used r-22 worth it?

rotor-heads,

I'm a private pilot with about 100 hrs fixed wing, and about 15 hrs in
the R-22 years ago. Sometimes I think about finishing that helicopter
add-on that I started and maybe build a significant number of hours.
I've seen used R-22s, within 300 hrs of refurbishment selling for
40-50k. Assuming I bought one of these and put 300 hours on it without
destroying it or getting myself killed, how much could I sell the hulk
back to robinson for refurbishment? And when you factor in
maintenance, hangar fees, and insurance are you better off just paying
the rental rate at a school, which approaches $200/hr from what I've
seen?

Also these little guys don't have much rotor inertia, and you have like
one second to drop the collective or die in the event of a power
failure, right? In the Army (I was not an aviator, just a cadet at
CTLT) I remember seeing a pilot momentarily moving his left hand to the
cyclic so he could take notes on his knee-board with his right. That
would probably not be advisable in an r-22.

Thanks,

Dave

Dave
Nothing wrong with your idea as long as the machine you buy still had
decent component life in it, and hadn't been wrecked or something. If
you can afford it, I'd say do it. You can always rent it for a little
less than the local going rate and even make a few dollars with it
before you sell it again as run-out. In any event, it will prove to be
much cheaper than renting someone elses and you'll recover much, if not
ALL your money for the training costs. Make sure you get a GOOD
pre-purchase inspection by a mech (A&P) who is familiar with the R-22.
Do some more homework to make sure the numbers pencil out for you. I
know of a few guys who haqve done what you propose and were happy with
the outcome.
Nothing wrong with the R-22 as a trainer or for time building. Make
damned sure you don't fly it outside its design envelope and its
perfectly fine. The horrible reputation has come from those who tried
to do test flights with it (read that as pilots who got outside the
published recommendations and simply blew it). I don't much care for
them personally and honestly only have about 25 hours or so in them for
an instrument rating, and an instrument insructor rating. Most of my
9000+ hours of helicopters is in larger working machines so I am
admitedly jaded. Make the same kind of post over in JustHelicopters in
the alternate forum and you'll get some positive response. Avoid the
"original" forum until you get it figured out and realize that is a
free for all with a lot of jerks. See you there
Rocky
wrote:
rotor-heads,

I'm a private pilot with about 100 hrs fixed wing, and about 15 hrs in
the R-22 years ago. Sometimes I think about finishing that helicopter
add-on that I started and maybe build a significant number of hours.
I've seen used R-22s, within 300 hrs of refurbishment selling for
40-50k. Assuming I bought one of these and put 300 hours on it without
destroying it or getting myself killed, how much could I sell the hulk
back to robinson for refurbishment? And when you factor in
maintenance, hangar fees, and insurance are you better off just paying
the rental rate at a school, which approaches $200/hr from what I've
seen?

Also these little guys don't have much rotor inertia, and you have like
one second to drop the collective or die in the event of a power
failure, right? In the Army (I was not an aviator, just a cadet at
CTLT) I remember seeing a pilot momentarily moving his left hand to the
cyclic so he could take notes on his knee-board with his right. That
would probably not be advisable in an r-22.

Thanks,

Dave

"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT" net wrote in
message ...
Believe me, if the **** hits the fan, your
left hand will find it's way back to the collective in nanoseconds.

I'll bet! BG

There's nothing quite like the incentive program. :-D

Ol Shy & Bashful wrote:
Dave
Nothing wrong with your idea as long as the machine you buy still had
decent component life in it, and hadn't been wrecked or something. If
you can afford it, I'd say do it. You can always rent it for a little
less than the local going rate and even make a few dollars with it
before you sell it again as run-out. In any event, it will prove to be
much cheaper than renting someone elses and you'll recover much, if not
ALL your money for the training costs. Make sure you get a GOOD
pre-purchase inspection by a mech (A&P) who is familiar with the R-22.
Do some more homework to make sure the numbers pencil out for you. I
know of a few guys who haqve done what you propose and were happy with
the outcome.
Nothing wrong with the R-22 as a trainer or for time building. Make
damned sure you don't fly it outside its design envelope and its
perfectly fine. The horrible reputation has come from those who tried
to do test flights with it (read that as pilots who got outside the
published recommendations and simply blew it). I don't much care for
them personally and honestly only have about 25 hours or so in them for
an instrument rating, and an instrument insructor rating. Most of my
9000+ hours of helicopters is in larger working machines so I am
admitedly jaded. Make the same kind of post over in JustHelicopters in
the alternate forum and you'll get some positive response. Avoid the
"original" forum until you get it figured out and realize that is a
free for all with a lot of jerks. See you there
Rocky
wrote:
rotor-heads,

