Back home! Flew her on instruments for several hours today! I don’t need to do that trip again but it was fun. Go America!

It looks like you got to (maybe) catch a glimpse of Savannah!

Funny you said that. After last year flying the helicopter to Cabo, when I got back I said the same thing. It lost its shine.

Did you hand fly it or primarily use AP?

Did you hand fly it or primarily use AP?

Agusta has a force trim and SAS system that’s on 100% of the time unless you hold a red thumb button or cut it off. So basically if you let it do it’s thing it wants to be stable. You can then couple that system to the flight director. It even couples the glide slope. If you cut it off it flies like a non twitchy Robinson but few do this.

The local EMS guy is an Agusta expert and we just replaced a lot of hardware and links on the bird, got the radar fixed (thanks Don) and replaced the 330ES with a 345. After test flying her today, it was worth the expense! My conclusions after having on this thing eight months Is that is a very well-made machine that has incredible flight manners but it’s very expensive to maintain properly. Parts are fairly reasonably priced and available. However beyond a shadow of a doubt it’s worth every penny of the effort because it’s glorious to fly!

whats your cruise speed? Just curious why the 109 over an as350? I got a ride in a 109 last summer and cockpit was too small for me, definitely looks cooler!

I had to do a double take.... I thought yours might have been the same one!.. Slightly different!

whats your cruise speed? Just curious why the 109 over an as350? I got a ride in a 109 last summer and cockpit was too small for me, definitely looks cooler!

Mike, have you had the A109 long enough now to give us a rough idea of MX costs?

I sold it. You can maintain this bird effectively for a fairly reasonable amount if you are hands on, resourceful and scrappy. If you use the dealer network, I think it would likely wreck you and cost $100K+ a year to maintain.

I spent $10K on some bearings (that look like they should cost 10 cents) in about 100 hours of flying. If I had to take a wild guess, it's probably $300/hour all in to maintain one of these.

I sold it. You can maintain this bird effectively for a fairly reasonable amount if you are hands on, resourceful and scrappy. If you use the dealer network, I think it would likely wreck you and cost $100K+ a year to maintain.

I spent $10K on some bearings (that look like they should cost 10 cents) in about 100 hours of flying. If I had to take a wild guess, it's probably $300/hour all in to maintain one of these.

Is that that the Scrappy price or the Wreck you price?[/quote]

That's the being scrappy price, If I had to guesstimate owning something like this costs double to triple flying a Citation around.

Helicopters are toys and the R44 (soon to be R66) meets that requirement for 1/10th the cost. However, if I was a billionaire I'd own several brand new Agustas. It's a magical machine.

Did you ever look at the Bell 505 or used Bell 206? Wondering why you are moving up from a 44 to 66?