Heliair Denham EGLD closing
 

Operations moving to Wycombe. Anyone know why?

They closed their operation at Fairoaks some time ago citing a 100% increase in rental of accomodation.

****e.

But a loss. Lack of investment, lack of a decent response to Q, lack of understanding of the London market and what was required to make it work, no support for good people who wanted it to succeed.

....... and how is Wycombe doing? From the outside it looks like 'frying pan into fire'.

I think we all know there is little money in Helicopter aviation in the UK, and with only so many GA customers out there it’s going to be tough for them.
Wycombe Air Park is a ghost town now and their only customer being Helicopter Services as the fixed wing side doing the uni ppl training is also owned by heli air.

I think things will get worse before they get better, and that’s not necessarily a reflection on HA, but just the way the industry is after brexit/euro/us rates etc.

Time for outside the box thinking these days and being very flexible. Maybe why Q has done so well over the others.

But Q is Q......

Correct, but HQ have a club atmosphere that makes owners feel welcome, and there is a personality there too. (Some like that ‘personality’, others don’t)

HQ are very very busy, over the ‘same’ offering that HeliAir had next door. There is a reason why...

Maybe Bickertons (Denham owners) decided not to renew the HA lease?

I think there was always a problem with ego over business sense - HA's overexpansion when it struggled with R66 certification, combined with the struggling GA market (as evidenced by the number of distressed acquisitions undertaken by HA) was always going to be a challenge. Most people I've spoken to don't have a lot of time for certain individuals at HA, who some say lack the charisma and friendly attitude that the business was once well known for and which is available in abundance at HQ. Others complain of arrogance and bullying from HA, which is intriguing behaviour given the circumstances.


The GA community is small and news of improper behaviour travels fast - people vote with their feet, so I've no doubt that EGLD won't be the last to go. I've visited a few of the other HA locations over the last couple of months - and they're also like ghost towns.. Watch his space!

What is HQ?

Try clicking this

It worked thanks...

HQ is an example of how good a school/club can be. I know Q can be 'divisive' :). But he has a good team around him, a very nice facility, and it's a really good friendly place to visit.

Well the impression I got from Heliair when I went and asked if they could do my practical conversion from FAA to JAA was not good, got told the "FAA licenses wasn't worth the plastic it was written on" and I would probably have to do a lot of training just to be able to pass the tests.
That was within the first five minutes in the door, out of the 7 minutes I spent there, and took my business elsewhere, happy to have done exactly that since it has helped me greatly careerwise since. :O

toptobottom"s post 12 hits the nail bang on the head!

And this makes me feel really old...
 

I was one of Heliair’s first customers at Denham when Glenda Wild moved from another company at Wycombe in about 1994. One R22 tucked into the side of a bubble hangar... but she really brought the place alive.

He wears pseudo military jackets and tucks his chinos into his rigger boots. Good job he hasn't got a massive ego:rolleyes:

Now I don’t feel quite so old
 

I was one of Q’s first customers when his dad asked him to quit competing with him and take over Denham. One R22 tucked into a blister hanger (G-BRHN), a phone and a desk in a cupboard. Nothing comes from nothing but dust (as they say in a Denmark). That must have been 94 as well.

now that made me spray my coffee over my keyboard:ok::ok::ok::)

For many private pilots (especially those who can afford to own a helicopter) the appeal of flying helicopters is accompanied by a desire to buy into a lifestyle as opposed to skill alone. Sell the sizzle not the sausage, as they say. HQ has this nailed, charismatic personalities, eccentricity, flying tales, photos, memorabilia & importantly, a buy in from lots of other people from similar circles who they'd perhaps want to socialise with outside flying.

By contrast the more 'corporate' (lacklustre) approach taken by many - black trousers, polyester shirts with epaulettes and airline jumpers, feels absent of personality, adventure or intrigue. It's missing the sizzle and personalities of the sort of place you'd just pop in for a coffee on your way past...

When selling the experience to the private pilot - the fun found outside the cockpit is just as important, if not more so, than the fun in the aircraft, and this isn't achieved with coffee machines and company logos, but with people who make it interesting. However marmite or 'put on' the mysterious Q character is, he wins the appeal of a great deal of people, who have a great deal of money, and it's not by accident. Is it the best place to go for zero-commercial career training? No - without an ATO they don't even offer any commercial training. Is it a fun place to go and share quaffs with other rich intriguing owner types and fly privately? Seems so.

Sort of depends on whether you want to flaunt your wealth with like-minded people or learn to fly a helicopter for something other than that same purpose.

Not saying that is wrong but not many people's cup of tea.

How come everyone is bashing Q ?
Yes he is everything everyone has said but and it is a big BUT he along with his father has bought helicopters within reach of people who have a reasonable amount of money instead of the uber wealthy and military types.
If we all pulled together instead of slagging each other off we all might be safer, wealthier and be having more fun. Does it really matter that those who fly big helicopters think themselves as better than those who fly small ones ? Interestingly in my experience those who fly the bigger machines dont have many handling skills when it comes to flying single engine small machine, so perhaps they are not helicopter Gods they think they are. Yes those of us who fly small machines probably dont have a clue how the auto pilot / sas system etc etc work and yes we would get an approach wrong due to the performance of the heavy metal. Again does it really matter to the average Joe, no they are not interested in the 99% sheer boredom and 1% sheer terror of N Sea flying.
Personally i enjoy teaching people as much as i do lifting loads up on a 75 ft line under a 500. We all have our niche so to slag someone off because he has done well and what he wears is really unacceptable. I wear a flying suit and a helmet when teaching in a 300, doesnt bother me if you think I am a prat or whatever. The proof is in the pudding ladies and gentlemen.

