Originally Posted by
FH1100 Pilot
aa777888's post was pretty darn good - a very "fair and balanced" appraisal. He's done that work (fair rides) and I have not. I have but one quibble. I timed the ride at just about (or just under) three minutes. (There was a slight edit just before the turnaround at the stadium that cut some time out.) The sign said $20 per person. Assuming a three pax minimum, that's $60 per ride. At three minutes per ride, you can do 20 rides per flight hour (collective up to collective down). That's friggin' $1,200 per flight hour - not too shabby! Now, we know that even though the minimum is supposed to be three pax, not *every* ride will have three. Still, even if your average load factor is 2.5, that's still $1,000 per flight hour. For an R-44. Here in the U.S., most of these state fairs last a whole week. See why the fair ride operators are drawn to this type of work?
Yeah, it's pretty obvious you have not done these types of rides. A 3 minute ride will never give you 20 rides per hour, as you have load times in between each ride. Load times can vary from maybe 30 seconds for a quick turn around to a couple of minutes, depending on the crew and the passengers being unloaded and loaded. And don't forget about fueling every so often. However, it does look like the flight from the video stays too low.