CPL
Commercial Pilots
Licence
(Helicopter)
Commercial Pilots Licence (H)
The JAR Commercial Pilot’s Licence is the professional pilot’s licence that enables you to earn
money from your helicopter flying. There are two forms of licence, CPL (Commercial Pilots
Licence) and ATPL (Airline Transport Pilots Licence). In the fixed wing world most people will opt
for an ATPL as the CPL has limitations, but in most operations in helicopters, a CPL is quite
sufficient. I would say that the North Sea operators are really the only ones that would prefer you
to have an ATPL as you can not fly as captain with a CPL only become a first officer. If the North
Sea is your intention then you should go the ATPL route. As far as the flying goes it makes no
difference to your course length but there are two extra exams to do. Once you have completed
the CPL flying course and exams you have a full CPL with a frozen ATPL. You must then, within
5 years gain an instrument rating.
There are two ways to gaining this licence, either
a modular route or an integrated course. Most
training facilities for helicopters offer the modular
route due to the high costs and requirements of
providing the integrated course. An integrated
course means that you will be learning both the
flying and ground school
from one learning
provider and therefore you skip the necessity for
doing a PPL.
A modular course means the
individual elements of a CPL course such as the
flight training and written exams can be done in
sections and by individual providers. This seems
to suit most people as they don’t have a full year
or so to take out of their life for an intensive
integrated course. Saying that you can undertake
an intensive modular course if you wanted to
gain your CPL/ATPL quickly.
At Phoenix we offer the modular course. This means we offer the PPL (H) as one course of 45
hours training. Structured self fly hire followed by a CPL (H) flying course. A course of 30 to 35
hours depending on whether you have a night rating.
The pre entry requirements for taking a C