If you live in Haywards Heath, then you have FAST Helicopters in Shoreham and Biggin Hill Helicopters in Biggin Hill, and i guess some operators round Redhill too. It does not take 1.5 hours to get to either of these places, unless you drive via Southhampton
Clearly Sir, you are fortunate not to be familiar with English Traffic!
One and a half hours was a good day ....
If I do your calculation based on just my own annual hours then the economics of ownership just do not stack up. Hence there would have to be either a group or some cross hire to make it sensible
That is if you aim to own on the basis of profit rather than flexibility.
In the end, I bought because hiring from flying schools was fraught with problems including availability being taken away at the last minute ("somebody else wants it"); check flight every flight (even if you flew the day before) to earn more revenue for the FIs; general cost; and etc.
One of my neighbours calculated (he\'s a pilot btw) that owning a R22 only works if you get big numbers from hire to schools else it is cheaper to hire.