Pilot Mike’s Weblog

A blog about my aviation and other life experiences in the midwest.

Entries for the ‘helicopters’ Category

Robinson R22 Aircraft Cost Calculations

A lot of you have been emailing me and are interested in my Robinson R22 cost calculations that I mentioned in this post. I came up with this spreadsheet (posted as a JPEG file below) after looking at lots of new and used Robinson R22s and concluded that if you have the appropriate cash flow, [...]

KDFW Traffic Helicopter Crash near DFW

I want to thank Student Helicopter Pilot Jason of for the heads up on this story.
A few days ago, on the heals of the ENG helicopter crash in Phoenix, there was amazing video of an apparent engine failure on Bell 206 Jet Ranger Helicopter for the FOX station in Dallas-Fort Worth. The video shows them [...]

Robinson Helicopter Factory Tour

Last month, AOPA had a great article (AOPA members only) by Steven W. Ells about Robinson Helicopters and their manufacturing facility in Torrance, CA.
It just so happened that I was out in the Los Angeles area for a training conference with 10,000 other network engineers and I realized how close to the factory we were [...]

Next Pilot Training Endeavor

Had some trouble sleeping last night (again) thinking about my next pilot training endeavor. I guess you know you are passionate about something when you can’t sleep thinking about it. I currently have about 215 hours and I need 250 to get my commercial and subsequently my CFI. My dilemma was if it was worthwhile [...]

Purchase vs Rent Robinson R22?

I have been contemplating for several years adding a helicopter rating to my pilots’ license. I live just a few blocks from the Johnson County Executive Airport (KOJC) where there is a small part 61 helicopter training school. In 2003 I took a discovery flight with Jesse Sherwood, owner and flight instructor for Executive Helicopter [...]