Helicopter Parts

[brien23]

Are old helicopters worth more in parts than flying airworthy ones. Helicopter market is very small and old ones even smaller and hard to sell so what is the market for used helicopter parts on Hiller 23, Bell 47, Hughes 269 or time out Robinson 22 or 44 core value.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Depends. Too many variables to give a blanket answer.

 

[Velocity173]

Not sure about that but maintaining one can be quite expensive. My friend runs a flight school with a H269 and that thing is always in maint it seems. Annuals run $10-20K. He also instructs in owner aircraft; Brantley, a Gazelle and an OH-23. Crazy set of rare helicopters at his field.

 

[brien23]

Depends. Too many variables to give a blanket answer.

Buying a helicopter is buying time life parts and that sets value of the helicopter so would that also be the value of scrapping a helicopter. Time life -time left over new price in hours or Hughes 269 blades new $30,000 each or 50% left in time life worth about 12 to15K depending on condition. Question is how much in demand are used helicopter parts.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Buying a helicopter is buying time life parts and that sets value of the helicopter so would that also be the value of scrapping a helicopter. Time life -time left over new price in hours or Hughes 269 blades new $30,000 each or 50% left in time life worth about 12 to15K depending on condition.

Way too many other factors. The value is not just a sum of the life limited parts.

 

[brien23]

Way too many other factors. The value is not just a sum of the life limited parts.

I believe time life on a Robinson in hours and years is the major factor over all other factors for price.

 

[Doc Holliday]

I believe time life on a Robinson in hours and years is the major factor over all other factors for price.

It's a factor, but that alone doesn't determine the overall value.

 

[Bell206]

Are old helicopters worth more in parts than flying airworthy ones.

Not really. If dealing with a complete helicopter, as with any older or unique aircraft, there are some individual parts that have value but it depends specifically on the model. For example, if you had a set of serviceable wood M/R blades on your Bell 47, they would definitely be worth some coin. However, by removing the blades you effectively reduce the value of the remaining “parts.” The better route is to sell the complete helicopter than attempting to part it out for the biggest bang for buck.

I believe time life on a Robinson in hours and years is the major factor over all other factors for price.

Robbies technically do not "time out." They have similar list of time-life components as any other helicopters. However, the Robbie market is completely different than other helicopters for a number of reasons.

 

[NotarPilot]

Doc Holiday is correct. There are far too many variables to answer one way or the other. That being said, certain helicopters can be worth more parted out than sold as a whole depending on how much value (time) individual time limited components have on their own. However, it’s not as simple as just stripping parts off then selling them. Each part removed for sale would need to be inspected by an A&P and documented with time (hours) in service, and probably yellow tagged with an 8130 indicating it’s acceptable and airworthy for installation.

Another variable would have to do with the demand for those particular parts. Maybe they are parts from a Brantly B-2B and there’s only about 4 airworthy ships flying in the U.S. (I may be exaggerating here) but if they are parts that no one needs at the moment they probably don’t have much value. Once the parts are needed by someone then their value increases.

So, short answer to your question: Maybe

 

[3393RP]

The father of a high school friend ran a business focused on selling used helicopter parts. This was in the early 70s. It disappeared long ago.

I think the fact that Bell built around 16,000 Hueys made acquiring most of the inventory relatively easy.



I have no idea of the issues surrounding the process of selling used helicopter parts, but I'm sure it was complicated.

 

[weilke]

Those companies certainly exist in the commercial helicopter market. They buy damaged helicopters out of insurance auctions, lots of surplus parts from foreign militaries and government agencies etc. To make this work, they have the in-house IAs to inspect the parts, the network of vendors to recondition/recertify them and the logistics to pick up an unairworthy helicopter in Farawayistan. Oh, and they have the warehousing and marketing to sell and ship the parts to maintenance shops across the globe.

It's a business, as an individual who parts out a helicopter, you would be trying to compete against them in a market you know nothing about.