Why are helis so expensive?

[Squawk7777]

No offence to you rotorheads, but I checked with a local flight school and got really irritated: $175/ hr for a R22! That's a rate for a multiengine piston (C-310)!

Why is it that helicopters are so much more expensive? Are they just so much more inefficient? Is the TBO lower? Sorry to ask such a "dumb" question, I didn't really feel like bringing it up at the flight school :O :uhoh:

[autosync]

That is very far from a dumb question! I think The R22 only costs something like $60 per hour to operate, I would really like to know from the experts and in particular from the large schools how they can justify such a massive mark up, this is far more excessive then our fixed wing counterparts

[John Eacott]

Fixed wing costs:

C172, replace engine every 2000 hrs, known cost
C172, replace prop every x hours, known cost
50/100hrly, known cost
Unscheduled maintenance, cost can be calculated

Helicopter (any type)

50/100hrly, known cost
x hours, replace main rotor blades
x hours, replace tail rotor blades
x hours, replace engine
x hours, overhaul main rotor head
x hours, replace main rotorhead components
x hours, etc, etc

Basically, helicopters have heaps more lifed items than a fixed wing, the cost of which has to be amortised back into an hourly rate. Plus, those lifed items tend to be more expensive, because the lower numbers of helicopters built mean that development costs have to be amortised into a smaller number of items.

Clear as mud ;)

[The Nr Fairy]

Well, helicopter flying is as close to sex as you get with clothes on, and I gather that the $175 an hour is the right rate for a woman !

Seriously, in the case of the R22, there's the purchase price, insurance and all the other fixed costs PLUS you need to save up about $65,000 to send the aircraft back after 220 hours for a rebuild. Over 2200 hours this alone is $30 an hour.

In the UK, rates I've hear - COST - for an R22 are in the order of £110 an hour which works out at $175 as a straight conversion.

[t'aint natural]

Here in the UK the dual rate for an R22 is around £215 an hour (which usually includes a 'landing fee') and the wet self-fly-hire rate is about £155 - both plus tax at 17.5 percent.
The R22 has a single lifed part, effectively the whole helicopter, which makes the amortisation equation easier. With an on-the-road price of £130,000 to be written down to around £20,000 over 2,200 hours, depreciation on the first trip around the clock is £50 an hour. (It falls to around £31 an hour second time around, but unscheduled maintenance costs rise significantly).
Budget for another £25 an hour for maintenance, £30 an hour for fuel and oil, £15 an hour for insurance (at 400 hours a year - adjust accordingly) and £10 an hour for miscellaneous items like hangarage and you're pretty close to the starting line. If you have any finance costs or you get unlucky with unscheduled maintenance, you'll be in the unhappy position of subsidising everyone who hires your helicopter at £155 an hour. Even under the best possible circumstances there's very little margin in it.
A QFI where I teach gets £60 an hour and a Restricted is paid £40 an hour, which helps you arrive at the dual figure.

[RDRickster]

For example, it costs about $950 to have a 100-hour inspection performed on an R-22 for private owners where I live (don't know how much annuals cost). Same place charges $175/hr rental and $210/hr dual instruction. The "instrument" ship goes for $225/hr solo.

R-22 requires overhaul at 2200 hours or 12 years (whichever comes first). In the field (i.e. at service center), that will cost about $88K. At the factory, that will cost about $105K. It's actually better to get it done at factory, because you are getting a whole new ship (I think the airframe, avionics, and the seats are the only components not replaced and repainted).

Pathfinder insurance (takes care of most Robbie's) just sent notification through RHC that rates will increase by 50% for anyone who has an accident or incident after the 15th of July. If you were to take a $130,000 for R-22 and divide it by 2200 hours, it comes out to about $60 per hour. Obviously, there is a lot more costs involved besides the purchase price (interest paid on principle, fuel, fluids, scheduled maintenance, unscheduled maintenance, insurance, overhead such as hanger & airport fees). After all that, it doesn't leave much room for profit. Especially, when parts are expensive ($3000 bucks just to replace doors).

Having said all that, why do helicopters cost so much more?...

BECAUSE THEY ARE WORTH IT!

Flying fixed-wing is the most boring activity I've ever participated in (at least for single engine Cessna's, etc). Now, acrobatic aircraft or jets are entirely something different. But the average Cessna just doesn't do it for me. There's nothing like flying a helicopter and I'll never go back to fixed-wing...

