Mountain Rating (MOU)

The mountain rating is an add-on to an existing helicopter license and can be concluded with a minimum of 100h flight time.

The challenging rating greatly enriches your flying skills and takes you to some of the most beautiful landing sites across the Swiss alps.

The mountain rating can be flown with both our R44 piston engine-, as well as the R66 tubine helicopter.

The training comprises the following:

• Practical flight training with min. 200 mountain landings with a min. of 20h flight time
  • Thereof min. 50 landings below 2’000m
  • Thereof min. 150 landings on designated mountain landing sites
  • Landings on 20 different sites
  • 10 of these sites need to be higher than 2’700m above sea level
• Theoretical instruction 5-10h
• Flying through valleys and avoiding cables and other obstacles
• Assessment of weather and wind situations

Only selected flight instructors, hand selected by the Swiss authority for civil aviation, are permitted to teach the mountain rating. As a customer, you can be sure to have a highly seasoned instructor by your side.

Depending on your experience and currency, we recommend to budget between 20h-30h flight time. To avoid long cross-country flights to landing sites further away, good planning is key. The heliport Balzers offers you unique benefits, thanks to its ideal location: You can reach 11 mountain landing sites within only 20min flight time.

The duration of the mountain course lasts between 3 to 6 months and postponements due to weather should be incorporated in the timeline. It is advisable to conduct your training during cold and hot seasons. This allows you to experience the entire breadth of challenges such as high density altitudes in summer and white outs in winter.

This course is also suitable for foreign pilots with little experience in flying in mountainous terrain and would like to expand their skill set.