Osprey - What kind of flight time does it count as?

[Jakain]

Greetings everybody. First I'd like to give my thanks to all the service men and women posting and lurking on the forums for putting your lives on the line for the US of A. In December I got selected for an air slot and I attend Marine OCS this summer and I can't wait until I am serving with this community and hope to meet the members of this forum one day.

As an aviation newbie, when I heard about the Osprey aircraft I always wondered what kind of flight time would it constitute as. Would it be logged on as rotor time? Fixed wing? If a military Osprey pilot retired with a few thousand hours of Osprey flight time, how do you think civilian corporations would count this time towards?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not joining in the Marines just to build a portfolio to retire upon; this is just a question that I've had but no one has seem to be able to answer from that I've met locally, which includes various flight instructors and aersopace professors.

Thanks for your time and take care.

 

[Intruder Driver]

Probably a new classification: WTF time

 

[Schnugg]

Multi-engine heavy jet engine time??

Maybe they'll give you a % of the flight to rotary wing and a % to fixed wing for equivalent time for say an airline job.

Any ATP please ring in.

 

[phrogpilot73]

Well, I'm not an ATP but... My guess would be that it will become a new class under the rotorcraft category...

 

[Riper Snifle]

My Flight Instructor is FAA and he has discussed this many times with me. He says that the V-22 time will be classified as tilt-rotor time. That the training received in the Th-57 will be enough for a rotorcraft rating and time in the T-44 will get the pilot a multi-engine rating. As for the V-22 he thinks it will be just a seperate rating, whether or not a V-22 pilot could divide up the time in V-22's as either rotor or multi-engine time remains to be seen. As it stands right now, the future for Osprey pilots rides with the success or failure of the V-22. If the V-22 succeeds, then the corporate world might very well start picking up their own aircraft, and V-22 pilots in the military will lead the way in the civilian world. If it fails, then the V-22 pilots might be hosed. The FAA is pretty good about finding a place for military pilots to fly, since a lot of people who train on the civilian side have limited flight time and experience in comparison to miliatary pilots as a result of how expensive aviation is. I am greatly intrigued about the possibilities that lay ahead for any aviator that goes the new path of tilt-rotor aviation.

 

[HAL Pilot]

My guess is that it is a new category. From FAR 1

Powered-lift means a heavier-than-air aircraft capable of vertical takeoff, vertical landing, and low speed flight that depends principally on engine-driven lift devices or engine thrust for lift during these flight regimes and on nonrotating airfoil(s) for lift during horizontal flight.

 

[Tom]

The category Powered-lift has been around awhile in the FAR's without any actual aircraft in use. I wonder if there will be any commercial application.

 

[Jakain]

Thanks for the insight so far. As I was sitting in my Private Pilot Fundamentals course, on the powerpoint of different aircraft categories the professor had a "Powered-Lift" category and featured was an Osprey aircraft. I just started this course so I'm going to inquire how she believes how the Osprey time would translate to in the civilian world once I get the opportunity.

 

[Gatordev]

The category Powered-lift has been around awhile in the FAR's without any actual aircraft in use. I wonder if there will be any commercial application.

Wouldn't a Harrier meet all those requirements?

 

[eddie]

A while back, I think I read something about somebody trying to develop auto-gyro cargo jets...

 

[phrogpilot73]

Wouldn't a Harrier meet all those requirements?

Yup.

 

[danthaman]

My Flight Instructor is FAA and he has discussed this many times with me. He says that the V-22 time will be classified as tilt-rotor time.QUOTE]


Ditto that. We have been told down here it will be logged as tilt-rotor. Just as he said, this will be good for osprey pilots of tilt-rotors succeed in the civilian sector, and possibly very bad if they don't.

 

[HAL Pilot]

Ditto that. We have been told down here it will be logged as tilt-rotor. Just as he said, this will be good for osprey pilots of tilt-rotors succeed in the civilian sector, and possibly very bad if they don't.

It won't be bad. Airline and corporate pilots are not dumb. My guess is that it will be treated as fixed wing time by them. Osprey pilots will be way ahead of helo pilots in the airline/corporate world. (Except of course for helo jobs....)

 

[phrogdriver]

The category won't really matter. The military doesn't have a box in the logbook to mark "jet/helo/prop/tiltrotor," only aircraft type. Provided you have your usual civilian tickets, any major employer will treat it however he wants. Considering that in most respects it's a glass-cockpit multiengine turboprop, it probably won't be too badly looked upon. I don't think a major will divide time by three, or not count at all, like some do with helo time. Now, if I want to retire and fly to the oil rigs or something, I might be out of Schlitz.