I learned to fly with a school that unfortunately no longer exists. It fell into the category of more like HQ than HA. The instructors were mostly young and there wasn't a white shirt in sight. They made flying fun and we used to socialise out of hours. In fact I made some good friends and had some memorable experiences. They understood that most of us would go no further than the PPL(H) and that we weren't going to be flying gods. At the time I was in serious danger of buying my own machine but never quite took that step.

More recently I had been doing some continuation training/renewal with another organisation. They just knocked all the fun out of the pastime such that I DON'T FLY ANY MORE!

I am sure that there are some who would be pleased that I no longer fly as it wouldn't suit their 'professional' image to have somebody who isn't 'one of the boys' in command of an aircraft.

I suspect that there is a market for both types of schools but it does seem from the outside that the HQ model actually makes some money (I have never been there but my betting is that their car park has some very expensive metal in it) and the atmosphere attracts the more outgoing and adventurous types, just the sort that some don't want in their airspace.

This may be so, but from my experience with HQ the selling point is their knowledge and expertise on the maintenance front. Dave Cross (and his team) excels not only with an exemplary standard of work, but also by consistently demonstrating faultless customer service along with a willingness to answer his phone no matter what the time of day.

The company wide (to a man) enthusiasm and general energy directed towards flying does nothing to diminish my positive feelings towards HQ.
Say what you like about Q, but his unique brand of support for helicopters and their associated industry has left an indelible and (almost) entirely favourable impact on what is a market area suffering difficult times.

By contrast, and of course I can only speak for my personal experience, HA regularly failed to return phone calls whilst I was trying to buy a machine. I didn't hang around to see if their service dept was any better.

Is it not somewhat ironic that in a post talking about all pulling together you do a pretty good job of alienating anyone who flies anything bigger than a Hughes 500?

Hughes500

Well said can’t add anymore

Hughes 500

The content of your post is spot on.

The endless rivalry that is aviation means that is always a factor.
Guys that fly smaller machines consider bigger machines transport and the big guys think of small machines as toys.
That's life.

Personally I have always thought anyone that feels a need to refer to themselves in either the third person or as a single word/symbol/letter is probably a narcisstic tw@t whether that be Cher, Prince or that old bloke that invented things in James Bond movies (though who doesn't like an old Welsh bloke) :E

FC80

No just stating it as it is, by the way I do fly things bigger than 500's but have chosen to specialise in the smaller market. It is more fun, you meet interesting people, do interesting jobs and I delight in trying to pass on nearly 30 years of flying to the new generation. I somewhat feel once you get to the heavy metal people loose where they have come from and I dont see that many with all there experience coming back down to teach the new guys. Probably where things go wrong in our industry, too much looking up and down. " I fly an S92 so I must be bloody goo to the I own a B3e and so I am so well off I can look down on the pilots having to work for a living. Then there are those of us in the middle who just look and laugh at both ends. What a sad industry we live / work in :ugh:

Hughes, I've flown small and medium helicopters in the past, I fly large(ish) helicopters now.

I don't think any more of myself for it, or less of anyone flying smaller machines. As far as I'm concerned, anyone narrow-minded enough to believe that flying a 92/225/Sea King/whatever somehow makes them superior to someone pottering around in an R22 is a moron, and probably nursing some insecurities.

You're being harsh tarring anyone who's flying heavier stuff with the same brush. Even though the people you are referring to exist, in a sizeable minority at least, I know plenty who are self-depracating and also genuinely interested in anything related to flying, regardless of MTOW.

To claim that we all think we're sky gods is rubbish.

And to think that those who now fly the bigger stuff didn't cut their teeth (and maybe have some level of expertise) on the small stuff is naive,

The best fun helicopter in the world is the Gazelle and most of us ex-mil learned on that:ok:

How does a simple informational post turn into such an argument? You’d all argue about whether a helicopter was a blueish-grey or a greyish-blue - but if we all liked and disliked the same things in the same measure, wouldn’t life be boring...?

Weren't Bickertons sued by a couple living on the airfield perimeter for loss of value to their property due to the proximity of heli-training recently? Could this be a factor? On another note, are Mike and Mary Smith still around?

Draco it is good fun though although a complete waste of time
FC 80 I am being slightly tongue in cheek as with most things the silent majority say nothing it is as you say the sizeable minority ( although not sure how a minority is sizeable, whoops Draco I am a calling black, white ! )
Crab, yes 341 most fun with your clothes on, although you need to try a 500 if you haven't already

Thanks for the link alphanumeric. The previous incumbent of Shepherds Holt, Michael Ashworth, was one of the aerodromes most vocal objectors and I wondered if the ramp had been located somewhat strategically to antagonise him.

Only the young sprogs trained on that new fangled Gazelle... :cool:

The first time in many years I have been regarded as a young sprog:ok:

And probably one of the last.... :E

I trained on the Hiller 12E :ok:

TC

If I may interrupt the self back patting brigade (sometimes with knives!) for a moment, it's a shame that any company employing us pilots finds it tough. Alas, I really don't think it will get any better. I would encourage my children to go airline, at least there's a business model and pretty much permanent demand. Helicopter flying, not so sure now. Good luck to all, I cut my teeth in the FI world with HA first in Wycombe then Denham, so I feel for the people working there.

Cheers FP.