H Pilot Training Recap

As you may have noticed, training to become a helicopter pilot is really complex… not that airplane pilots have an easy life, it takes perseverance, commitment, passion for both of these wonderful categories of aircraft, however the world of rotary wing, perhaps because it is more expensive, perhaps because the regulations do not fit it perfectly, is really difficult to understand.

If until this tutorial you had difficulty interpreting what you need to do, now we will give you a summary by macro-areas, which may be useful to you.

So let’s divide the courses not only into modular and integrated, but let’s add the variable of instrument flight qualification. To simplify we will do it in a synthetic way this time without going into the details that we have already explained in detail and above all by providing some indicative prices.

5 possible scenarios you can choose from

MODULAR WITHOUT IR RATING

Let’s start with the simplest, the modular without instrument rating. We are talking about 185 flight hours divided into steps with the ATPL theoretical course included. This course, depending on the type of aircraft you will fly during your training, can cost between 85 and 95 thousand euros.

INSTRUMENT FLIGHT

If you also want to obtain the instrument rating, as we have already explained, you can replace a part of the hour building with the basic instrument training part on the simulator and then complete the twin-engine part after the license. This method, a little complicated, allows you to take advantage of all the flight and simulator hours to optimize costs as much as possible.

Only with helicopters is it possible to follow this path because airplane pilots must fly at least 100 hours as a PIC before completing the CPL and therefore cannot fit the basic instrumental part into the hour building, thus “drowning” about 10 thousand euros of costs within the modular CPL without increasing its price.

The second final part of the IR on the twin-engine will therefore cost between 40 and 50 thousand euros depending on the machine used to add to your modular CPL.

INTEGRATED

As for the integrated, the cost of the course without instrumental flight qualification is between 60 and 70 thousand euros because it is less hours than the modular, however if you then want to attend the IR, you will have to do all the simulator hours that we had previously drowned in the hour building and therefore the complete qualification will cost between 50 and 60 thousand euros.

ATP-IR INTEGRATED

Let’s now look at the integrated ATP-IR, the most complete course there is because it already has the commercial license, the instrument flight rating, the twin-engine turbine helicopter rating and the MCC course.

The cost is between 120 and 140 thousand euros (again, depending on the type of helicopters used.

INTEGRATED OR MODULAR CPL

Now let’s do the math, if you want to get the same complete final result as the last course we mentioned, the cost is always between 120 and 150 thousand euros, if instead you want to spend a little less by giving up the instrument flight qualification you just have to choose whether to pay in integrated CPL (cheaper) in 2 years or whether to pay modular CPL (more expensive) deferred over time.

The more specific evaluation parameters will be explained in one of the next tutorials, so for now try to memorize these schemes to understand how the courses fit together and how they can be managed based on your needs.

Remember when collecting quotes to always ask which vehicles you will fly on and above all the costs included and excluded from the school, because there could be a big difference between one quote and another.