fixed wing and rotary vs rotary and fixed wing??????

C

clintonb

New Member
Hi everyone I'm new on here and have a question that i hope you guys and gals can help me on.
So id like your opinions on this, especially people who have both fixed and rotary licenses would like your point of view on which way to do it and how you did it.

I'm heading to the states to go do my flight training i have no previous flight training so I'm going from nothing all the way up to CPL possibly get instructors rating with IR. it seems there is not wrong way for either but maybe one of you can spot a problem that I'm not clearly seeing that there is a problem in doing one option than the other.

im trying to find out which would be cheapest to do both fixed and heli and keep them current. doing fixed wing is cheaper than helicopter i know.

option 1
Do fixed wing training up to instructors rating and then after get CPL helicopter add on with IR, while instructing fixed wing on my days off pay for hiring a R22 or hopefully by building a good relationship with the flight school that i work with get a discount or do something like admin work for the company to make hiring the helicopter cheaper in order to gain hours in helicopter to build my hrs up.maybe with the money i save from doing the fixed wing with helicopter add on use that to build helicopter hours or can use it as a buffer when there are not that many students to bring in the bills for living expenses. also when i get enough hours in building my heli time and if times are still bad then get an instructors rating for helicopter also and instruct fixed and helicopter at the same school.

Or

option 2

pay the excess on what it costs for helicopter training and get helicopter license up to certified instructor, plus get CPLMEIR fixed wing add on and while working as helicopter instructor same thing as above on my days off fly fixed wing as they are cheaper also to rent than a helicopter.

By the looks of it either way ill be spending the same amount of money on training i think, maybe im wrong, i also could be wrong about the fixed wing add on as I've been trying to find information whether its possible to do a fixed wing add on but cant find anything i notice schools do helicopter add ons but not fixed wing.

i know i cant predict the future things can change in a year or 2 for the good or bad but id like to way my options if they do tunr for the good or the bad, I want to get my foot in the door at least and start training but i just want to really cover my options so that later on if things do go bad i wont be in a bad situation.

plus I'm still debating whether to spend the money for an instructors rating either fixed or heli because if things turn for the good and there are companies looking for low time pilots then i dont need an instructors rating and would have been not a waste of money i would say its good to have an instructors rating but its money i could have spent on a type rating or something else is what i mean.

also is it alright if i can post this in the rotorhead section?????

let me know what you think any advice would be great thanks. have a great week and safe flying.
 
As someone who has 60 hours towards my fixed-wing PPL, I have a similar question. Is it better to:

1. Keep going the fixed-wing route up to C-MEL and then get a helo conversion.
2. Do helo PPL, Commercial, and IR?
 
BCTAv8r said:
As someone who has 60 hours towards my fixed-wing PPL, I have a similar question. Is it better to:

1. Keep going the fixed-wing route up to C-MEL and then get a helo conversion.
2. Do helo PPL, Commercial, and IR?
Click to expand...
You will be 100 time more proficient if you go helo from 0 to comm+ir

However: What are your goals? If you want to do helo and just fly fixed on the side then go option 2.

since you already have 60 ixed wing, I'd say get your private in fixed, get a private addon for rotary, then get your IR and comm in rotary and an addon comm for fixed
 
Thanks for the reply. My goal is to take advantage of the growing demand for helo pilots in Brazil. Flying fixed wing on the side would also be good. I think I'll do that, finish my PPL and convert to helo PPL and so on.
 
BCTAv8r said:
Thanks for the reply. My goal is to take advantage of the growing demand for helo pilots in Brazil. Flying fixed wing on the side would also be good. I think I'll do that, finish my PPL and convert to helo PPL and so on.
Click to expand...
yeah that way you get most of your proficiency and time in the helo, but don't lose what you already did with the fixed wing.

I'll be heading down there this year hopefully, but not for helos :D You brazilian?
 
sweet. same here, I'll be moving down I think within 6 months let me know when you end up down there for sure
 
elmetal said:
You will be 100 time more proficient if you go helo from 0 to comm+ir

However: What are your goals? If you want to do helo and just fly fixed on the side then go option 2.

since you already have 60 ixed wing, I'd say get your private in fixed, get a private addon for rotary, then get your IR and comm in rotary and an addon comm for fixed
Click to expand...

+1. I started out doing FW back in '08, but my real passion was in RW. Took me a little time to get headed in the right direction (to fly RW), but I'm glad I got my FW first because it helped out a bunch when I started into helos; not so much the flight part, but the basic aeronautical knowledge, map reading, etc...came in real handy. At the same time, if you want to fly helos...go straight to that, as you need to have at least 200 hours in helicopters, in order to instruct in them anyways. Going all the way through your FW CPL and instructor ratings then adding on RW is only going to leave you really short on needed experience (unless you have a buddy who has his own helo, lol). Good luck on whichever way you decide to run with it...
 
