R44 lease back to training school

[pplh]

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone could give me a vague idea of how much an owner would get per hour when leasing a R44 back to a school for training/self fly hire.
I think people pay about £400/hour for self fly hire and about £460/hour for training on average from schools in the UK. Approximately how much of this would the aircraft's owner get? (I understand many factors are to be considered)

Thanks

[firebird_uk]

I'd have said that £160 per datcon hr was at the low end and £200 the upper end. Somewhere in the middle is the norm.

Schools paying £200 and guaranteeing 30hr / month are welcome to pm me! :}

[61 Lafite]

Plus when the aircraft needs maintenance at its service which didn't get notified as an 'event' if/when an overspeed or bump happens, the owner also gets the privilege of spending his moderate income paying for the repairs with no comeback on the school or his insurers!

Lafite

[pplh]

My next question exactly... is it actually possible to make, not lose, money!?

[toptobottom]

In my experience, it's possible, but very unlikely :sad:
As 61 Lafite says, one 'incident' could easily cost years of modest profit...

[jeepys]

PPLH,

the answer to your question in my view is no, not really. There are so many ways in which you can go from profit to loss in one swoop when owning a heli.

As far as prices go for the 44, well maybe in your area you have FASTS with a SFH rate of somewhere in the region of £345 + vat and training at £395+ VAT and you also have Vanguard helicopters at Henstridge charging £315 and £375 + VAT.

Good luck with whatever you do.

Regards,

J.

[firebird_uk]

pplh: If you're looking at a leaseback as a way of making money then I'd suggest you invest your money elsewhere and SFH when you want to fly.

If you use the helicopter for business purposes and want the leaseback as a way of helping cover some of the yearly running costs then (in my experience), it helps.

Talk to the school about their insurance cover for overspeeds etc and who is liable. I think you will find that different schools have different policies largely based on their previous claim history. Also check what each student / SFHer signs as this may mean that they are liable for certain costs.

Also remember that once you leaseback you can't view the helicopter as yours. It will get muddy footprints. Your checklist will go missing if you leave it in the aircraft. There's no point in putting a full Bose system in. etc etc.

And remember that (sadly), people avoid the truth. I collected a 44 for maintenance from France last year. The fan was slightly offset on the spline so I called the UK to get them to ask the owner if the machine had been oversped on startup. Answer no, it's crept on the spline over time. After I'd crossed the channel in it (no floats) and the engineers had looked at it they called the owner again. Suddenly he remembered that it might have been oversped. Someone using your machine may suffer the same bouts of amnesia!! :ugh:

[outofwhack]

I have always fancied a thread dedicated to helicopter owner/pilots.
There doesnt appear to be one.

Does anyone else think it worthwhile? (and would help by posting)

I'd like to be an owner/pilot as long as I can but fear if things keep going as they are now I wont be an owner much longer!

As an owner myself I feel I have been taken for rides (usually by engineers) that have cost me dearly and I would love to hear how best to handle them. Ofcourse we have to keep names/locations out of it.

Who's in?

OOW

[toptobottom]

OOB

Don't start me off!! The engineers are almost always the good guys though - it's their managers whom I've had the problems with...

I suspect 61 Lafite may be interested in this one too :ok:

TTB

[rotorboater]

I am surprised there are not more small syndicates for helis around, mine was always underused and that makes the fixed costs expensive per hour, if you can get more hours in then the insurance seems better value.

If anyone is interested in selling a few hours or shares please PM me.

[Clyde Parthangel]

Have to agree with all that's been said so far. Leaseback to a training organisation will never make the aircraft pay for itself - and a suspected tail rotor gearbox problem on my R44 cost me thousands that I hadn't budgeted for. Funny thing was, the noisy gearbox was only discovered when the aircraft was being retrieved from a week of work with a certain operator who shall remain nameless. Of course, they swore blind that it had 'only just started to be noisy' and 'no, of course we didn't do anything out of the ordinary with it'. Hmmm.... Maybe there should be more helicopter syndicates. I for one would be interested.

[Clitheroe Kid]

I'm in a five member syndicate flying an Enstrom 480 (G-LADZ) out of Manchester Barton. We all pay £300 per month and £125 per hour wet. I've been involved in several groups over the last 15 years and can recommend it as a cheap way to fly. Happy to pass on details to anyone thinking of going the syndicate route.

[birrddog]

I second (or third) the idea of a thread for owner/pilots.

Finally got Mrs B around the idea of getting a machine, and now to navigate the myriads of challenges associated with buying, pimping, maintaining, managing costs, pitfalls, etc...

It's a daunting task and one is not always sure where to get the best advice, particularly getting it from several sources to either confirm,deny or make one's own conclusions.

[Clyde Parthangel]

OK, sounds like we might have another thread developing here. I will take the liberty of starting one and see what response we get....

[muffin]

Count me in as well. After realising recently that my R22 was going to hit its 12 years long before its 2200 hours, I have just leased it back to a school to burn some hours off. As a result I miss the convenience sorely and have not flown for many weeks now. I bought it because I could not find a syndicate. I am sure that when I do get it back the first preflight will be very very detailed.

[helicopter-redeye]

Count me in too. The problem has always been that there are no groups for rotary pilots.

PS Muffin, you could prob get away with the 12yr inspection rather than the full rebuild which may be a lot less. e

[Clyde Parthangel]

New thread up and running.....see "Helicopter Shared Ownership".....:ok: