If he went and got some tail wheel time he'd be good to go!

skykid and skypilot35 thanks for the info. I got an email from flight level jobs too but I couldn't see the whole ad.

I was trying to find out if this was for Texas Children's Hospital but I think another company has that contract? I thought a former 9L Saab driver was working there, maybe?

Kind of funny, I have the skills to haul dynamite on a 50 foot cable off the bottom of a helicopter and place it in a person;s hand but may not be able to acquire the skills to land an airplane in a crosswind. By the way, been flying a C-195 for the last two weeks. Taildragger!- Whooo!!

Yes, lots of "moving parts" in helo flying. But they are different moving parts than FW.

There are two types of FW pilots, those who are rated in helicopters and those who are not. If you are not rated the only thing you can do is offer supposition as to how a dual rated pilot might perform in FW. That is exactly what drives the decisions of those who determine the qualifications required at most airlines.

As a dual rated pilot who is on the SKW seniority list allow me to tell you I would have no problem with a dual rated pilot who is mostly experienced in helicopters operating in the challenging environments SKW operates in. In fact, as you point out the stick and rudder skills are different and from what I have observed those with helicopter experience fly airplanes better than those who have spent most of their careers in front of a yaw damper.

I recently checked out in a DC-3 and received a DC-3 type. There were a half dozen pilots all checking out in the same relative time. All of us had extensive airline experience coupled with military experience. All six had over 20K hours. For four of the pilots it was the first time they flew a prop airplane. Two of us were former Army pilots who flew helicopters. At no point in the training did the two helicopter pilots require the instructor to cover the controls or augment what the students did. OTOH the pure jet pilots all required different degrees of "help" on the controls. The part they were most deficient on was yaw control on both take off and landing. I would point out all they had to do was fly as the instructor handled all of the engine duties. Do not doubt the ability of a dual rated pilot being able to handle "funny winds" or any other winds. Frankly I am appalled by the cross wind technique I see with too many pilots I fly with on line.

For the record when I earned my multi-engine ATP I only had 300 hours of fixed wing time. I now hold ratings in 7 types. I haven't flown many of those for many years, but I think I could step in and go on any of them. It has also been many years since I flew a helicopter, but I wouldn't think of flying one without an instructor.

Nice, now that reply I can dig my teeth in to.
This thread is complete..

Thank you...

I've flown with a few pilots who had mostly RW time. All were excellent stick & rudder pilots. Although the actual control inputs between FW & RW are certainly different, the main point of stick & rudder flying is being able to sense deviations from your desired attitude/speed/position very quickly and making immediate smooth & accurate control inputs to correct them before they're ever that noticeable. Once your S&R skills are well developed, they transfer pretty quickly between aircraft types. To give one example in fairly tame taildraggers: rudder/tailwheel feel & response is quite different between the J3 and C170. But when I checked out in the 170 after having flown the Cub, it took one or two takeoffs & landings to adapt to the different feel, whereas it would have taken the average 172 pilot quite a bit longer despite the many similarities between the 170 & 172. Most helo guys have very good stick & rudder skills both by the nature of their machines and due to the types of missions they fly. Transferring those skills to FW airplanes is fairly natural.

Order of stick & rudder skill demand/development, IMHO:

Modern Jet < PA28 < J3/docile taildragger < Gliders < Pitts/sporty taildragger = Helo.

I've found that most guys with time in the last 4 categories, especially the last 3, make very good stick & rudder pilots. Even taking the old Cherokee around the patch once in a while tends to freshen you up. If stick & rudder skills were all there were to flying a modern jet, I'd hire every helo pilot that applied. Obviously there's more to it than that, and a guy who's been flying a R22 VFR around LA could be as deficient in other important skills as a similar-background FW pilot.

Absolutely true, most of my instructing has been in helicopters and I found that most students would neglect to get the bookwork done until the end. i.e. Regs, systems, airspace, theory etc.

As far as IFR, many wouldn't even bother to achieve it. That's why I have made every effort to better "understand" the fixed wing side by training for a jet type rating with my multi-ATP, getting all the fixed wing CFI ratings as well as complete ground school for Hawker-700/800, CE-525 and B-737. Unfortunately, I was just to broke to do the fun SAR stuff.

Skywest just isn't in the cards at this time. Perhaps some time with another regional than come back and try again.

Landing an H-46 in 20 ft. Indian Ocean seas was pretty hairy. On a Spruance class Destroyer you only had 2 ft. of rotor clearance from the hangar and 2 ft. of landing gear clearance from the deck edge. RAST hadn't been developed yet and it wasn't for the -46 anyway.

Then try it at night.

Fun times! NOT!

I only used RAST once not in training, coming aboard with a hydraulic boost failure on a FCF. Most of the time it was just "free decks" where we tried to get the RAST probe in the RSD and get locked to the deck before anything bad happened.