Once you've become "one" with the "Heli-Force," you will learn that the "Flat-Side" is "evil." Fortunately, there is still time for you to turn from the Flat-Side to the Heli-Force, where you can experience true joy and freedom.

:ok:

[Dave_Jackson]

Rotary flight doesn't have to be expensive.

Just rent a fixed wing, take it up, and do flat spins.

:yuk: Bad joke :uhoh:

[RW-1]

More like $200/hr now down here.

Heli's have many more life limited, and tolerance driven parts than any fixed wing aircraft. whether or not the old adage of "12 hours of maint for every hour in the air" applies, I think so eventually.

It's just a more complicated machine to maintain, even the robbo ends up having the head replaced at TBO, and that cost is factored in.

[Vortex what...ouch!]

How can $3,000 for two poorly made doors be justified?

[Slotty]

The US is just cheaper, cheaper beer, petrol, insurance, living costs etc etc, you can fly in most parts all year as well.

[autosync]

FI's deserve to be paid reasonably well, they certainly are not going to make the hours in the U.K that CFI's in the U.S make, and they have to eat somehow!
On top of that the amount of money, time and painstaking effort to get where they are deserves a half decent Wage!

Good answers so far, but $3000 for crappy little door? Come on, justify that....

[Whirlybird]

Heli instructors' pay more like £40/£30 in this part of the country.

[RDRickster]

Can't really justify the cost of the doors. Most manufacturers make their money on spare parts after the aircraft sale, don't they? It costs thousands and thousands for the manufacturer to certify the parts for their aircraft, but they more than make up for it in volume. My opinion, but this is definately one area where they gouch the consumer. It's not like you can buy parts from another source.

[Aussierotor]

In Aussie ,insurance is the big killer but of course if you do plenty of hours this will cut the hourly rate down.
I enquired on an R22 and it was 15% of value(insured amount)
Have a friend with a Cessna 172 and his is 1% of value.

Think current training rate around $350aus--solo$300
2200 hour rebuild-------$175,000.

Plus being an import exchange rates stuff around the purchase prices.Years ago you could get one for the eqivelant of $200,00 ,then over the last few years it rose to $300,000 as the yank $ rose and the Aussie $ went down.Now hopefully saving a bit now things are reversing.

All the operating costs etc seem way short of an hourly hire rate ,but a lot of unforseen replacements may be needed.If you have a good run you make a good profit.

Also lease costs or if you brought outright (can earn a few bob with $300 grand invested)
Depreciation ,although this wouldnt be too much over its lifetime.

As for doors etc ,tell me a spare part place that doent rip you off,especially if their factory ones.
ever bought a wiper blade for a BMW or similar to find its made by same mob that is on a ford except its 10 times the price.Thats more names sake though instead of limited prodution

[RW-1]

How can $3,000 for two poorly made doors be justified?

Cant really, but what will be said is the cost of (in the US) of certification of said crappy doors to meet some standard for flight.

Lu ?

[Dave_Jackson]

Perhaps the soon to be released JAR VLR (Very Light Rotorcraft) will allow the development of lower cost, but reliable, helicopters. The US Sports Plane/Pilot will not include helicopters but the FAA appears to be interest in having its own VLR compliant regulations.

[CRAN]

IMHO the introduction next year of Wilksch's WAM-160 diesel engine offers a huge amount of potential for the development of a new light kit helicopter. Wilksch is the only manufacturer of diesel aircraft engines that have come to terms with the weight issue.

If there was interest (i.e. financial backing) then I know a man who might be interested in developing one for you. The use of the WAM-160 engine with modern structures and aerodynamics would give an R22 size machine with a high inertia rotor system and slightly improved performance.

It wouldn't change the world but it would look gorgeous and be dirt cheap (£50K) to buy and £40/hr to operate. Maintenance requirements would be similar to the R22, as would service intervals.

CRAN
(...armed with a pencil and a slide rule.)
:cool:

[Dave_Jackson]

This post is going to display a lot of ignorance, but ....

