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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 1710.PDF
•74" ,mvFLIGHT, 6'October 1949 HELICOPTER ECONOMICS A Survey of Rotary-wing Potential in Terms of Profit and Loss POTENTIALITIES of the helicopter for scheduled airlineoperation, with particular reference to the London-Parisroute, were discussed by Mr. L. S. Wigdortchik, A.F.R.Ae.S., in a paper (briefly referred to in Flight last week) which he read before the Helicopter Association of Great Britain on September 24th. The lecturer, a senior Experi- mental Engineer &i the BE. A. Helicopter Unit, entitled his paper Some Economics of the Helicopter—Present and Future. In introducing his lecture, Mr. Wigdortchik made the point that, with its predominantly civil future, the helicopter must pay its way to a degree hitherto unknown in aviation, and that therefore, in preparing the text of the lecture, his aim had been to adopt the viewpoint of an impartial businessman who would back only a sound proposition. The helicopter would support itself at the present time in specialized opera- tions such as agriculture and the carriage of mails, but in five to ten years it should be able to support itself in certain passenger transportation activities over particular routes. The commercial operations of helicopters came under the heading of producer business in that the operations produced ton-miles, passenger-miles or pounds of insecticide per acre, and so forth, all of which were units of production. Analysis of this aspect indicated that the rate of doing work combined with the limiting utilization would govern the yearly turn- over and, through this, the profit. Thus, consideration had to be given to the cost curves, the rate of doing work and the capital investment in relation to the amount and nature of work required in the time concerned, the limiting utiliza- tion per helicopter per annum, and the revenue per sold ton-mile. It had been demonstrated that the Sikorsky S-51 and the Bell helicopter possessed a degree of mechanical reliability permitting them to be employed on scheduled operations and with utilizations of at least 1,000 hours per annum. The operating costs of these machines had stabilized to a known figure and there were fields which could afford to pay the charges concerned. The all-important need to extend permis- sible operations into I.F.R. conditions was already well on the wav to solution as were the requisite ground aids. To facilitate examination of the fields of application, Mr. Wigdortchik considered four possible types of helicopter, namely: Type 1, 200 h.p. ; Type 2, 500 h.p. ; Type 3, 1,000 h.p.; Type 4. 2,500 h.p., and made an analysis of their physi- cal and economic performance. He then went on to state that, in order to carry existing traffic, the helicopter had to enter into direct competition with other vehicles. Speed and cost were the most important factors to the traveller, assuming that reliability was of a high order. For distances up to 300 miles, the helicopter was faster than any other vehicle, but at the average figures of yd to 8d per revenue passenger mile, the helicopter was so expensive that it was approached only by first-class rail/steamer and airline travel for U.K. /oversea routes. Whilst, therefore, the helicopter could compete favour- ably on such operations, on internal routes it could compete only on terms of speed. Potential Traffic The lecturer thought that a figure of 6s 8d per hour would produce fares which would attract traffic, but this would mean fares at a maximum of 4|d per revenue passenger mile. In considering potential traffic, it was necessary first to deter- mine haw much traffic would be needed to support the heli- copter under its most economic conditions. Potential traffic was governed by \i) the average frequency, time and cost of alternative transport, (ii) size, distance apart and economic characteristics of the centres concerned, (iii) relationship between traffic and capacity passenger costs, and the effect on cost of time saved. No investigation is required more, urgently, observed Mr. Wigdortchik, than one dealing with potential traffic for the helicopter within the United Kingdom. On the availability of Type 4 (2,500 h.p. multi-rotor) heli- copters in a reliable and operable form, it would be possible, in the lecturer's opinion, to-.make a profit on all existing routes at present served by rail/ship or airlines from ~ this country to the Continent and up to 250 miles in length. These would be the first routes to support themselves at existing costs. On the availability of Type 3 (1,000 h.p., multi-rotor) helicopters, in a reliable and operable form, it would be pos- sible to operate