Military to civ conversion - rotor specific
 

I've read numerous other threads about general mil to civ hour conversions, but they all applied to fixed wing. Even on AirlineApps they specifically say fixed wing only.

For us, we start time at wheels up, ground taxi time not included. None of our ground runs during maintenance count at all and aren't logged, which really sucks on those days you really did do six hours of run-ups and maintenance without ever breaking ground in the hot Bagram sun.

Since AirlineApps even doesn't give us a conversion, and fixed wing only, how - on the website - can you compensate for that? I know some airlines allow a conversion, some do it by hours, others do it by sorties... but I don't see why fixed wing gets the added time and rotor wing gets the shaft.

Taco,

Unknown if there is a standard rate for airborne sorties (which there definitely should be), but I wouldn't expect any for 'flights' during which you never, well, flew.

Best of luck, and Bagram sucks.

For the record I'm going to do some research to try and be more helpful. :)


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I wasn't trying to say that our ground runs should count, but I doubt most civilians would understand how much ground time we can spend working, with none of it counting. Are plenty of days you do an hour of ground runs, only to fly a .3 - very common.

I just don't understand why AirlineApps would do a conversion for FW but not RW is all.

Well I asked AirlineApps about it and got a very quick response.




Years ago, it wasn't uncommon for some airlines to apply conversions to military flight time. However, when the ATP requirement went into effect for Part 121 operations, those conversion considerations were ended because the FAA did not waive the flight time requirements due to military conversions. Therefore, fixed wing pilots, nor do any pilots, do not receive military conversions.

As far as converting your military time to civilian time, you should report your time using 14 CFR 61.51 as a guide (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-201...2-sec61-51.pdf) however, do not add taxi time. The airlines expect your total time per aircraft to match your military records. The FAA already has special consideration for military pilots with respect to the rATP and therefore does not have a standard conversion for taxi time. The airlines know how the military logs time and makes any desired adjustments manually. The Airline Apps system actually has a internal converter for military time that the airlines used years ago, but it has been disabled since the ATP requirement was implemented in 2014.

Bottom line is you want your application to match your military records.

I don't agree with it either as a former helo guy, but expect to get the shaft with rotor time in general except for regionals and JetBlue. Whatever small amount of taxi time you aren't getting credit for by mil logging regs won't really matter in the short or long term. Regarding airline apps, it's made and run by an F16/Delta guy whose dad used to be the head of hiring at delta. I haven't met a fighter pilot or a legacy pilot who thinks anything of rotor time fwiw. For some reason they think flying helos is a lot different than airplanes. It took a rotor guy on the hiring committee at JetBlue to change their outlook on it. While rotor time is "counted" towards total times at most airlines (not FDX/SWA), they don't really consider helo time towards anything of importance. So that's likely why it's excluded from having a conversion factor. Just use your mil hours as they are on your printouts. Won't make a difference and will make your interviews a whole lot easier than trying to explain some conversion.

Flying helos is different than fixed wing. That's just a fact. Anyways, I flew wheeled helicopters and I would log my flight time per the faa rules. If you have already logged a bunch of helicopter hours using the army rules then just go back and count up all your individual flights and apply a 1x conversion of .2 for each flight. From here on out just start logging time per the FAA rules in your logbook.

Also, if you never break contact with the ground then why should you get to log FLIGHT time?? Kinda like trying to log FLIGHT time for time spent in the simulator.

Flying a fighter is different than flying an airliner. Flying a pilatus or a herc or a t6 is different than flying an airliner. All aircraft have differences in their handling, mission, and flight profiles. But flying is flying. The stick does the same thing in the air. No one has ever been able to convince me that single seat fighters are similar enough to airliners to count as quality relatable time for a legacy, but crewed helos are so different that they don't count for anything. The FAA lets 1250 hours towards a multiengine airplane ATP be in helos, or gliders, or whatever, so obviously they see similarities. But for helo time to be discounted the same as sim or nav time in the eyes of the SWAs/FDXs of the world is asinine and misinformed.

Agree with Beat Navy. As a military, non-aviator type, I've flown with many RW pilots who fly at airlines. Not a single one is a bad pilot. The worst one was a former Army FW pilot who was disliked by just about everyone there. He was also extremely non-standard. That is another story unto itself.

No different for TACAIR guys. I've done countless low and high power turns, of course you don't log it, it's not flight time. Just part of the job. No different than say a maintenance cancel.

I'm going to disagree here.

I am a Mil fixed wing and civ rotor wing pilot.

Although they are both flying aircraft, they are different enough that I agree with the airlines. Also NAV/WSO/EWO time is NOT pilot time. It is helpful but not equivalent. I say this as a former Nav also.

BTW, the majority of the MIL rotor pilots I know who later went to FW were the weakest pilots in the unit. They had good hands but 120 knot minds, always behind the aircraft and poor energy management.