My limited understanding is that;
It is extremely expensive to bring out a totally new helicopter.
The S-92 is a derivative of the Blackhawk and the R-44 is a derivative of the R-22, and this results in a much lower cost of certification.
Carson has just brought out composite blades for the S-61 that can lift 2000 lbs more then the original metal blades
Carson is looking at expanding the envelope for S-61's with composite blades.
Carson is developing new tail rotor blades for the S-61.
Carson is looking at avenues of aerodynamic drag reduction for the S-92.


OK. The dumb question.

Why is it not possible or practical for a company that makes an old design of certified helicopter with two seats, such as the Brantly, to step by step, just like Carson, change and improve the helicopter till it no longer resembles the original.

Would this be a viable way to develop an economical helicopter that could eventually compete with the R-22 as a trainer.

[Lu Zuckerman]

Robinson can accomplish all of the above by designing a three blade rotor system for the R-22. You would have a highly reliable aircraft and at the same time eliminate the SFAR, do away with the safety course, eliminate hours requirements for a PPH to take passengers, eliminate the restrictions for sideslip, flying out of trim and flying in zero G. True you might get ground resonance but good maintenance will do away with that as well.

:ok:

[autosync]

Lu, your on to something here, personally I would stay as far away from an R22 as possible, they are dangerous little things, and besides I am a fat B**tard!

Getting certified on one nowadays is a world of pain and a tonne of hassle and money that could be better spent on getting rated on a decent helicopter!!

[Head Turner]

With all the foregoing information which looks as though rotary flight is more expensive than fixed wing BUT.
Think of the financial advantages of flying a helicopter!

1, Owning your own, having it at home:-
a. You will not have to build a huge runway
b. You will not have to drive to the airfield where the fixed
wing is parked.
c. You will not be restricted by airfield opening times.
d. You will not pay landing fees, other than when you go to
refuel.
e. Fuel could be significantly cheaper if you have your own
tank and uplift sufficient according to supplier.
f. Even if you hire, landing fees should be less if you avoid
airfields until having to refuel.

There must be other savings.

It is my opinion that 'Landing fees' should be 'Air traffic fees' for helicopters and as the workload to accept and dispatch a helicopter is the same whatever the size There should be just one cost for helicopter inbound and outbound movements and not associated with weight as are fixed wing.
Does anybody else out there think that helicopters are unjustly over-charged in respect of landing fees? But that's another topic.

Insurance is an annual premium. Therefore, the more hours flown per year the less is the hourly rate. Insurance is a large part of helicopter operations, more risk, higher value items = more cost, when compared to fixed wing operations

[NickLappos]

Dave,
The S-92 did not benifit from Black Hawk experience with regard to certification of development expense, since only a few components are shared between the models, none in the rotor or drive area where the real expense lies.

As a general rule, the certification of a new aircraft seems to take about 1500 to 2000 hours of engineering test. We tend to spend about 20 to 40,000 dollars per hour for this work, so that flight test alone costs about $50 million dollars. This might be halved for a light helo with fewer parts and systems to test and document, but the result, 25 Mill, is still steep. If you sell 1000 of the little guys, the flight test alone would cost 25,000 apiece.

This does not include design, fabrication, production start-up and the like. In the aerospace world, 5 engineers or technicians for a year cost about 1 Million dollars in salary, bennies and overhead (the tools, computers and lab equipment are all expensive, and included in this number). A small helo might take 25 to 50 engineers, and maybe half that in technicians, so a force of perhaps 60 people (8 Million per year) might work for 3 years to design, build, certify, and produce the first aircraft. That is 36 million, or about 36,000 per aircraft if you sell a thousand.

That means that you must spend about 60,000 dollars per aircraft to get the first aircraft out the door, without buying one engine or one pound of aluminum!

[George Semel]

Great break down Nick. I'm sure that the town of Stafford has there hand out too, along with the State of Connecticut, not to mention Uncle Sam, and then the Trial Lawyers when one breaks. What then happens if you don't sell 1000 machines but 250 or fewer? I don't know how many S-92's you guys have orders for but I would bet money that you will figuire that you did great with 200 orders.

[Dave_Jackson]

Nick,

Thanks for the informative reply.

[Arkroyal]

I haven't flown rotary for about 5 years, and had the idle thought to resurrect my Jetranger rating.

Quoted a minimum of 2 hours training/flying time in 206 @ £525.00/hour plus vat and an LPC test @ £150.00 plus vat.:sad:

Is there a legal requirement for at least two hours before the test?

