EASA Helicopter Flight Instructor Guide - New V4 - June 2022

In June 2022, we are pleased to announce the 4th edition of the Instructor Guide. The guide was initially developed by the European Helicopter Safety Team (EHEST) based on the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) Flight Instructor Manual (Helicopter). Some changes have been incorporated to reflect European terminology and the EASA training syllabus content. Further changes have been made to bring Part 1 in line with AMC1 FCL.920 and AMC1 FCL.930 and in Part 2, air exercise objectives and lesson checklists have been included for all the flying exercises. A great resource for Flight Instructors!

Why a Rotorcraft Flight Instructor Guide?

One of the important ingredients for a safe and viable aviation industry is a properly resourced flight training sector. Some of these resources can be quite fundamental. For example, an important contribution to training is for flying instructors to have easy access to a basic guide to elementary flying training so that they can have all the information they need to support their students and develop their own skills

What is new in the 4th Edition?

Download the 4th Edition from the EASA Website here.

The main technical changes in this new version are as follows: 

• Making a stronger link with the Rotorcraft Safety Roadmap and particularly the Training Safety and Training Devices workstreams.
• Introducing  ‘training scenarios’ and the use of other-than-conventional, yet, ‘safe’ training devices in order to reduce risks encountered and inherent to training in real aircraft during high risk training manoeuvres.
• Experience level of flight instructors (this is also in relation to high risk training manoeuvers).
• Introducing safety briefings prior any training flight.
• Negative training & negative transfer of training.
• More Threat and Error Management (TEM) elements included in several exercises
• Elaboration on Vortex Ring State, including the Vuichard manoeuver, and in support of clarification on the subject in Part FCL & AIROPS (ORO.FC) 
• Shift from Loss of Tailrotor Effectiveness(LTE) to Unanticipated Yaw (UAY).

There are also the following additions following suggestions from the industry:

• Introduction of HASEL checks.
• Elaboration on reconnaissance during off-airfield operations.
• Elaboration on control handover procedures.
• Elaboration on scanning & lookout technique.

Conditions of use

You may freely download and use this Rotorcraft Flight Instructor Guide and add you logo if so you wish but should not remove the EASA and Together4Safety logos. Please read carefully the Important Notice and Disclaimer provided on page III of the document.

We value your feedback!

We value your opinion and encourage you to provide feedback to ensure that any further versions meet industry needs. You can email your feedback to us at: SafetyPromotion@easa.europa.eu. The postal address is provided on page II of the document.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Mike O'Donoghue for developing the original EHEST Edition, to Jan Loncke, VTOL OPS Expert, CT.3 - Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) Department, Project Manager for this 1st EASA Edition and to Prokopis Batzanopoulos and Eleonora Italia from FS.3.1 - Aircrew and Medical Department for contributing to this revision.