I'm a private pilot with about 100 hrs fixed wing, and about 15 hrs in
the R-22 years ago. Sometimes I think about finishing that helicopter
add-on that I started and maybe build a significant number of hours.
I've seen used R-22s, within 300 hrs of refurbishment selling for
40-50k. Assuming I bought one of these and put 300 hours on it without
destroying it or getting myself killed, how much could I sell the hulk
back to robinson for refurbishment? And when you factor in
maintenance, hangar fees, and insurance are you better off just paying
the rental rate at a school, which approaches $200/hr from what I've
seen?

Also these little guys don't have much rotor inertia, and you have like
one second to drop the collective or die in the event of a power
failure, right? In the Army (I was not an aviator, just a cadet at
CTLT) I remember seeing a pilot momentarily moving his left hand to the
cyclic so he could take notes on his knee-board with his right. That
would probably not be advisable in an r-22.

Thanks,

Dave

If you can afford to train and hour build then by definition you can
afford to buy the r22, use it up and sell it. It's just a matter of
amortizing the capital cost less resale price over the period of use -
assuming that is cheaper than hiring the flight school chopper, that
is.

Why not buy into a shared ownership syndicate? That way you split all
the costs - insurance, hangar etc.

Kevin: As I understand it you are involved in simulators. Does this
include helicopter simulators? I would be very curious to know just how
much time is required to get the collective down when you are flying the
simulator with your left hand twiddling the transponder codes when the
engine suddenly dies. I would want this sim to occur without letting the
pilot know in advance that it was going to occur so that the time would
reflect the real life data processing and reaction time required of the
pilot in switching from transponder stuff to recognizing an engine failure
and getting the hand on the collective and taking it to the bottom. I would
be very surprised if this didn't require more than a couple of seconds.
Also a pilot of a low inertia, though not as low as the R-22, helicopter.
This would make for interesting reading in our magazine as well as provide
some advertising for your simulators.

thanks

--
Stuart Fields
Experimental Helo magazine
P. O. Box 1585
Inyokern, CA 93527
(760) 377-4478
(760) 408-9747 general and layout cell
(760) 608-1299 technical and advertising cell

www.vkss.com
www.experimentalhelo.com


"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT" net wrote in
message ...
On Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:28:27 GMT, "Steve R"
wrote:

"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT" net wrote in
message ...
Believe me, if the **** hits the fan, your
left hand will find it's way back to the collective in nanoseconds.

I'll bet! BG

There's nothing quite like the incentive program. :-D

Yep. Failing to participate in the program could get very ugly.

The OTHER Kevin in San Diego wrote:


For me personally? Less than a second. I'll 'splain why in a sec..



I would
be very surprised if this didn't require more than a couple of seconds.
Also a pilot of a low inertia, though not as low as the R-22, helicopter.
This would make for interesting reading in our magazine as well as provide
some advertising for your simulators.

You'd be amazed at how fast you get back to the collective when an
evil lead programmer likes to mess with you in the sim. Each sim we
build gets test flown by me for about 4 hours to make sure all the
systems are working properly and without fail, partway through the
testing of every one, the lead programmer would sneak in and fail the
engine or tailrotor on me - usually when I'm flying left handed and
scribbling a note on my "gotcha" list. At first I'd lawn-dart the
thing, but now it's practically a non-issue. My hand gets back to the
collective at something approaching the speed of light and the skin
begins to peel off because of air friction burns.



Kevin hit it on the nose. You will be surprised how fast your training
takes over when something major like an engine failure occurs. The
pilots that flew with me were always on their guard because they all
knew I liked reducing the throttle to idle just when they were
concentrating on a freq change or clearing the aircraft to the right.
Even when I did catch them completely off guard their hands were on the
collective in a split second. You will get there too. I can see the
dedication in your posts. Keep after it, you will never regret flying
helicopters.

--

boB
Wing 70

U.S. Army Aviation (retired)
Central Texas
5NM West of Gray Army/Killeen Regional (KGRK)

The OTHER Kevin in San Diego wrote:
On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 10:37:06 -0700, "Stuart & Kathryn Fields"
wrote:

Kevin: As I understand it you are involved in simulators. Does this
include helicopter simulators?

Yes.


Kevin, where are you in the simulator area. Do you have a prototype? I
would love to see pictures and if there are none yet, your thoughts
would suffice.