Sadly not piston rated at all, so it's probably not going to happen.

[NickLappos]

George,

You are right, it is a real crapshoot, isn't it?
A book a few years back written about the airplane business noted that it took an investment equal to the entire value of the company every 10 to 15 years to develop the next generation, and one false step meant oblivion. The book was called "The Sporty Game" because we must roll the dice as if we knew the outcome.

When Igor was 51, he decided to build his first helicopter, and he told his wife he would mortgage the house if the United Aircraft board wouldn't fund him. That's dedication!

Take a half a billion dollars ($500,000,000) and divide by 500 aircraft, and you get 1 million apiece just for the development. If you sell for $16 million, that's just 7% of the sales price! This is just in case you wonder why Sikorsky makes the BIG helicopters...........

[slowrotor]

Nick Lappos,
In your response to Dave Jackson you list the cost of new design testing at 20 to $40,000 per hour and half that for a small trainer.
Your numbers seem incredibly high to me.
I have no experience with helicopter testing but I have done fixed wing certification testing and the cost was about $20 per hour labor plus a few hundred for custom test jigs. This was at a small family owned airplane factory without any engineers on staff, just me and the owner.
The FAA did not charge for their time.
I think a determined individual could certify a new design with minimal funds.

[STANDTO]

". It's not like you can buy parts from another source."

opening in the market for someone there!

I remember reading an article about motorbike parts once. The cost of the bike if bought in component form and assembled accordingly, was about ten times that if bought brand new from the showroom.:*

Servicing is the same. Look at what you pay for servicing for a brand new BMW. THen, if it is over four years old, they will knock you a third off the labour rates with their "four plus" scheme.

Getting ripped off is just part of the deal. In the case of the Robbo, I would have thought it has more than paid off its development costs by now.

The other thing is, that cheaper components provide some incentive to change them earlier, rather than taking them to end of life.

[the wizard of auz]

opening in the market for someone there!
that is hardly going to happen in the world of helicopters.
the cost of liability insurance would be prohibative.
Also, Frank is able to control the market somewhat, by prohibiting the fitting of "unauthorized" parts to his helicopters.
Doing so would void any insurance you may have, and upset the authorities somewhat.
It would only take one prang atributed to the failure of one of the after market part, and that would be the end of that particular supplier.

[Dave_Jackson]

Standto;I remember reading an article about motorbike parts once. The cost of the bike if bought in component form and assembled accordingly, was about ten times that if bought brand new from the showroom. There is justification for some of this price difference. I am assuming that the following is applicable to all automotive manufacturers. The values given are approximate.
___________________

GM in Australia would shut down a component production line (say camshafts) every few months. All of the machines would be refurbished so that the production tolerances could be brought to 0.0001". The first 2,000 new camshafts would be assigned to 'replacement parts'. The remaining 50,000 camshafts produced would then go to the engine assembly line. The camshafts going to the assembly line would have lower tolerances, of course.

This was done for two reasons. One, they wanted to be sure that replacement parts worked, and two, the cost of refurbishing all of the component production line every 2,000 parts would significantly increase the price of a new car.

I assume that the helicopter industry requires a tolerance of 0.0001 on all parts produced.

[NickLappos]

Standto said:

"Getting ripped off is just part of the deal"

I think few businesses stay open for long by ripping off. The typical hour of labor for skilled people (like helo mechanics or engineers) is about 100 dollars per hour. As a comparison, the local Ford car dealers charge about 75 per hour for common repairs. These prices seem high, but that is what it costs to do it in the business.

I had a septic system surveyed for a house I was building, and the surveyor charged 100 per hour for each of his 2 man crew. Sears charges that for the guy who travels to fix the washing machine. Rip-offs? Nope.

I guess slowrotor thinks these people can be hired for $20 per hour, but I sure can't find good folks for that!

[widgeon]

Isn't the commercial rate is closer to $75 / hr actually about the same as a car dealer. seem to recall this rate used in calcluating DOCS a couple of years ago ?. So what should the unit cost of the Bell 427 have been if they amortised the development over the 40 aircraft they have sold ?. A question for bean counters , what is the main difference between US and European GAAP when it comes to expensing of development costs ?

[RW-1]

How can $3,000 for two poorly made doors be justified?

I was just thinking, of course down here, just don't buy doors and have a tarp/hangar .... :)