Nigel
Forgot to say that I am lucly using a 500 for pax carriage( calm down everyone I know its small) but my take off distance at mauw is a mere 231 m compared to twice that for an R44 and EC120. Now thankfully the CAA have issued the normal accleration to 100 ft which means in some cases i can cut that distance down to less than half if weight wind and temp is correct. BUT it is still difficult to tell customers that a single engine helicopter isnt allowed to take off vertically as it is not safe. One barrister i fly regularly says it would be interesting to test that in court as if it is unsafe with fare paying pax in then it must be unsafe, there are not degrees of unsafe for the same thing !!!!