Helicopter broker Stephen Johnson of Hillsboro Aviation in
Hillsboro, Ore., says that many first-time owners, like Johnson, buy a
helicopter even before they know how to fly it, and then sign up for flying
lessons. "It’s a more emotional purchase than a fixed-wing aircraft. People buy
them because they love the idea of flying in a helicopter," he says.Palmer argues that flying one’s own aircraft justifies the
added insurance expense. While most owner-pilots pay $20,000 or more a year to
insure their aircraft, Palmer spends roughly half that on a policy offered by
Pathfinder, a firm in the Bahamas that insures the current market value of
Robinson helicopters at a steep discount. As his helicopter ages and loses its
value, Palmer’s coverage shrinks. But for now, with a new R-44, his insurance
savings prove formidable. Purchase price, fuel costs and insurance premiums represent
just the basic expenses for owners. Maintaining a helicopter is fabulously
expensive, far more so than maintaining a jet. This disparity is partly due to
the way a helicopter functions. An old adage posits that a helicopter is really
just 10,000 different parts that happen to be flying in close formation. On a
helicopter, one engine powers both the overhead rotor, which spins on a
horizontal plane, and the tail rotor, which spins on a vertical plane. "In a
helicopter, everything is working even when you’re on the ground," says Don
Maciejewski, a helicopter pilot and a Jacksonville, Fla.–based aviation lawyer.
"And routine maintenance is frequent and rigorous: 25-hour oil changes, 100-hour
inspections, frequent main rotor and tail rotor inspections. Even if you have a
new Sikorsky S-76, you can still get scheduled maintenance bills above
$3,000." Having more moving parts correlates with a higher likelihood
that one of them will break down at any given time. As a result, the FAA
requires rigorous inspections. A 100-hour inspection on a fixed-wing airplane
is a small matter; on a helicopter, it’s a daylong event that can cost several
thousand dollars. "It could be as much as 11 hours of maintenance per flight
hour on a helicopter," Quinn says, "so you’d better have a strong checkbook."
Again, the size of the helicopter changes everything. Palmer’s
Robinson is a turboprop and, like fixed-wing turboprop airplanes, less demanding
to maintain, but it still requires meticulous 100-hour inspections. Palmer says
that these run about $1,800 each, which means his scheduled maintenance costs
run roughly $18 per hour of flight. He also combines his annual inspection with
his 100-hour inspection. "Every time I take it in for a 100-hour, I tell them to
go ahead and make it an annual inspection. It costs a few hundred dollars more,
but I don’t have to worry about an annual inspection creeping up on me. I’m good
for another 12 months," Palmer says. This helps keep his aircraft ready and
waiting whenever he wants it. He also minimizes time in the shop by dropping the
helicopter off at night. This enables the mechanics to work on it all the next
day and have it finished that night.
Aging helicopters are considerably more expensive to maintain.
Palmer’s Robinson R-44 can fly for 2,200 hours before undergoing a mandatory
overhaul. This limit is known as TBO, or time before overhaul. An overhaul for
his bird will likely cost at least $200,000 and take the helicopter out of
operation for several months. Many helicopter components have a much shorter
life than 2,200 hours; some must be replaced at 1,200 hours. All this implies
that a helicopter with as little as 1,000 hours of flight time will become very
expensive to maintain sooner rather than later. The expense and rigorous inspection schedule required for
helicopter owners has not dampened Palmer’s love of flying to work in the
morning. "Flying in a helicopter is addictive," he says. Sometimes Palmer flies
deliberately over the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta and hovers so that he can
watch the whales. Still, as much as he loves his Robinson, he doesn’t anticipate
that he’ll keep it. "I trade cars almost every year, so I won’t hang onto this
helicopter long," Palmer says. "When it gets up to 700 or 800 hours, I’ll
probably trade it in. Rumor has it that Robinson will be coming out with a jet
model. If it’s not crazy to maintain it, I’ll probably step up to that."
Because of the high acquisition and maintenance costs associated with helicopters, fractional ownership
is becoming more popular for travelers, particularly those who want to own
larger jet helicopters. Although none of the leading fractional jet companies
offers helicopter ownership, many would-be owners seek out each other through
brokers to mutually buy a single large helicopter. "If four or five guys go in
on one of these, they can split the cost of the purchase and the cost of
scheduled maintenance," says helicopter pilot and aviation lawyer Don
Maciejewski. To make such a partnership work effectively, Maciejewski cautions
that all would-be owners should have similar travel patterns. This type of
ownership contract is easier to broker than those for fractional jet ownership,
because only one mission profile exists for the helicopter.
Michelle Seaton is a private pilot and a senior correspondent for
Worth.
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