As an ex-owner twice over, I don't know how many private owners go through the same experience:

Before purchase:

1) I'm just going to do this, I can afford it, if it gets expensive I might be able to find someone else to fly it.

Shortly after purchase

2) Hey, this is great, I fly whenever I want, and the bills aren't too bad

Shortly after one or more unfortunate bills

3) B*gger me, this is expensive, I think I need some of those self-fly-hire pilots to pay some of the bills

Shortly after using some self fly hire pilots

4) Damn - I don't seem to make any money, if anything it's costing more and it's sometimes not there when I want it and I'm worried what they might do to it. Lets see how it pans out.

And finally...

5) I've got over the ownership need, I could redeploy the cash a lot better and I just don't need the hassle - I'll sell mine and look for someone at stage 3!

... or was it just me? :O

.... and don't even ask why I did it twice!

Guys

Thanks for the good feedback.

I will have a think about the comments and reply soon, but initial thoughts are inline with with there being people at 3. wanting some SFH pilots. That was the assumption - that there are some people like that.

In the meantime I guess
"A large part of this forum is people who get paid to fly and dont pay to fly"
is correct, but those people must be aware of the costs they went through to get their CPL(H) and hours-building to get a job.

There are people out there with 6+ year old R44s with low hours that they are never going to get the hours out of, and all that goes in the bin at 12 years.

If you don't have enough money for the toys then you might find sharing some value, but if people are not interested then no worries, we'll just can that idea.

So I guess if there's a show of hands from some owners we'll probably take it further, if not then we'll leave the effort aside.

CC

61lafite,

Well put, been there done that sold my machine last year after 15 years

Pprune Post query for Mods
 

Good evening Sirs,

May I enquire if the Mods will allow a post inviting ppruners to indicate their level of interest in a helicopter club about to be formed. Club membership allows SFH at a significantly lower hourly rates. Membership limited to around a dozen or so. Two helicopters will be available. MD500 and S-300C. Type rating and ab-initio training to be available. Based London UK area. Full details to come if approved. Dennis Kenyon.

Well Dennis could offer the same thing in the SW as I Have 2 x 500's and 4 x 300's unless you want to buy one ! Hope it works well 2 fabulous proper helicopter types

A well-known UK-based magazine for people who fly already has a database of aircraft for hire on its website. Unfortunately, it's very badly set up and hardly maintained at all, but it is a starting point if you're willing to search for 'Jetranger', 'Jet Ranger', 'B206', 'Bell 206', etc every time you want to find a particular type. (I would have gone with the G-INFO type designations for commonality).

On the more recent topic here, aircraft charter, like yacht charter, is an asymmetric business. Because there are people looking simply to offset some of their costs, not to run profitably, the 'buy some aircraft, lease them out, and return a profit' model hardly ever works, and certainly not in parts of the world where there is a competing, partial-cost-recovering, market.

Club
 

Hi Dennis

Sent PM

We have some R44 hours to use up before 12Y imminent rebuild - if anyone is looking for time now we can probably do something as long as you can be a bit flexible :-) Please feel free to PM me or email me via pprune

Just checked my PMs to find a bunch of people from around the world asking where the aircraft is - it's in West London (Denham).

Did this website ever get created? Would be very useful for self fly hire pilots especially ones looking to SFH turbines

Hi Maddmatt

We set up website helisharing.co.uk but there was a disctinct lack of owners wanting to list their aircraft - so we just use the website to explain our own scheme.

We'd be happy to list people looking to rent out their aircraft or people looking to use an aircraft.

I have had a few (2 or 3) people contact me and ask for help setting up their own scheme but I'm not aware of any that have gone ahead.

In the meantime we have been operating for 5 years and now are planning to rebuild the aircraft so are looking to use up as many hours as possible in the next few weeks, also we'd be looking to find several new members that would replace people that no longer live in/near London. If anyone is interested in either some hours or membership please let me know.

Thanks for that, at this stage I was mainly interested in who would let me SFH a turbine, I can get a R66 but have to do nearly 15 hours to satisfy the owner, have looked at doing an EC120 but only way of SFH one of those is with a safety pilot which takes a useful seat and/or baggage load. So it's all a bit disappointing and I might as well stick with the R44... ...

And get the golf clubs delivered to the course by taxi...

Madd

Pity you are not in SW as I would rent you a Hu 369D !

500, where are you exactly?

just outside exeter

Have just seen this website which seems to be a new launch (according to the about us page anyway) , it appears to have a good data base of flying schools offing SFH and for owners it seems the ideal place of present your aircraft. Might be worth a contact.
Hughes500, not sure if you are already listed but may be worth a look.
Self Fly Hire UK
Hope this helps.

Happy flying

Nice idea. Has anybody done this in Canada out of curiosity?

Bit of a long shot and apologies if this counts as advertising...

Would any R22/R44 owners in Devon/Dorset/Somerset be looking to offload some hours to a PPL(H)?

chopperchappie - If there are plans to include an 'owners wanted' section of your website as discussed earlier in the thread, I'd be happy to provide further details to help populate it.

Slow Response
 

cc
website link doesn't work, which maybe why you are having a problem