Helicopter Operating Rules

§ 91.119 — Minimum safe altitudes

Standard fixed-wing minimums:

• Anywhere: Altitude allowing emergency landing without undue hazard if power lost.
• Over congested areas (cities, towns, settlements, open-air assemblies): 1,000 ft above the highest obstacle within 2,000 ft horizontal.
• Over other than congested areas: 500 ft above surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas — 500 ft from any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.

Helicopter exception (§ 91.119(d)): Helicopters, powered parachutes, and weight-shift-control aircraft may operate at less than the minimums in (b) or (c) — and only those. Paragraph (a) still applies to a helicopter: whatever else you are doing, the altitude must allow an emergency landing without undue hazard if the power unit fails. The relief is:

• The operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface, AND
• The pilot complies with any routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the FAA.

This is the legal basis for low-altitude EMS, ENG (news), tour, and utility operations. It is not a license to buzz the neighborhood — "without hazard to persons or property" is a real bar.

§ 91.126 — Traffic patterns at uncontrolled airports

• At uncontrolled airports, fixed-wing pilots make all turns to the left unless visual indicators (e.g., a segmented circle with traffic-pattern indicators) show right-traffic.
• § 91.126(b)(2) now reads: "Each pilot of any other powered aircraft must avoid the flow of the aircraft specified in paragraph (b)(1) of this section." The older wording named helicopters and powered parachutes directly; the current text is broader and points back at (b)(1), which is the powered fixed-wing traffic. The duty on a helicopter pilot is unchanged — stay out of the fixed-wing flow — but quote the current words on a checkride.
• Practical application: helicopter pilots fly a separate (often opposite-direction or lower) pattern, or land on a designated taxiway, or approach directly to a heliport spot — all to keep the fixed-wing flow clean.
• At controlled airports, comply with tower instructions per § 91.129 (Class D ops).

The same principle applies in Class C (§ 91.130) and Class B (§ 91.131) — controllers expect helicopter ops to deconflict from fixed-wing flow.

§ 91.151 — VFR fuel reserves

• Fixed-wing day VFR: Fuel to fly to first intended landing + 30 minutes at normal cruise.
• Fixed-wing night VFR: Fuel to fly to first intended landing + 45 minutes at normal cruise.
• Helicopter VFR (day or night): Fuel to fly to first intended landing + 20 minutes at normal cruise.

The helicopter reserve is the same day or night because helicopter mission profiles often involve short legs and remote landing zones — the rule reflects operational reality. But 20 minutes is minimum legal, not "the right amount." Most operators specify a higher company minimum (often 30 minutes day / 45 night).

For IFR fuel reserves see § 91.167: destination + alternate (if required) + 30 minutes for a helicopter (45 minutes is the fixed-wing figure) — § 91.167(a)(3).

§ 91.113 — Right of way

The general rules (in order from most to least right of way):

1. Aircraft in distress — has right of way over all others.
2. Different categories — the order in § 91.113(d)(1)–(4): balloon over everything; glider over powered aircraft; an aircraft towing or refuelling over all other powered aircraft; airship over all other powered aircraft except one towing or refuelling. That puts towing/refuelling above the airship — the reverse of how the chain is usually recited.
3. Converging at the same altitude: if the same category, the aircraft on the right has right of way.
4. Approaching head-on: both alter course to the right.
5. Overtaking: overtaken aircraft has right of way; pass on the right.
6. Landing: aircraft on final approach has right of way over those in flight; lower altitude on final has right of way over higher (but no cutting in front).

There is no rule giving a fixed-wing aircraft right of way over a helicopter. The § 91.113(d) hierarchy stops at “all other powered aircraft”, and airplanes and rotorcraft sit together in that group with neither outranking the other. They are also not the same category, so the “aircraft to the other’s right” rule at the top of (d) is written for airplane-versus-airplane or helicopter-versus-helicopter. Between a helicopter and an airplane the section settles nothing, and what governs is § 91.113(b): vigilance to see and avoid, whoever you are.

Other helicopter-relevant § 91 cites

• § 91.103 — Preflight action: weather, fuel, alternates, runway lengths, takeoff/landing distance data.
• § 91.105 — Flight crewmember at station: required during takeoff/landing and en route except for specific reasons.
• § 91.107 — Use of safety belts & harnesses.
• § 91.111 — Operating near other aircraft. Three sentences, and no distance in any of them: do not fly so close as to create a collision hazard, no formation flight except by arrangement with every pilot in command involved, and no formation flight at all carrying passengers for hire. The 500 ft figure often attached to this rule is not here. It lives in § 91.119(c), and it means two different things there: 500 ft above the surface over other than congested areas, but over open water or sparsely populated areas it is instead a 500 ft distance from any person, vessel, vehicle or structure — with no altitude floor at all.
• § 91.117 — Aircraft speed. 250 KIAS below 10,000 ft MSL (a). 200 KIAS at or below 2,500 ft AGL and within 4 NM of the primary airport of a Class C or Class D area (b) — note both conditions, and note that (b) says in terms that it does not apply inside Class B, where 250 governs. 200 KIAS also applies in the airspace underlying Class B and in a VFR corridor through it (c).
• § 91.159 — VFR cruising altitudes: more than 3,000 ft above the surface, hemispherical rule. The rule keys on magnetic course, not heading — 0–179° takes odd thousands +500, 180–359° takes even thousands +500. In a crosswind your heading and your course are different numbers, and it is the course that decides.
• § 91.183 — IFR position reporting (when not radar-contacted).