"The MD900 is a much better aircraft than the EC135 in all respects. Sadly customers are being discouraged by the spares situation."
Yawn, what have the romans ever done for us?? (watch Life of Brian for full explanation) All respects means ALL respects, so the spares situation is pretty important to a unit like ours with only one helicopter. 135 operators think that their heli is better than the MD900 series, so what you mean is: 'In my opinion' the 900 is better........
This argument has been done over and over, again and again. I like Eurocopter products with over 4000hrs on Gazelle/Puma/350/355/135. I have sampled the american products available and find them just as capable, but not as simple in design and operation. We generally get spares quite quickly, with the odd glitch. We got a MRGB in 2 days, and it wasn't cracked.........