cross-country routes and eventually to stimu- late sufficient traffic fully to occupy them. A subsidy would be required to bring the cost of fares down to a rate of 3 id and no more than 4^d per passenger mile if traffic was to be attracted. To present an evaluation of the helicopter for a particular operation, the lecturer chose to discuss a passenger service between the centres of London and Paris. The basic assump- tion was that there would be available a Type 4 helicopter of at least the same mechanical reliability as the S-51. The study was divisible as (i) physical performance of the Type 4 helicopter between London aid Paris, (ii) the potential traffic and price and (iii) the stability of the Type 4 and the organiza- tion behind it to satisfy the market and make a profit at its price. Final performance depended on the winds; available data showed that a block speed.of 95 m.p.h. was possible in summer, with a block time of 2 hr 15 min and, in winter, a block speed of 90 m.p.h. (2 hr 20 min). Taking all influences into consideration, a summer regularity of 94 per cent and a winter regularity of 91 per cent appeared possible. The weather minima for the route are 550 yards visibility and a ceiling of 500ft above the ground at the rotor stations. Potential Passengers Of those passengers who could afford to travel either by airline at 8d or by first-class rail "and ship at 6|d per pas- senger mile, those who elected to travel by aircraft could be said to express a " readiness-to-use-air-transport" factor. This factor, suggested the lecturer, could be applied to second- class passenger rail and ship traffic, at 5jd. per passenger mile to assess the number of second-class passengers who would travel by air if the fare approached 5^d; and it could be demonstrated that the traffic at 8d per passenger mile was roughly doubled when the fares were at 6d. Present-day air- craft services averaged 3 hr 35 min from centre to centre, whereas the equivalent time for the helicopter would be 2 hr 15 min; thus the helicopter passenger would save at least an hour over the passenger in the conventional aircraft. The latter was geared to a schedule of bus; formalities; aircraft; formalities; bus, whereas the helicopter passenger's progress was controlled only from the time he entered the helicopter to the time he left it. On the score of convenience, it was enough to state that the helicopter was the only non-stop means of progress between the centres of London and Paris. Regarding the production of suitable schedules of operation to meet the market, the cost curves of the Type 4 helicopter exemplified that at utilizations of 2,000 hours per annum the fare rate of 8d should permit a profitable margin at a load factor of G5 per cent. On this basis, the lecturer had evolved a schedule (A) designed to saturate the market at 8d, and also a schedule (B) based on a fare rate of 8d in the summer and 6d in the winter, in order to offset the seasonal drop in traffic—one of the major prob- lems of operation on this route. The peak summer schedule was the same in each case and was designed to provide 36 flights a day and a total booking capacity of 936 seats. A turn-round time of 30 minutes was assumed, which meant that seven aircraft were required daily, each with a mean flying time of 11J hours. It was, incident- ally, interesting to note that, were it possible to have a turn- round time of 15 minutes, a similar schedale could be operated with six aircraft. In order to be able always to meet the operational requirements, a fleet of ir aircraft was necessary in both instances to compensate the time unserviceable on the ground and reserves against defects. In this connection, Mr. Wigdortchik emphasized that the maintenance requirements upon which the fleet size depended were assumed to be at least as good as those of tl>e S-51. Considering only schedule A, the characteristics of the opera- tion showed that the capital required was £1,660,000 to cover n aircraft and the working capital. The annual booking capacity was 256,600 passengers and annual totals of 21,000 hours and 9,500 landings were made, this giving an annual utilization of just under 2,000 hours. The total annual cost was £1,076,400, of which hourly flight represented 38 per cent, take-off and landing 16 per cent, fixed anrraal overheads 28 per cent, and general overheads 18 per cent. As to profit and loss, it could be shown that the revenue varied as a straight line with load factor. Below 65 per cent, the costs were reduced progressively by flight cancellation, whereas they were increased above 90 per cent by adding flights. The potential profit was seen to lie high, since the
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