PPL(H) 50% more exp than PPL(A)?

[Anouska]

I'm doing my PPL(A) at the moment and just out of curiosity rather than desire I looked into the cost a PPL(H). It seems to cost 50% more than a PPL(A) in the UK, approx £300 p/h for an R22 instead of less than £200 for a PA28.

Just wondered if anyone knows why?

[Pilot DAR]

Any helicopter will be at least half again, but more likely twice or more per hour than a airplane, because maintenance costs (reserves for life limited components - which airplanes do not have) are much greater. I'm sure that insurance costs are more too.

Both skills are great, but your money is well invested getting the basics under your belt in fixed wing first. No point in learning the basics of simply being airborne at a much more costly hourly rate!

[stevelup]

An R22 needs a complete overhaul at 2200 hours - this costs $140,000. So there's $63 per hour straight away before you even start thinking about fuel.

[peterh337]

I don't fly helis but the mission profile is massively different from fixed wing.

In the UK, helis can be much more useful, but you need that "reason" to fly.

For example a lot of specialist service engineers fly in helis, for obvious reasons.

But if you don't have that "mission" to fulfil, it's an expensive way to fly around, quite slowly too, for no reason. I know a number of UK people who nominally fly helis but have no utility reason to, and I think all of them fly very little.

In another life I might have got into helis but I would have totally skipped the whole "Robinson stage", bought a Gazelle or a Hughes 500, and hired a military instructor to teach me to fly it.

I've had several trial lessons in a Robinson heli and felt that it would probably not shake itself to pieces on my flight, because it had lasted a few years previous to that, but that was the only consolation :)

[Anouska]

Thanks for your quick answers guys, my curiosity has been cured :) I've never actually been in a helicopter and I'm definately going to finish my ppl first and have fun with that before doing anything else.