Constructive advise needed

[Jmorris]

At 38 years of age, I am interested in ultimately obtaining a ppl for helo for recreational use only. At this point, I only have a few hours experience in fw aircraft.( no ppl). Would my best route for doing this be to obtain a ppl in fw first, then upgrade to ppl heli.?
Next question.... How many hours are transferable ? Is there much of a cost savings?
I am not after the precious job market, so please don't view me as potential competition:). Just want to fly around country side.
Thanks

[The Mole]

Nobody rents helicopters in canada, like they do fixed wing. There are no clubs. So unless your planing on buying your own heli. Getting a ppl-h is basically useless. You need 45hrs to get a ppl-h. No fixed wing time is transferable. That only applies too a commercial licenses. The flight school you train with, might let you fly there heli's after you complete a ppl-h. But i doubt it.

[sky's the limit]

Helicopters are not like airplanes. Flying them casually requires a lot more currency and experience, something that unless you owned your own, would be difficult to obtain. There are private machines in Canada, but they are few and far between.

If you have the money and time to get your self a few hundred hours in one to attain some level of proficiency, then fly with someone experienced frequently to make sure you're not doing anything too dangerous, then I don't see why not. That said, you may as well do the CPL and get more training. A private heli license is a good way to kill yourself.

stl

[Daz]

That said, you may as well do the CPL and get more training.

That, and there's no sales tax charged on commercial training as it's seen as tuition. Furthermore, you can claim your tuition on your tax return (I'm still getting good tax returns and I trained in '09).

When I did my CPL-H, there were a couple PPL guys with their own machines training at my school. One of them switched to the CPL program when he realised that the difference in cost (after tax breaks, etc) was only a hair more for substantially more training. The other guy didn't seem fussed, but he also had the financial wherewithal to fly as many hours as he needed until he felt comfortable with the machine. Heck, he bought his own Long Ranger and he planned on paying for his own mountain training...

I would agree that more training and flight time can only help in a helicopter. With that said, I'd head straight into rotary flying rather than flying fixed wing then making the switch. Speaking for myself, at 45 hours heli time I could fly the machine, but I sure didn't feel that confident. I'm at a little over 200 hours now, and I think I improved the most *after* I finished flight school.

Hope this helps,

Darren