What the helicopter report adds

Instead of long obstacle lists, the report shows side-by-side departure and arrival maps centred on each end of the flight. A loop flight shows one map. Towers 200 ft or taller near your route show as coloured squares:

Hover for type, height, lighting and distance off track. Wires across rivers and valleys are not in the FAA obstacle list — the written report still warns about them on low-level work.

Only notices that could bring an aircraft down are shown: closures, lighting outages, tall obstacles (800 ft AGL or more, plus any without a published height), airspace restrictions, GPS outages, drones, lasers and birds, and fuel limits. Coded text is translated into plain English.

Each remote departure, landing or scene site gets its own card: coordinates, elevation, the weather station and its distance, obstructions within 1 NM, your saved notes, and the Landing Zone Survey map.

See Remote sites and offshore platforms: platform checklist, Coast Guard stations, float warning and unlit-structure call-outs.

If your logbook shows little or no rotorcraft time in this type, the report says so plainly — "first logged flight in this tail number", not a sweeping claim about your experience.