Enstrom F28 crashes at Pennsylvania fairground
This is what a lot of pilots don't understand about how profitable tours can be. It's not about clock-hours - it's about *flight hours* (skids-up to skids-down). The only thing that matters is how much time the helicopter is spending in the air, right? Because *that* is what your operating costs are based on. It literally does not matter how many rides you can accomplish in a human clock-hour.
Let's say you do ten rides and it takes an hour of *your* time...and say each one takes three minutes (half a tenth of an hour, or .05) skids-up to skids-down in a perfect world. Okay, so those ten rides would actually only add up to 30 minutes (10 X 3 minutes). But for that little half-hour of component flight time, you just made $1,200, assuming you were charging $20 per head and you had a full ship each time. That, my friends, is $2,400 per flight hour for that helicopter.
Obviously there is going to be some downtime during refueling and pilot-swaps, etc. Maybe there's a lull in the demand. Whatever. But on a busy day, you might "work" 10 hours but put, what, 7 hours on the ship? If you keep it full, seven hours at $2,400 is $16,800. Not bad for a day's work! Of course, the pilots see very little of that. This is why some operators (I know of one in particular) beat pilots over the head to keep the rides to a certain duration. Even a minute or so added to every ride can seriously mess with your profits.
Now of course, the world isn't perfect. Not every weekend will be flyable, weather-wise the whole time. The ship won't be full every time. Some rides you'll only have two people. Maybe there'll be a big lull during lunch or when a band is playing or something and you're not flying. Maybe the pilot is sloppy and makes every ride four minutes instead of three. Maybe you'll only be able to gross, oh, $1,500 per hour and only put seven hours on the ship. Still, that's a cool $10,500 for the day. How many days is this fair going on? Friday, Saturday and Sunday? $30,000 for a weekend? "I'm going to Hawaii, boys! Get the ship to the next fair and I'll see you on Friday!"
Sightseeing/tours can make a LOT of money.
If you don't crash the ship ;-)
Let's say you do ten rides and it takes an hour of *your* time...and say each one takes three minutes (half a tenth of an hour, or .05) skids-up to skids-down in a perfect world. Okay, so those ten rides would actually only add up to 30 minutes (10 X 3 minutes). But for that little half-hour of component flight time, you just made $1,200, assuming you were charging $20 per head and you had a full ship each time. That, my friends, is $2,400 per flight hour for that helicopter.
Obviously there is going to be some downtime during refueling and pilot-swaps, etc. Maybe there's a lull in the demand. Whatever. But on a busy day, you might "work" 10 hours but put, what, 7 hours on the ship? If you keep it full, seven hours at $2,400 is $16,800. Not bad for a day's work! Of course, the pilots see very little of that. This is why some operators (I know of one in particular) beat pilots over the head to keep the rides to a certain duration. Even a minute or so added to every ride can seriously mess with your profits.
Now of course, the world isn't perfect. Not every weekend will be flyable, weather-wise the whole time. The ship won't be full every time. Some rides you'll only have two people. Maybe there'll be a big lull during lunch or when a band is playing or something and you're not flying. Maybe the pilot is sloppy and makes every ride four minutes instead of three. Maybe you'll only be able to gross, oh, $1,500 per hour and only put seven hours on the ship. Still, that's a cool $10,500 for the day. How many days is this fair going on? Friday, Saturday and Sunday? $30,000 for a weekend? "I'm going to Hawaii, boys! Get the ship to the next fair and I'll see you on Friday!"
Sightseeing/tours can make a LOT of money.
If you don't crash the ship ;-)
Good grief man, even after all these years your reading comprehension has not improved one bit. I never said your post was idiotic, only that it came perilously close. You must not be a pilot, and you must not live in the USA. Here, we are not afraid of flying at night in single-engine pistons. If you were a pilot, you'd know that a maxed-out 206B is just as dodgy as an R-44. Your contention that all commercial ops at night should be in turbines is just...well...silly. (There are a couple of other words I could use..
It may come as a surprise but there is a world outside of the US (no I don't, nor have ever operated there).
The rest of the world takes a more serious look at night ops and the requirements, some prohibit it alltogether.
In the US you are also not afraid of letting tethered people drown in the back of helicopters, or to have HEMS pilots repeatedly come to grief in those easy to crash helicopters. We all have so much to learn from you.
You're right, there's no difference between 3 pax in a dodgy jetbanger and 3 in a 44, pistons are more reliable than a turbine and NASA never put a man on the moon.
Sir, I shall climb out of this intellectual paddling pool and go back to drawing crayon pics of helicopters as I am obviously hopelessly out of my depth.
For those who want to take commercial-paying pax on night joyrides around a crowded fairground:
(Assuming you have checked the site on foot first, then done a few circuits in and out of this place in daylight and assessed the risks and the best approach and departure routes)
How high would you expect to climb for this circuit, given that the ride is only supposed to go for 3 minutes, and you need to fly a full circle around the site;
You would be lucky to get to 500', and a loaded R44 is lucky to climb at 500'/min, you will barely reach 500' before having to descend again in a turn.
Loaded 44, straining on the power, high collective setting, pilot talking to the pax and not paying much attention, after all it is the 47th flight today, climbing through maybe 300', and it gives a cough. *coff*
What are your options? Very limited. It is night. Black as the inside of a cow.
Do you go for a lit area? Oops, the fairground is full of tents and people. The carpark is full of cars and people.That lit highway is jammed with cars coming to, and leaving from, the fair. There is a dark patch over there, it might be a flat bit that doesn't have people. Turn towards, try to regain some RRPM and airspeed, here comes flare height...
