How much of your helicopter will you waste?
A Robinson must be overhauled at 2,200 hours or 12 years, whichever comes first. Fly it lightly and the calendar wins: hundreds of hours you paid for expire unflown. This shows how much airframe life you would leave on the table, and what HQ would pay you to fly it.
Figures last verified June 2026 · Denham Aerodrome · All figures ex VAT
Your aircraft
Buying new? Leave both at zero.
Your own flying
That is about 52 hours a year.
The programme pays you
Default is the dry hire rate less HQ's share. Adjust to a figure you have been quoted.
On the HQ programme, that is about £378,000 paid to you over the aircraft's remaining life.
You'll fly about 624 hrs of the 2,200 hrs left on the airframe before the 12-year overhaul falls due. The other 1,576 hrs would expire unflown.
Overhaul limits 2,200 hrs / 12 yrs, whichever first. Verified June 2026. Ex VAT. Illustrative, not advice.
No mystery maths.
Robinson overhaul limits
A Robinson R44 must be overhauled at 2,200 hours or 12 years, an R66 at 2,000 hours or 12 years, whichever falls first. Those limits, and the factory operating costs, come straight from Robinson Helicopter Company documents.
Real Denham rates
Hire rates and utilisation patterns come from the HQ fleet operating at Denham, not industry averages from another country.
UK insurance and hangarage
Insurance ranges come from UK brokers and owner reports, with the commercial-use uplift shown explicitly rather than hidden.
One maintenance standard
Leaseback aircraft are maintained by the same Part 145 organisation, to the same standard, as the aircraft HQ owns outright. Records are yours to inspect, and independent inspection is welcome.
Figures last verified June 2026. Every default in this tool can be overridden with your own numbers above.
The hard questions.
Get your numbers sanity-checked.
Send us your scenario and the team will come back with a straight answer on what the programme can and cannot do for it, including current fleet demand at Denham. Your calculator settings are attached automatically.
Prefer to talk first? Call +44 1895 833 373 or email operations@hqaviation.com.