New ACS for Helicopter Flight Instructors
By Gene Trainor, FAA Aircraft Certification Service
New Airman Certification Standards (ACS) for helicopter flight instructors took effect May 31 to ensure that helicopter flight instructors have the knowledge, skills, and ability to teach students how to fly and manage risks consistent with someone acting as the pilot-in-command.
The Flight Instructor for Rotorcraft Category Helicopter Rating standards is part of across-the-board ACS updates that also took effect May 31. The standards cover a range of specialties for airplane, helicopter, and powered-lift pilots.
The FAA drew upon the expertise of organizations and individuals across the U.S. and some international aviation and training communities to develop these standards, including the helicopter flight instructor.
“Is this person well qualified?” said James Ciccone, an FAA aviation safety inspector who helped usher the standards through the federal regulatory process. “Is this person safe? This helps answer that.”
The ACS incorporates and supersedes the Practical Test Standards (PTS) that, up until the ACS, had set the FAA parameters for testing pilots and flight instructors. FAA officials call the ACS an “enhanced” version of the PTS because it adds task-specific knowledge and risk-management elements into each PTS area of operations and tasks. They add that the ACS provides “the single-source set of standards” for both the test’s knowledge section and the practical or skill exam.
Other ACS benefits include:
- It clearly tells applicants, instructors, and evaluators what an airman must know, consider, and do to pass the knowledge test and the practical test for an airman certificate or rating.
- It shows how the required knowledge, risk management, and skill elements for each area of operation/task are connected.
- It defines expectations and behaviors for risk management and connects them to specific tasks.
- It gives context for the “special emphasis” items from the PTS.
To show an example of how the ACS is structured, let’s take a look at the hover taxi task skill section that requires helicopter flight instructor applicants to demonstrate and simultaneously explain while in a helicopter how to:
- Complete the appropriate checklist(s).
- Receive and correctly read back clearances/instructions, if applicable.
- Use an airport diagram or taxi chart during taxiing, if published, and maintain situational awareness.
- Comply with airport/heliport taxiway markings, signals, and signs.
- Maintain powerplant and main rotor (Nr) speed within normal limits.
- Maintain a straight ground track within ±2 feet of a designated ground track.
- Maintain recommended hovering altitude, ±1/2 of that altitude within 10 feet of the surface, if above 10 feet, ±5 feet.
- Hover taxi over specified ground references, demonstrating forward, sideward, and rearward hovering and hovering turns.
- Maintain a constant rate of turn at pivot points.
- Maintain a position within 2 feet of each pivot point during turns.
- Make a 360-degree pivoting turn, left and right, stopping within 10 degrees of a specified heading.
- Make smooth, timely, and correct control application during the maneuver.
- Analyze and correct common errors related to this task.
The industry has used the ACS to help ensure that its handbooks are aligned with the federal standards. The FAA in turn has incorporated industry recommendations into the ACS.
The bottom line is that all of this is for safety. “Safe operations in today’s National Airspace System (NAS) require the integration of aeronautical knowledge, risk management, and flight proficiency standards,” reads the introduction for the ACS for rotorcraft category helicopter flight instructors.
The new ACS is a step forward in that direction.
Gene Trainor is a technical writer/editor in the FAA’s Aircraft Certification Service.
