Kenny Keller talks with Chris Hauser and Randy Sharkey of Sweet Helicopters about their VIP charter service and the Airbus H130. The Midwest-based operator flies five helicopters, including three H130s that carry six passengers at 132 knots and burn 55 gallons per hour, available for charter 365 days a year.
Questions this video answers
Five helicopters.
One Astar 350 (B3E), three EC130/H130s, and an Agusta/Augusta 109 (multi-engine).
About 132 knots, burning about 55 gallons per hour.
365 days a year.
574-238-1000.
Chapters
All right, welcome back to HOGS daily flight brief. And I'm here with Chris Hauser and Randy Sharkey from Sweet Helicopters. We're getting ready to go out and do a flight. Enjoy the 130. And Randy's going to talk about his top 10 pet peeves as the designated examiner. And we're going to compare them to the top 10 checkride tips that Taz and I gave you for checkrides free PDF down below. We also ship that dude anywhere in the world for seven bucks shipping and handling.
So.
So I'm going to let these two talk a little bit about the EC130 and the charter services that they offer at Sweet Helicopters. First tell us there's the 130s. What else do you guys operate in the Sweet Helicopters charter service?
So Sweet Helicopters is a part 135 on demand charter operation. And we have five helicopters. We have one Astar 350, it's a B3E and that's used for mostly utility work. We have three of these, the EC 135, they're more commonly known as the H130s. And for those clients that want the twin engine helicopter, we have the Augusta 109s and that serves as our multi engine helicopter because again, a lot of the clients nowadays want two engines. So that's five helicopters in our fleet. We serve the local metro areas, whether it's Chicago, Indianapolis and Detroit. We'll go anywhere to pick up. And we're probably one of the, the largest VIP helicopter companies in the Midwest.
Awesome. So Chris, what's your number one thing you like about the 130?
I like the comfort level. I like that it's, we can get multiple passengers. It's a, it's a six plus one, six passengers plus the pilot. I do like the interior of it, meaning that our owner, he likes to have nice stuff. So we're lucky about that. We've got it all decked out with nice avionics. It's got an autopilot, which I, back in the day, I used to love the hand fly and I still love the hand fly. But going cross country, sometimes you like to push that autopilot and just fly. There's really nothing bad you can say about this aircraft.
You know, probably the one thing that I would add to Chris's notes are the power that it has. Yes, the EC130 T2, the H130, whatever you want to refer to it as, has a ton of power and it was designed for the air tour industry, built by Eurocopter back then. Now of course it's an Airbus product. Our owner, Sweet Helicopters, a division of a company in Fort Wayne called Sweetwater Sound. Chuck Surak happens to be a commercially certified helicopter pilot as well. And this is one of his favorite models is the H130 and it's got a great safety record. They're now using it in the EMS world as well because of its power. And so yeah we feel like it's a great platform for us on the, on the VIP side there really isn't a bad seat in the house as you can see the front right seat Chris, we call the money seat because that the best view, it has the most legroom. So when we have let's say four passengers we will give that front right seat to the lead passenger of that particular trip. The least comfortable trip is probably the co pilot seat. It's more squeezed inside in the middle but in the back again there really isn't a bad seat in the house on the H130 and this is the.
Same aircraft that the tours like you mentioned are using. You go out to Las Vegas, do Grand Canyon tour, they're going to be flying in A, an H130, go out to Hawaii, you're gonna be flying in 130. So we've got, we're using the same make and model as if you'd go out and do those nice tours somewhere.
Tons of power, great true airspeed all day long. 132 knots burning about 55 gallons an hour.
Nice. So if somebody's interested in a charter with your company, tell them how they get ahold of you.
You bet. We charter 365 days a year. We go events. The best way to reach us probably is randyuathelicopters.com if you want to call my cell. It's pretty simple. 574-238-1000 if you want to request Chris as your pilot because he's the, you know, he's the best looking one of the group. He's very experienced. All the girls ask for him.
You know he hates the compliments.
He just hates the compliments.
Single five seven four five Christop.
No.
Awesome. Well thanks guys for giving us a view of the 130 letting us know a little bit about them. The next video we're gonna be flying in this. Do it now. Click the bell. Subscribe.
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Peace out.
Shoot for Monday.
Yeah, let's shoot for Monday.
I got going on tomorrow's good for me. I got a meeting at.
That's true, you do. Okay, tomorrow.
Trouble again I'm always in trouble Trouble that's just how I roll I know.
