Top 12 Helicopter Pilot Skills to Put on Your Resume
Crafting a sharp resume as a helicopter pilot isn’t just listing hours and ratings. It’s showing the judgment, systems fluency, and mission-ready skills that keep rotors turning when the air gets rough. Below are the top 12 skills employers scan for—polished, current, and framed for real-world ops.
Helicopter Pilot Skills
- Navigation
- Autopilot/AFCS (helicopter-specific)
- Weather Radar (e.g., Honeywell Primus)
- Emergency Procedures
- Flight Planning (e.g., ForeFlight)
- Instrument Flight Rules (IFR)
- Visual Flight Rules (VFR)
- Crew Resource Management
- Risk Assessment
- Night Vision (e.g., ANVIS)
- Turbine Engines (e.g., Rolls-Royce M250)
- Hoist Operations
1. Navigation
Navigation for a helicopter pilot means planning, flying, and constantly refining a route using instruments, visual cues, terrain and obstacle awareness, and onboard avionics. It blends map reading, GPS/FMS use, and airspace savvy with the realities of low-level, off-airport operations.
Why It's Important
Accurate navigation keeps you clear of obstacles and airspace traps, helps you hit timing and fuel targets, and reduces workload when the weather slides or the mission pivots.
How to Improve Navigation Skills
Sharpen preflight planning with current charts, NOTAMs, terrain and obstacle data, and realistic alternates. Practice both VFR pilotage and instrument-based navigation. Gain proficiency with your EFB and panel systems—moving maps, HTAWS, FMS legs, and direct-to diversions. Rehearse lost-comms and reroutes. Track winds aloft, density altitude, and fuel flow against plan, then adjust early. Debrief each leg and bank the lessons.
By focusing on these areas, you can enhance your navigation skills and ensure safer, more efficient flights.
How to Display Navigation Skills on Your Resume
2. Autopilot/AFCS (helicopter-specific)
Helicopter autopilot and automatic flight control systems (AFCS)—including SAS, 2-axis/4-axis, and upper modes—stabilize the airframe and manage tasks like attitude, heading, altitude, vertical speed, approach coupling, and in some types, hover or go-around aids. Examples include HeliSAS, Airbus Helionix AFCS, Leonardo and Sikorsky AFCS suites.
Why It's Important
Proper AFCS use trims workload, tightens precision in IMC and complex airspace, and adds a strong safety margin during high-consequence phases like approach, hover, and go-around.
How to Improve Autopilot/AFCS Skills
Study the AFM and supplements for your installed system—know every mode, capture, and reversion. Get formal differences training and log solid simulator time for mode logic, coupling, and failures. Build strong mode awareness habits: verify what’s armed, engaged, and expected. Use trim correctly, avoid fighting the system, and practice prompt disconnect and hand-fly recoveries. Keep software and databases current through approved maintenance. Verify clean integration with your FMS, flight director, and nav sensors.
How to Display Autopilot (specific models, e.g., Garmin GFC 700) Skills on Your Resume
3. Weather Radar (e.g., Honeywell Primus)
Airborne weather radar helps detect precipitation cores, convective activity, and turbulence cues. Systems like Honeywell Primus give adjustable tilt, gain, and mapping that, when used correctly, paint a more honest picture ahead.
Why It's Important
Weather radar supports smarter deviation, earlier avoidance, and smoother rides—especially when flying near convective build-ups, along coastal routes, or at night.
How to Improve Weather Radar (e.g., Honeywell Primus) Skills
Master tilt and gain management to avoid ground returns and cell under-scanning. Understand attenuation, shadows, and the limits of low-altitude geometry. Cross-check with lightning detection, satellite/datalink weather, PIREPs, and your wind/temperature profile. Practice structured scan techniques and standard callouts with the crew. Keep software and displays updated and ensure proper antenna stabilization through maintenance.
How to Display Weather Radar (e.g., Honeywell Primus) Skills on Your Resume
4. Emergency Procedures
Emergency procedures are the immediate, standardized actions you take for engine anomalies, system failures, environmental hazards, or unexpected events to protect life and aircraft.
Why It's Important
A crisp, automatic response under stress shrinks risk and buys time. The right memory items, executed now, matter more than perfect finesse later.
How to Improve Emergency Procedures Skills
Rehearse memory items for engine failures, hot starts, hydraulic malfunctions, governor overspeed/underspeed, fire/smoke, LTE, vortex ring state, and tail rotor issues. Fly frequent autorotations—straight-in, 180, and confined area—to touchdown when approved. Use scenario-based training and LOFT-style simulations with full crew roles. Keep checklists current and accessible. Brief escape routes and off-field options on every leg. Debrief aggressively; refine what you’ll do when seconds count.
How to Display Emergency Procedures Skills on Your Resume
5. Flight Planning (e.g., ForeFlight)
Flight planning for helicopters blends routing, performance, fuel, and regulatory compliance with the realities of low-level terrain, obstacles, helipads, and off-airport sites. Tools like ForeFlight help, but judgment seals it.
Why It's Important
Good plans reduce surprises, lock in reserves, and carve clean paths through airspace and weather—so the mission arrives ready, not ragged.
How to Improve Flight Planning (e.g., ForeFlight) Skills
Use helicopter-specific charts and routing. Build accurate weight and balance profiles and respect HIGE/HOGE limits, PA/DA, and OEI performance. Map obstacles, wires, and terrain, not just runways. Validate fuel with realistic burn and contingencies. Identify alternates and emergency landing areas along the route. Preload plates, comm frequencies, and lighting notes. Keep your EFB proficiency sharp and your personal minimums honest.
