End of the road for the R22?
Note the question mark.
All AOPA UK members will have their June issue of General Aviation magazine by now, so I thought I'd post the substance of an interview in the magazine with Frank Robinson, who is clearly weighing the merits of shutting down the R22 production line to concentrate on the R44 and future projects.
The story says, in part:
The topic came up as we were discussing the max gross of the R22, which has remained at 1,370 lbs while the empty weight has crept inexorably north with the addition of safety and comfort devices like the auxiliary tank, rotor brake and governor. “The 22 has grown pretty much beyond its limits,” Frank says. “It started out at 108hp, now it’s 180 and we’ve still got the same systems, gearbox, drive train. You can’t get that 1,370 pounds up without pretty much starting again from scratch.
“We’ve backed off on a number of things on the 22. We no longer make the Mariner (the float-equipped model) or the instrument trainer. For several reasons, our emphasis has shifted towards the larger helicopter.”
Without an apparent vector change in his thought pattern, he goes on: “I think in many respects the Raven I would make a really good trainer. It has very good flying characteristics. Flown as a two-place in training, it would have big advantages in performance, autotorational capabilities… with the hydraulics it handles really well.
“Look at Cessna – if you want to learn on a new Cessna it’s the 172, right? The four-place. You can’t get the 152 any more. How much is a 172?” I confess to having no idea and venture $180,000, and he scratches his chin. “The Raven I would be a much nicer trainer than any helicopter ever – better than the Bell 47, the Hiller… and safer than any helicopter flying, even in training.”
The article goes on to point out that concentrating on the 44 would make good business sense because the larger margins are on the bigger machine and RHC has a backlog of 44 orders past Christmas, but that the safety argument is foremost in Robinson's mind. While the safety record of the R22 is now better than most fixed-wings, the R44's safety record is impeccable.
The story goes on:
The accidents really get to Frank Robinson. However safe he tried to make his machines, with more than 5,000 of them flying hundreds of thousands of hours a year, they’re going to happen. He has made matters worse for himself by getting personally involved in every fatal accident to an extraordinary degree, going to the scenes, watching videos, recreating the circumstances, going up and flying the same profiles as the accident aircraft, obsessing on getting to the root of every one. People he knew well have been killed in his machines, and he feels the responsibility deeply and personally. The downside of running an operation where you call all the shots is that you also carry the can. At the Robinson Safety Course he still delivers the same homily he’s been repeating since the start: “People used to say the most dangerous thing about flying was the drive to the airport. That is absolute nonsense. Flying a light aircraft or a helicopter is about the most dangerous thing you’re ever going to do. You can reckon that out of the people here (there are 60 on each course) two of you will be killed doing it. But almost all accidents are avoidable, if you develop the right attitude and put extra effort into flying defensively. If you’re not going to do that, then get out of the helicopter and go and do something else, because it’s not for you.”
In our interview, he continued the theme. “Fatal accidents have affected me a great deal. They’ve been a really unpleasant part of the business. It’s probably been a mistake to get so closely involved in them all. We used to have accidents when I was working at Bell, Cessna, and Hughes and we always felt bad about them, but there wasn’t the same sense of personal responsibility. It doesn’t change, it doesn’t get any easier.”
Now, what if he had just one model that had an unparalleled ability to protect pilots from the consequences of their own incapacity or rough luck? That’s the bottom line. So what, if it ceded ground to the opposition? “The Raven I would still be cheaper than a piston Enstrom. It would be less than the Schweitzer 300C with comparable equipment – some of the stuff the Raven has as standard like the governor and the rotor brake they don’t even offer as options. It would be a little more than the 300CB, and of course a lot more than the 22 – the capital cost is greater, and it uses more fuel, but the insurance rates for the Raven I could come down below those of the 22, even when it’s used in training. The 44 with just two people in it has a really good performance margin. You’d have a reduction in training accidents – fewer per hour flown. It would be a really good training helicopter."
The story says that as the sole shareholder in RHC Frank Robinson can do (and does) whatever it pleases him to do, "whatever the effect such a move would have on low-margin training and hire operations, impecunious owners, cattle musterers, fish spotters, short-pocketed wannabe pilots and Robinson’s struggling competitors."
Frank finishes off by saying: “You can say I don’t have any plans at the moment to stop making the 22, but anything is possible.”