Advanced Training

[hwatson]

I am a 250 hour CPL(H) but mainly hobby flyer - any tips for interesting advanced training. I am thinking Mountain, Crop Spraying etc...

[bigglesbutler]

If you want something you can actually use, do an Instrument Rating, it might help one day.

Si

[hands_on123]

I wouldn't call that "interesting". Rather a painful way to drop £50,000 - and never use it, unless you go North Sea.

You're better off doing the london heli-lanes, some hotel landings, mountain flying, R22/R44/Hughes 300/EC120 type rating, etc.

Or if you're feeling wedged up, a twin heli rating.

Or maybe take some fixed wing lessons, you can get to go IMC and do some instrument training for a fraction of the cost of doing it in a helicopter (and the IR procedures are exactly the same - so why pay for a heli?)

You could do all the above for a third of the cost of an IR, and probably have more fun and learn more too.

[Pandalet]

Depends on what you're trying to achieve. If you want to be more employable, unless you have something lined up that needs it, an extra rating doesn't make much difference; 5 hours of (say) turbine might as well be 0 if it's not in an immediately useful type (i.e. one that your new employer uses). An IR is probably good, although at the moment, it probably won't make any difference.

If you're just looking for something fun, for your own, personal interest, and don't care about anything else, then what you do is entirely up to you! I personally really enjoyed my IR, and found it interesting and entertaining. I'd like to think I'd spend the £38k again, even if I wasn't looking for improvements in my job prospects, but who knows. I will say that a type rating isn't a whole lot of use for its own sake, unless you're planning to actually fly the type from time to time, so it's probably worth picking something you have access to, if you're looking for an interesting additional type.

[foxmead]

If it to be improvement for non commercial activity i would look at the previous suggestions: heli lanes, confined landings at a quality hotel or go the whole hog and make it a chateau, French are very pro heli.

Mountain flying would be a worthwhile option, as for IR unless you were going to use it for North Sea work or commercial ops were it is required i personally would not bother.

You need to decide whether you will remain PPL or go for the CPL / FI.

Good luck.

[RPM AWARE]

"I am a 250 hour CPL(H)"

"You need to decide whether you will remain PPL or go for the CPL / FI"

[hwatson]

Thanks for the Fixed Wing suggestion - forgot to mention already got 300 hours fixed wing with IMC and night rating - I agree its a much cheaper way to learn "IR lite" - including the dreaded ADF tracking!

[Helinut]

I would suggest you consider doing an FI rating. You need to be very careful about who you choose as your FIC, but a good one will teach you more about helicopter flying than anything else in a "rating".

You could even do some instructing subequently.