--

boB
Wing 70


U.S. Army Aviation (retired)
Central Texas
5NM West of Gray Army/Killeen Regional (KGRK)

Less than a second sure sounds fast. I thought that the quick draw guys
were not too far under 0.3 sec and they are spring loaded and cocked in
their event.
A while back I had the collective trim spring break in my Baby Belle just as
I was going skids level at the end of an approach. There was a loud bang
and the collective jumped up close to my ear with the helicopter following
it very closely to at least 10' in the air. At the same time I was treated
with the low rotor alarm bleeping in my headset. I know that it took me
more than 1 second to analyze and react. Thankfully I had sufficient power
and low enough inertia in the blades to recover before I hit the ground.
BTW, I no longer use the spring system as collective trim.
I used to score around 0.25 sec for reaction time, but that was for events
where I was cocked and ready. I think that if I was by myself in my
helicopter and the engine failed, it would not take me very long to get the
collective down. I fly with my left hand on the collective 99.99999999% of
the time. But even then I would be surprised if it didn't take me more than
1 sec.
All that said, I did witness a low time helicopter pilot take off with the
cyclic locked. The ship was tilting and headed to the edge of the 40X40
helipad. There was a blur of hands as the left hand came off the
collective, grabbed the cyclic as the right hand released the cyclic,
grabbed and released the lock and then the hands returned to their normal
position. The helicopter only moved about 4' laterally during all of the
above. With the locked cyclic refusing to move, he didn't have to analyze
the problem very long. He very nicely avoided a crash. This guy was a
high time Stuck wing pilot with CFI, CFII, MEL etc. and was, he believed,
religious in check list operations. He said later that he had adrenalin
leaking out of both ears.
You know all of this sure makes an argument for the benefits of simulator
training. You can practice this stuff without stuffing your helicopter.
How much/hr. and where is the closest one? There is a good magazine article
here that could provide some good advertising for simulator training. I
can imagine several current helo pilots doing just a simple course in ATC
procedures with some emergencies added for spice and the time history
recorded. You would have to keep the helo pilots from talking to each other
to avoid pre-loading and contaminating your results. I'll bet that they
would sign up for more sim time shortly afterwards.

"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT" net wrote in
message ...

I dunno about anyone else, but *ANY* odd noise gets my left hand back
on the collective Right Effin' Now!
Funny story:

Like you said I've been pretty hardwired for years on the odd noise or
blinking light thing to be prepped for an auto "right effing now". So a
couple years ago I went out and got my fixed wing ticket and bought an
airplane. Well the airplane has a "bitching betty" and for a few of the
things she says theres a horn sound that goes off right before she talks,
and that horn sounds EXACTLY like the engine out horn in my Jet Ranger. I
can't tell you how many times in the first couple months of flying that
plane that I reached for a collective that wasn't there and almost soiled
myself when that damn thing sounded off.

Bart

The OTHER Kevin in San Diego wrote:

BTW: I would love some comments on the site. IMO it needs some work,
but would appreciate any input (good or bad) so I can take it to the
head weenies and state my case again.

You're right, it's not a masterpiece. My first impression was there are
many small widely separated elements, and a lot of whitespace. The most
interesting thing to look at is the buttons.

GOOD:
It works, and no annoying Flash intro! Building it with MS FrontPage
probably wasn't a real good plan, but I think my Mozilla browser is
showing everything that's supposed to be there. I like the eight buttons
on the left sliding into view as I scroll the page.

BAD:
Umm, I'll bet none of you have to use dialup. I do. Those eight sliding
buttons along the left? Each one is two giant 401 X 96 pixel images! The
sixteen files take so long to download that I didn't even know the
buttons change color when I mouse over them, until after I'd spent a few
minutes there mousing over them. The HTML code makes them display at a
reasonable width="150" height="35" anyway and that's how they appear on
the page, so it makes no sense to start with giant 401 X 96 pixel
buttons. Resize them.

You rich guys must all have nice 1680 X 1050 Widescreen Cinema Displays.
The Downloads page is the only one that doesn't quite fit the width of
my meager 1024 X 768 screen, and I need to scroll just a tiny bit left
and right to see it all. Specifying table width of 1040 there was maybe
a bad idea, 1024 (or even 800) is still the most common screen size for
most of us.

The FLYIT logo, the smaller one on the left, loaded before the bigger
one in the middle. I couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be,
looked sort of like a couple of flies buzzing around the name FLYIT!
Then when the bigger logo appeared I could see they were a helicopter
and an airplane.