Overall, the civil helicopter market is dominated by European companies.
In France too, many pilots prefer the Hughes to the R22 but their maintenance is getting very difficult due to lack of parts and support from a manufacturer.
People love the Cabri (French built !!!!) but they are rented at the same prince than R44s so it’s a big difference.
From what I’ve been told (and I charter these things pretty often for work), the determining factor in helos are the time-lifed components. Essentially you add all the cost, divide by the hours you can use the parts and arrive at a baseline what the machine costs to operate. Then add fuel, insurance, unexpected maintenance fund, ops overheads and pilot and you arrive at your ops cost. Above that – depends on the market conditions, like in any business. Here in the US the Robinsons seem to have totall taken over the lower end of the market. As an aside, their turbine offering, the R66, is a great machine! Very stable and almost vibration-free. Btw, hourly charter (incl pilot, as opposed to self-fly rental) hre in the SW US are around R22: $ 400 / R44: $ 600 / R66: $ 1000 as rough guidelines.
Why are helicopters so expensive?
Because the market will take it.
Helicopters are unnatural spawn of the devil that are only ever one fastner from a crash. Find me something in nature that tries to fly that way? :)
But more seriously I gather it is all around the vastly more expensive scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.
JasonC wrote:
Find me something in nature that tries to fly that way?
Maple seeds are helicopters in autorotation!
JasonC wrote:
Helicopters are unnatural spawn of the devil that are only ever one fastner from a crash. Find me something in nature that tries to fly that way? :)
Low wing aircraft are even more unnatural. Only high wing aircraft are sane. Well, maybe in Australia there are low wing birds, there are all kinds of unique animals there…
achimha wrote:
Insurance rates are similar to airplanes and generally not a big factor, not more than 10€/h.
I don’t know about that.
Someone I know was thinking about doing their helicopter rating in the US, on a Bell 47 worth US$40K, the insurance was over $10k. A comparable value fixed wing taildragger would be about $800 to insure at the time.
Low wing aircraft are even more unnatural.
A high-wing airplane is just a poor excuse for a low-wing flying upside down
R44 rental in Czech Republic is around EUR460 plus VAT, which is most probably in line with other European countries as the heli economics is practically same everywhere, especially with Robinson where the costs are based on 12year/2200hr overhaul.
It is correct statement that DSA does have FX280 and other Enstrom machines as they are Enstrom dealer for Czech Republic. The mechanics say that it is real pain in the ass to work on Enstroms and it is extremely difficoult to track and balance their rotors. They are now trying to revive one old F28C and I see the machine out every day, the guys trying to set up the rotor correctly. One of the mechanic confessed that after they set the rotor according to maintenance manual, the machine did not autorotate on the first flight trial. Any real engine issue would equal fatal accident in that case. Enstrom is a very old design and it is definitely not the right way to go.
On the other side, there is Guimbal Cabri distributor for Czech Republic and Slovakia based at our airport (www.lion-helicopters.cz) and I confirm that Cabri is a lovely little machine, good trainer, which is a pleasure to fly. You can clearly see that the design comes from the same guy (Bruno Guimbal) who worked on the design of EC120B and it is much more modern so there is real generation gap between Enstrom and Guimbal.
Based on my brief experience with helicopters I would say that the way to go is Guimbal for two seater and H120 (EC120B) for 4/5 seats. You might own Guimbal and rent H120 for the occasions where you need more seats. The two machines are very similar in flight characteristics so it is easy to jump between them.
