Flying Helicopter Price

Robinson's estimate of the cost of fuel und oils was lower than what I paid. Headquartered in California, Robinson has some of the highest tax rates on gasoline. Right across the frontier from Arizona to California, you can be expected to pay 50 more per gal for car gasoline. Nevertheless, they still estimate $4.50/gallon for petrol today.

Rodinson says 50¢/hour. I use the W100+ crude will cost about $6/quart and I seem to add a quarter every 5 hrs or so. Robinson's cost of coverage is calculated using Pathfinder's tariffs. The Pathfinder has a particular relation to Robinson that keeps his installments low. My one-year bonus in the currently budgeted running cost - around $11,000 - is not too far removed from what I was paying when I was covered by them for my business operations.

Unfortunately, Robinson divides this amount over 500 flying hrs per year. Just how many privately owned people - the same people who buy the costly automobiles Robinson compares his choppers to - are flying 500hrs a year? My helicopter is still in operation and I still don't do more than 200 a year.

Take these 11,000 dollars and split them by 200 and the per-hour costs for insuring alone are 55 dollars - not the 22 dollars Robinson uses. However, when I made my purchase/ownership decisions, I pocketed all the known numbers I had and trusted Robinson numbers for unknowns - especially the costs of regular inspection and unplanned upkeep.

Well, I began to get hit with unanticipated expenses not long after the sale. Running of the booster fuelling pumps took about 500 h. It' gonna be $1,600 new and $800 out of date. For a price of $1,600 a ticket. Luckily, the plant put the maintenance charge on the price of a new machine: $9,000.

This year, the silencer costs another $2,200. Then there are the airworthiness directives, service bulletins and service letters. So, yes, I've altered the direction of my propellant controls, because an imbecile, who probably kept his helicopter in the rains all the way, brought a little bit of fresh air into his propellant - even though my helicopter was stationed in the dessert, where it hardly ever happened to rainy and was held in a hanger.

Replacing the seatbelt fastening points and replacing the accelerator lever and replacing the bezel pipe clip and fiddling with the accelerator rods and changing the gas line brackets and replacing the rigid gas line and replacing the gas colator assemblies and doing some work on the coupling actor safety bracket cabling.

Every one of these necessary servicing positions is costing cash - sometimes even tens of millions of dollars. None of them were in Robinson's budget. An instruction sheet that became an instruction for serviceability had to be inspected and then repainted (or replaced). It'?s about $1,500 each way.

However, the actual kick - the Servicemerkblatt that triggered this article in the newsletter - is the blade reservoir refurbishment for my petrol wells. Retrofitting kits will be approximately $6,000, plus 40 working hour and the costs of repainting fuels.

My estimates are it'll be between $12,000 and $14,000. Not one of the estimates of Robinson's fairytale quote expenses on this project. Fresh air in the oil reservoir, cracks in the seatbelt lock fixing points, fixed accelerator lever, torn oil pipes, hammered cabling. You moaned and lamented to Robinson and maybe even threatens to take whatever steps you can.

And Robinson is private property and self-insured. In order to avoid that other proprietors cause them sorrow, they then issued a Servicebulletin to deal with it. Failure to adhere to the Servicing Bulletin will not allow you to come to Robinson with your troubles weeping. Things get to the top with the location of the fuelling line and the fuelling bubble.

There' been cases of fire after an incident on Robinson choppers. Robinson began releasing documentation to help avoid prosecution against the corporation (News Flash: Most serious air crashes relate to fire after an accident). A number of cases have occurred in which helicopter or lighter passengers have been killed in an incident that was seriously burnt by fire after the incident.

However, when this was not sufficient to counteract the liabilities, Robinson followed three official reports: The SB-67 (R44 II hose mounts), SB-68 (rigid line replacement) and now SB-78 (fuel bubble retrofit). They try to minimise the risk of fire after an accident by making changes to the petrol system to avoid pipe and petrol breaks.

So, in principle, I am obliged to alter my airplane to minimize Robinson's responsibility in the case I fall and my helicopter caught fire? If I were a privately owned person and was not asked by the FAA to adhere to all these Servicebulletins, there would be no way that I would be wasting my funds if I were to adhere to those who would not have helped me.

Why, for example, should you modify the tank management to prevent the presence of moisture in the gas? and my helicopter is equipped with a hangair. Even in the seldom case where it rains, draining the tank - which I should do before every trip anyway - would do.

When I would start to find waters in the petrol tanks, I would rethink my location and maybe do it. This retrofitting of the petrol system is also incomprehensible. In order to profit from this, I would have to fall with enough collision and propellant on deck to cause a fire. There is no evidence that this retrofitting would stop a fire.

If you look at the initial purchase price, the fix price and the running expenses, a helicopter like the mine is much more expensive than the 185 dollars. Ten per 1 o'clock Robinson estimations. Let me tell you exactly how much I've been spending on insurances, fuels, oil, servicing and repair in the last 6 years: $208,000.

Thus, after 6 years of operation I see a mean operating hours of 300 dollars per hour not Robinson's 185 dollars roses. Naturally, this does not cover my other expenses for running a business: advertisement, consumables, travelling, renting a garage, cars, tax, charges, etc. But the Robinson paper is not seriously challenged by anyone.

Wyoming tells me about his plan to rent an M44 helicopter to set up a company in a small town in Wyoming. He would calculate the figures using Robinson's estimate of running expenses plus the expense of the Dry Leasing. He invented numbers - up to and beyond his estimate of the Dry Release pay - which roughly corresponded to my real hourly outlay.

Said to me his estimations were low. As Robinson, he relied on a 500-hour flying year to differentiate between fix and insurable expenses. That' s on avarage about 10 hrs per weeks flying in a place that has a very specific and rather brief flying period. He did not look at the expense of servicing manuals and instructions for aircraft certification and unplanned servicing beyond what Robinson values.

Does my ten years of helicopter ownership expertise give me more insights than a market research paper produced by the helicopter manufacturer and seller? Finally, I have to back my mechanics and the Robinson Helicopter Society. From what you are reading. However, I would really like you to come to my tech-section and join me in a few bucks to pay for the costs of running this blogs and keep me motivated to write new, interesting contents.