How to Display Flight Planning (e.g., ForeFlight) Skills on Your Resume
6. Instrument Flight Rules (IFR)
IFR flying in helicopters uses instruments, FMS, and nav aids instead of outside visual cues—essential when visibility or ceilings drop.
Why It's Important
IFR capability keeps you in the game when weather squeezes options, enabling safe departures, arrivals, and approaches within the rules.
How to Improve Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) Skills
Log regular simulator sessions for approaches, holds, missed approaches, and failures. Maintain instrument currency with disciplined tracking and briefings. Practice partial-panel and unusual attitudes. Know your avionics cold—FMS, flight director, AFCS modes, and database integrity. Fly stabilized profiles and nail power settings. Study procedures and updates, then test yourself in new environments.
How to Display Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) Skills on Your Resume
7. Visual Flight Rules (VFR)
VFR operations rely on outside visual cues, cloud clearance, and clear airspace awareness—especially relevant for low-level and confined-area work.
Why It's Important
VFR skills keep you wired to the environment: wires, birds, changing winds, dust, rising terrain, and that sneaky last-minute sun glare.
How to Improve Visual Flight Rules (VFR) Skills
Build wire and obstacle awareness habits; scan early, scan often. Read the sky—microclimates, fog traps, outflow boundaries. Plan routes with terrain cushions and safe forced-landing options. Practice confined area ops, off-airport departures/arrivals, and go-around discipline. Keep weather minima and personal limits tight, not convenient. Rehearse diversion and land-and-live decisions before they’re needed.
How to Display Visual Flight Rules (VFR) Skills on Your Resume
8. Crew Resource Management
CRM coordinates people, procedures, and equipment. In helicopters, it includes two-crew environments and single-pilot resource management when you’re alone up front.
Why It's Important
Clear comms, shared mental models, and assertive decision-making cut error chains and catch threats before they grow teeth.
How to Improve Crew Resource Management Skills
Use brief, direct standard phraseology. Invite and act on cross-checks. Maintain situational awareness with ongoing updates and time checks. Apply structured decisions—define the problem, weigh risks, commit, and verify. Lead calmly, delegate clearly, and resolve conflicts fast. Train CRM regularly with scenario drills that stress bandwidth.
How to Display Crew Resource Management Skills on Your Resume
9. Risk Assessment
Risk assessment identifies hazards, analyzes likelihood and impact, and sets controls before you crank the engine—then keeps reassessing as conditions shift.
Why It's Important
It turns unknowns into knowns and stops small compromises from stacking into big ones.
How to Improve Risk Assessment Skills
Use a formal FRAT and stick to it. Apply PAVE and IMSAFE to keep personal and operational pressures honest. Set written personal minimums for weather, ceilings, winds, and performance margins. Study local accident patterns and wire reports. Bake in maintenance status and MEL/CDL items. Brief abort points and land-now triggers, then honor them. Debrief decisions, not just stick-and-rudder.
How to Display Risk Assessment Skills on Your Resume
10. Night Vision (e.g., ANVIS)
Night Vision Goggles such as ANVIS amplify available light for clearer terrain, obstacle, and horizon cues in low illumination. NVG operations demand disciplined lighting, scanning, and crew coordination.
Why It's Important
NVGs expand your night envelope, improving navigation, obstacle avoidance, and mission timing when darkness would otherwise shut the door.
How to Improve Night Vision (e.g., ANVIS) Skills
Ensure proper fit, alignment, and calibration to reduce strain and maximize image quality. Allow dark adaptation and manage cockpit and exterior lighting to protect it. Train regularly in a simulator and at altitude and low level for illusions, spatial disorientation, and brownout/whiteout cues. Maintain equipment meticulously and track currency. Support eye health—hydration, rest, and smart workload management matter at night.
How to Display Night Vision (e.g., ANVIS) Skills on Your Resume
11. Turbine Engines (e.g., Rolls-Royce M250)
The Rolls-Royce M250 and similar turboshafts convert fuel energy into shaft power that turns the rotor system. Managing temperatures, torque, and engine health is a daily pilot skill, not just a maintenance concern.
Why It's Important
Strong engine handling protects margins, extends life, and keeps performance where you need it, especially high, hot, heavy, or single-engine in the dark.
How to Improve Turbine Engines (e.g., Rolls-Royce M250) Skills
Perfect start procedures and abort criteria to prevent hot starts. Know all limits—TOT/ITT, Ng, Np, torque—and manage them smoothly. Use FADEC correctly and practice manual reversion where applicable. Perform power assurance checks and track engine trend data; engage HUMS/ETM when fitted and act on out-of-trend results. Respect compressor wash schedules and inlet barrier filter care. Verify fuel quality and icing protections. Keep OEI performance fresh in mind, with quick-access charts ready when the day goes sideways.
How to Display Turbine Engines (e.g., Rolls-Royce M250) Skills on Your Resume
12. Hoist Operations
Hoist operations use a winch and cable to lift or lower people or cargo while hovering, common in SAR, HEMS, offshore, and utility missions where landing is impossible.
Why It's Important
Precision hovering and ironclad crew coordination make the difference between a clean pickup and an incident when the terrain, weather, or ship deck won’t play nice.
How to Improve Hoist Operations Skills
Train regularly with full crew, realistic loads, and emergency scenarios. Execute thorough pre-mission planning: performance checks, winds, hover references, PPE, comm plans, and abort criteria. Standardize calls, hand signals, and sterile cockpit periods. Manage drift actively, use visual cues, and control static discharge and tag lines. Inspect hoist gear meticulously before each sortie and document defects fast.
How to Display Hoist Operations Skills on Your Resume