Rats. It's a hole in the ground for a construction site.
So, a twin turbine makes some sense in our country. A single piston makes no sense at all. A single turbine is a bit better, but still not legal for joyrides. Not here. And you are right, I have never flown in your country except as a pax (Hang on, I flew a Schweizer 330 around Miami over houses at zot feet in daylight hours back in 1996. Tell the truth. But I wasn't the captain...) and I never expect to. I wouldn't even want to.
(Assuming you have checked the site on foot first, then done a few circuits in and out of this place in daylight and assessed the risks and the best approach and departure routes)
How high would you expect to climb for this circuit, given that the ride is only supposed to go for 3 minutes, and you need to fly a full circle around the site;
You would be lucky to get to 500', and a loaded R44 is lucky to climb at 500'/min, you will barely reach 500' before having to descend again in a turn.
Loaded 44, straining on the power, high collective setting, pilot talking to the pax and not paying much attention, after all it is the 47th flight today, climbing through maybe 300', and it gives a cough. *coff*
What are your options? Very limited. It is night. Black as the inside of a cow.
Do you go for a lit area? Oops, the fairground is full of tents and people. The carpark is full of cars and people.That lit highway is jammed with cars coming to, and leaving from, the fair. There is a dark patch over there, it might be a flat bit that doesn't have people. Turn towards, try to regain some RRPM and airspeed, here comes flare height...
Rats. It's a hole in the ground for a construction site.
So, a twin turbine makes some sense in our country. A single piston makes no sense at all. A single turbine is a bit better, but still not legal for joyrides. Not here. And you are right, I have never flown in your country except as a pax (Hang on, I flew a Schweizer 330 around Miami over houses at zot feet in daylight hours back in 1996. Tell the truth. But I wasn't the captain...) and I never expect to. I wouldn't even want to.
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On a more rational note, and ignoring the Robinson jibes: with regard to @Ascend-Charlie's point about where are you going to go when you get hit with an auto at low altitude, the only answer anyone can give is "The best of the bad options". Because these operations tend to be in either built up areas (in which case it will not be as dark as a cow's insides), or they tend to be out in the countryside, which means the trees (at least around here it does). Because it's very unlikely you are going to have any conveniently empty farm fields or the like.
Certainly one should be making intelligent choices about where night rides are going to be offered. An area that is very dark is not a good area for a lot of obvious reasons, not just emergencies. The only night ride concession I'm aware of around these parts involves an LZ in a ball field in the middle of a small city and generally runs up and down the river that goes through the city. The area is well lighted. They use an R44 with pop-out floats. It's actually as good as it gets, day or night, i.e. an auto will likely end up on the floats in the river (a lazy river, not a raging torrent) and not balled up on some residential street.
Finally, most most turbines are not economically viable choices for the vast majority of these operations. A twin would be doubly bad (ha, a pun!) At per seat rates of between $30 and $40 USD, as has already been pointed out you need to be in the air 80% of the time. To unload/load say 6 folks safely from a turbine ship takes too long and requires too large a ground staff lest you lose physical control of one of your passengers on the ground.
Certainly one should be making intelligent choices about where night rides are going to be offered. An area that is very dark is not a good area for a lot of obvious reasons, not just emergencies. The only night ride concession I'm aware of around these parts involves an LZ in a ball field in the middle of a small city and generally runs up and down the river that goes through the city. The area is well lighted. They use an R44 with pop-out floats. It's actually as good as it gets, day or night, i.e. an auto will likely end up on the floats in the river (a lazy river, not a raging torrent) and not balled up on some residential street.
Finally, most most turbines are not economically viable choices for the vast majority of these operations. A twin would be doubly bad (ha, a pun!) At per seat rates of between $30 and $40 USD, as has already been pointed out you need to be in the air 80% of the time. To unload/load say 6 folks safely from a turbine ship takes too long and requires too large a ground staff lest you lose physical control of one of your passengers on the ground.
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Officials now considering a ban on helicopter flights at fair.
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/1...sh-report.html
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/1...sh-report.html
There are a lot of non-aviation side effects in the fairground industry, too. For example, there is a yearly fair that had some fatalities from a tent collapse not too long ago. Their insurance requirements are now so high it's a wonder they have a fair at all. There is another fair that had a deadly fire many years back. They still won't accept a helicopter concession, or any other concession they feel might be a "fire hazard".
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"Officials" and "ban" make it sound like government regulatory action. If you don't feel like reading the article, it's just the fair organizers saying that they probably won't ever have helicopter rides at their fair again. The same is true of many other fairs and events. Not everyone likes the idea.
There are a lot of non-aviation side effects in the fairground industry, too. For example, there is a yearly fair that had some fatalities from a tent collapse not too long ago. Their insurance requirements are now so high it's a wonder they have a fair at all. There is another fair that had a deadly fire many years back. They still won't accept a helicopter concession, or any other concession they feel might be a "fire hazard".
There are a lot of non-aviation side effects in the fairground industry, too. For example, there is a yearly fair that had some fatalities from a tent collapse not too long ago. Their insurance requirements are now so high it's a wonder they have a fair at all. There is another fair that had a deadly fire many years back. They still won't accept a helicopter concession, or any other concession they feel might be a "fire hazard".
You have been very confrontational with the majority of posts on this thread? Do you have a vested interest in such an operation? Regarding “Officials” and “ban” possibly relating to government regulations.... The official in charge of your play park could ban you! I made no reference to a Government body.
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Do you have a vested interest in such an operation?
Regarding “Officials” and “ban” possibly relating to government regulations.... The official in charge of your play park could ban you!
I made no reference to a Government body.
