Anyone Own Their Own Helicopter Touring Business? I Want To Eventually Open One?
Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 10:54 am
My fiancee works with helicopters for many years now, and is very experienced. I want to open a flight touring business, of the grand caynon, yosemite, or something along those lines. I know there are alot of laws and regulations that go with flying in parks and some dont allow it. But basically a touring business where people can go up and see the sites, like the many businesses do in alaska for example. also, i was thinking about taking arial photos for real estate magazines, ect. or taking video footage for surf videos, ect. I know that it is expensive to own a bird and dont know how to go about it. There is lots of questions and research I need to do and find out. If you have any knowledge of such a business from personal experience or a friends personal experience that would help alot.
Category: Surf Park
Tags: Anyone, Business, Eventually, Helicopter, Open, Their, Touring, Want
February 7th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
From a business perspective, you’ll really need to examine your market before deciding to go on the hook for a multimillion dollar machine. Are there enough prospective year round tourists to make it worth while etc. When you look at the manufacturers data for hourly operational expenses, you’ll see that this venture will have to return about 400 per hour on average just to pay for fuel and maintenance. Insurance will be a killer especially if your pilots are low on hours. Unless you have hundreds of hours of turbine time from a military pilot career, it’s generally cost prohibitive to try to make money with rotorcraft in tourism or in any situation where you’re hauling people for money. In other words you have to have so many hours to become an affordably insured commercial pilot, that it will take you decades to recover that money through a salary. I’ve wrapped up over $20k over the last year in piston and turbine time just to get my private license @ 50 hours. The most I’ll do with it is buy into a timeshare bird and fly for my own enjoyment. As far as crop dusting or arial photos, you could easily do that with a much less expensive aircraft like a Bell 47 or Robinson 22 and have a better chance at a successful business…..just my opinion.
February 7th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
If you own your own bird these are a few factors you might want to look at. Insurance on the bird, License and permits, bonding, operating cost can be horrendous, and most helicopters require 100 hour inspections by a certified AP mechanic, especially the rotor blades. To be honest with you, the profit will not be worth the headaches. On top of that, you have to worry about liability insurance and financing the bird. It would be easy to get in over your head and lose the chopper in the process.
If you really want to get into a business with a chopper, I would consider crop dusting or spraying right of ways for utility companies. Good luck.