Hi SAS
Yes, the dollar remains weak though its back under 2 to the pound at the moment. In the mean time, I think Sikorsky has put its prices up faster than EC so the price gap is not as bad as it could have been if the "introductory offer" pricing of the 92 had remained.
Even so the 225 is definitely the more expensive to buy and run. Its fortunate that our management and customers don't all fall into the category of "knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing" - ie they are not accountants!
The 92 has had a disappointingly high level of serious failures since introduction, the 225 has not. IMHO that vindicates Eurocopters policy of "technology injection" where they take a mature product and add new technology at useful places whilst continuing to use mature technology where appropriate. NL will tell you that this means it doesn't fully comply with FAR/CS29 and he is right, but that does not mean the 92 is safer in practice. As I have said before, I would rather not crash in a non-crashworthy helicopter than crash in a crashworthy one!
Even the 92 does not in fact comply fully with FAR29 - it just pretends to as we are seeing in the discussions on this thread. Naughty Geoffers
HC