Helicopter economics

[nsa]

How much to buy/rent a low-end two or four seater doing twelve 200 mile round trips a year?

I have neither licence nor helicopter. A licence costs about 10k? Am just curious; should be working.

[Zad]

The licence is the cheap bit. You can get a single turbine Jet Ranger from about £200k for an oldish model, but that would probably only have 500 hours or so left before a major inspection / overhaul. Expect to be paying a minimum of £500/hr for "fly it yourself" and closer to £1000 for a full charter. Around half that for a Citroen 2CV Robinson R22.

[Geneve]

To get your licence - a decent helicopter and instructor will be £350 p/h and you'll need to allow c.60 hrs, unless you have previous experience. Plus of course all the incidental costs.

So, reckon on £20k. However, there are few better ways to spend that money

WRT helicopter rental, the Robinson R44 is the cheapest practical 4-seater - about £300-400 p/h plus pilot*. It will do a 200 mile round trip in less than 2 hrs flying time - so 12 trips would be about £10k*. However, you'll save lots of time, weather permitting, and enjoy the scenery from c.1000 ft.

There are better (turbine) helicopters but you'll pay more.

• Edited to add that, if this was to be a regular round trip, subject to positioning, you should be able to negotiate a worthwhile discount off this figure.

Edited by Geneve on Monday 19th November 23:49

[nsa]

Very expensive as I expected. Many thanks though.

[paintman]

Friend was a helicopter instructor (he's now retired) and said his one big mistake was buying a helicopter. After that one was written off by a student going solo he rented. Only paid for the time it was flying.

Edited by paintman on Tuesday 20th November 12:28