The problems with turbine helicopters is not the cost to fly them everyday. It’s the cost of the mandatory replacement of stuff at specific intervals. You are a fool if you don’t but sometimes the cost is eye watering.

Saw a beautiful R44 at a local airport while on vacation this week. Then I remembered someone on BT saying $40k/year for insurance...???

This is an old data point, but about 15 years ago I met a man with an R22.

He paid the same per month for insurance as I did per year on a C150. Always stuck with me how expensive those suckers are.

$800

Michael, congrats. I had an Enstrom many years ago, was a lot of fun.



keep us informed.


(you did it the right way....lots of training in a short amount of time)


stan

Is this correct? In discussion with R22/R44 owners here I was under the impression that this was true for the R22 but not the R44. Something to do with differences in how the maintenance schedules are written. This could be a Canadian interpretation, Transport Canada does tends to be stricter than the FAA.

To fair when discussing cost, there have been a number of expensive AD on Robinson helicopters throughout the years.

One factor in my getting a Bell 47 is the fact that its only calendar limit component is the fan belt set. I'm flying it 50-75 hours/year. If I flew more I would have a R44.

Insurance is about $2500 for liability only. I didn’t ask about full coverage. But I am positive you can run past twelve years without overhaul as long as you’re below 2200 hours. The only twelve year requirement is the blades.

First flight today with wife and son to visit a friend in Jax.

That's very reasonable for the liability only quote. Maybe somewhat affordable to me after all...

Do you carry any not-in-motion hull coverage? That would be my other concern. I'm fine self insuring if I bend something in flight (although I do carry full coverage on my current stuff just because it is practical to do so with the not complex stuff I fly), but (for some reason) the thought of no insurance for ramp or hangar damage gives me a lot of pause (probably all the recent hits).

Mines about 17,000 a year 2 mil smooth full coverage but had them since about 2002.
No claims.

Beautiful location. Have you had any pushback from your neighbors over noise, etc?

Back from visiting a friend today!

The vibration is the perfect baby sleep machine.

We might need to start an R44 related sub forum, BT is slowly leaning into the dark side!

I am surprised that you were allowed to fly your R44 in Mexico.
The only time I was allowed to operate my helicopter in Mexico was with a clearance from the Mexican Department of Defense. That was on a commercial contract with the producers of the movie "Dune", in an arid and desolate area of the Chihuahuan Desert.
Unless things have changed, Mexican officials are sensitive to the possibility of jail breakouts with the use of rotorcraft. I witnessed one on the "Islas Marias", on the Pacific, while I was doing volunteer medical work with the inmates.
But the best contract I got was with the US Dept of State. They had a vested interest during the Contra thing in Nicaragua, and requested our services. We got to train a number of young Nicaraguan pilots in Robbies. My chief pilot was Italian, but spoke good Spanish, and that was the key to the job.
One night, when I was closing the flight office and ready to head home in the 22, A friend called me on his "brick" portable phone, and invited me to have some drinks at a posh bar atop a downton building. I said "I'll be right over, look out the South window". I flew right up to the picture windows at the top floor, leveled off about 20 yards away, and lit up the whole joint with the machine's landing lights... All I could see was eyeballs and raised drinks!
I heard about that escapade from the feds the next morning, who couln't prove a thing, and from my good buds for the next few months.
Those days were fast and loose; I kinda miss them.

TN

Hell of a good confined area technique. The logs would give me pause.

TN

Hell of a good confined area technique. The logs would give me pause.

TN