Helicopter pub crawls...
 

For a little levity, here is a short news item on the BBC about a pub crawl by helicopter in NT.

With the "usual" standard of journalism.


"Helicopter pub-crawls are good for business. That's because helicopters are expensive to keep in the air. So stopping at a pub keeps the costs down and margins up."


Really?? There is obviously a different pricing policy in Australia; here in UK you pay me for flight time so my machine earns nothing when sat outside the pub.

I think that Australian operators have understood pricing policies for quite some time. $A3k in an R44 for about two hours flying more than compensates for the waiting time on these trips with a budgeted cost around $A630 per hour (DoC and FoC).

John


Exactly the same as here in the UK. So having the machine on the ground has noting to do with it.

We ran very successful pub crawls in B206L, B407, AS350 et al from Sydney to the Wollombi Pub (home of Dr Jurd's Jungle Juice), the Hunter Valley wineries and the St Albans pub for many years, a steady cash cow and the pilot often got a good feed too. But lemon squash only.

AC - ever had an issue with drunken passengers on the ride back?

John, no, the pilot would always brief them before the flight about this, and later remind the pax to behave or be left behind.

Only came close to it once, when a Pommy passenger was having the last drink stop in the St Albans pub, out in the deep Macdonald River valley (It was an old coach stop, built from local sandstone). The cricket was on TV in the bar, and this Pom was giving some raucous support to his team and razzing the Aussie team. The locals at the bar seemed to developing a plan to sort him out, so I whisked him and his mates away and took them home early.