50 hours RW, get a private RW
50 FW, get private FW add on
Another 50 RW to get Commercial RW- only need 150TT (with 100 RW) to get RW Commercial
40 hours FW(20 sim/20 airplane) get FW Instrument
15 RW to get Instrument RW add on
15 RW to get CFI RW
15 RW to get CFII RW
15 FW to get FW Commercial add on
 
Spent your time and money any way you want, of course, but if you get your PPL (Commercial would be better) FW first (since you're already headed that way) you'll save a TON of money on the RW certificate. If you go this way (either actually) you can get the RW in as little as 13 hours.

Of course this is ill advised and is based totally on your proficiency.

PA-44typed said:
50 hours RW, get a private RW
50 FW, get private FW add on
Another 50 RW to get Commercial RW- only need 150TT (with 100 RW) to get RW Commercial
40 hours FW(20 sim/20 airplane) get FW Instrument
15 RW to get Instrument RW add on
15 RW to get CFI RW
15 RW to get CFII RW
15 FW to get FW Commercial add on
Click to expand...
This is true unless all of the above is the same person, then the numbers change
 
I have a similar situation but completed my rotary training with the Army and got the military conversion to FAA. I want to ask my question under this thread rather than clutter the forum. I am leaving active duty and will go to college for my degree and fixed wing training. TT is around 450 with 170 in helos. Ultimately I want to fly for majors in the US but... big but is, is there an employment opportunity for low hour helo pilots like me?
 
Bushmaster78FS said:
I have a similar situation but completed my rotary training with the Army and got the military conversion to FAA. I want to ask my question under this thread rather than clutter the forum. I am leaving active duty and will go to college for my degree and fixed wing training. TT is around 450 with 170 in helos. Ultimately I want to fly for majors in the US but... big but is, is there an employment opportunity for low hour helo pilots like me?
Click to expand...

If that's all your TT, combined civil and military, you're going to need to timebuild some. Curious....are you leaving to the reserve/ArNG? How long you been in?
 
Bushmaster78FS said:
I have a similar situation but completed my rotary training with the Army and got the military conversion to FAA. I want to ask my question under this thread rather than clutter the forum. I am leaving active duty and will go to college for my degree and fixed wing training. TT is around 450 with 170 in helos. Ultimately I want to fly for majors in the US but... big but is, is there an employment opportunity for low hour helo pilots like me?
Click to expand...

To add to what Mike was asking, in another thread didn't you say you graduated flight school in Sep 2011? How are you leaving the military when there's a 6 year ADSO?
 
Yes I have mentioned that in another thread. I have been in 8 years, got in flight school 2009, graduated 2011 and yeah I am being separated right now. I made a bad decision after flight school and I have been shown the door. I can elaborate via PM in details but what's done is done. I want to emphasize though, a lot of people judge me by this, I am, by all means, not a dirtbag! I have always stood by the fact that I made an honest mistake but Army being drawing down didn't really help. Been a distinguished grad in AIT, (64 armt) honor grad in WOCS, and 3rd in my FS class. Done pretty good in the 64 course as well. It was a family related incident. I am talking a guard unit right now, I have hope, but seems like there might be quite a bit red tape.
 
Gotchya. Mike is right - your TT being what it is and your helo time being so low doesn't make you marketable as a helicopter pilot. You essentially just have a wet commercial, albeit from a pretty good helicopter school. If you want to stay helos, time-building and CFI-ing are in your future. You're going to need at least 500, preferably 1000 helicopter pure hours to get an entry-level job.
 
I need experience to find a job and I need a job to get experience. That's where I am trapped it looks like. That's why I was thinking about college, get my certs and degree in the same time but I am still sitting on the fence. I should get somewhere close to 800 after college and getting a fixed wing IP job should bring me close to 1000 pretty quickly so I could start asking regionals to look at me, I guess what I can ask is that what you experienced guys would have done in my situation?

Sent from my Xperia Arc using Tapatalk 2
 
Bushmaster78FS said:
I need experience to find a job and I need a job to get experience. That's where I am trapped it looks like. That's why I was thinking about college, get my certs and degree in the same time but I am still sitting on the fence. I should get somewhere close to 800 after college and getting a fixed wing IP job should bring me close to 1000 pretty quickly so I could start asking regionals to look at me, I guess what I can ask is that what you experienced guys would have done in my situation?
Click to expand...

If you got your CFI-H, you'd have the hours to teach in that right now; but you aren't interested in RW.
 
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