Why We Choose Robinson Helicopters!

“We know you have many choices when you want to fly and we want to thank you for choosing our airline!” That’s one line you will not hear from us because we are helicopter pilots and we’re not on a commercial Delta flight. (Thank goodness! Those TSA lines are a real pain these days.)

We are proud to be helicopter pilots and our ships of choice are Robinson Helicopters! The Robinson lineup of helicopters offer great performance in a (relatively!) affordable package. This makes them the most accessible helicopters in the world. However, cost is only one factor in our decision to focus mainly on Robinsons.

We had many options in our selection process and there are a few key reasons why we choose to do the majority of our flight instruction in the Robinson R22. It’s nimble, reliable and cost-effective. Not only that, but the R22 doesn’t have a lot of the advanced features of larger helicopters and requires more of the pilot’s attention. It’s often been said, “If you can fly and R22, you can fly anything!” This makes it a great tool for setting our Pilots In Training up for a future in aviation!

The small but mighty ship also makes mastering autorotation (a skill every pilot must learn!) more accessible because it doesn’t need a lot of room to land (a park, open field or shopping center will offer enough space to get your feet back on the ground!).

Robinsons offer a variety of performance options ranging from 6 cylinder carbureted engines to 6 cylinder fuel injected engines. If you are looking for a lot of power, they even offer a turbine engine. (That's basically a jet engine made specifically for a helicopter! Not to brag… but we’ve got one in our fleet.)

All helicopters are very sensitive to weight and balance as compared to airplanes, but that makes learning the importance of weight and balance rather imperative for pilots. However, the larger models, the R44 and R66, offer much more weight capacity without having to sacrifice fuel. The R66 offers a very robust weight capacity and even has a 300 lb. max luggage compartment! As far as how long you can fly, each ship can fly about three hours worth of fuel before needing a pit stop to refuel.

Once you’ve mastered the R22, you’ll be ready to transition to learn to fly it’s larger siblings, the R44 and the R66!

Want to learn to fly with us?