San Carlos CA. Cant hurt anybody there.

slowrotor,

Yes, they flew the Airscooter untethered, at 5' above the tarmac. They displayed the yaw and some cyclic. The reporter then flew it at 1' tethered. The mentioned list price was $50,000.00.

The Moller Skycar and Trek Aerospace were also hovered, but with overhead cables to cranes.

Dave