Helicopters for civil engineering job

From: "tony"
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.rotorcraft
Subject: Helicopters for civil engineering job
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 12:54:47 -0700

We were recently qouted for renting helicopters for a civil engineering
job. The price was high. We are therefore considering investing to run
the 2 helicopter operation ourselves.

The job would require lifting as much as 1300Kg to heights of about
2000m. The conditions would be hot and dusty.

The helicopter could be preowned however it musn't need much
maintenance work since that would require much knowledge and resources
from our part.

The helicopter we choose is the Bell 212. However we haven't been able
to find many preowned helicopter sellers and that have Bell 212.

The second choice would be the Bell 407. It might be more than what we
need for the job and thus we would be paying much more than need be.

THe availability of parts and the worldwide support system is a great
pro for Bell, especially that we would be very inexperienced and time
constrained at building a repair and maintenance unit for the
operation.



Advice is much appreciated:
Choice of helicopter
Maintenance costs
Running costs
Finding pilot and maintenance engineer
Preowned helicopter venders

Thanks