Originally Posted by
ApolloHeli
some students are too heavy for the R22 to be practical, and with an R44 the school can bring two students and more fuel for a longer trips. Two students splitting flight time away & flight time back for better and more diverse Nav etc. Just allows them to offer better more interesting training rather than always flying circuits in the same airfield like many ATOs. The difference in the course between the R22 or R44 as it stands only appears to be £8.5k across a 130hour integrated course (i.e. £65 per hour). Whether that's worth it is subjective; it may be overpriced in your opinion, but to others it might be justified.
I would say, some instructors are too heavy for the R22 :-).
About having 2 other students in the bck. some students don't like it when other people watch what they do and get nervous which would be a TEM issue.
Most student also like to go after 2 hours, spending a full day and only do 1 hour flying 1 hour briefing is not really attractive for most people.
Justifying paying extra for a R44 just comes down to how rich the student is. Most rich students only go for PPL and the poorer students go for PPL-CPL and do it in a R22 to get the licence as cheap as possible.
Some exceptions of course.