U.K. company Starspeed is celebrating 10 years of operation with its Bell 429, and has praised the type’s reliability and ease of ownership over the years.
Starspeed manages and operates a fleet of 13 helicopters on behalf of VIP customers, with the aircraft available for charters when not in use by their owners. It also operates a further four aircraft (two on a service connecting the Isles of Scilly with Penzance on the U.K. mainland, and two that are used aboard Quark Expedition cruise ships).
But Simon Mitchell, Starspeed’s managing director, said the 429 has stood out from the crowd for its reliability.
“It’s been a very successful story — it’s been just remarkable in that it just does what it does,” said Mitchell. “OEMs have failed to realize that the one thing that really matters is reliability — that the most frustrating thing in a helicopter is just how much time it spends on the ground in a hangar, being fixed — or not being fixed. . . . Whereas with the 429, it’s been remarkable in that that never happened; we were promised a low maintenance aircraft, and it’s remained a low maintenance aircraft.”
He noted that it was the first commercial helicopter to have a maintenance program designed under MSG-3 (maintenance steering group three) principles, which include hard time limits, on-condition and condition monitoring — and allows for the prospect of extending the life of parts based on their performance in the fleet.
“Ten years down the line, we’re still finding it’s a low maintenance aircraft, and I think it’s been transformational,” said Mitchell.
The aircraft is based at Starspeed’s headquarters at Fairoaks Airport, a few miles southwest of Greater London, and it typically averages about 200 flight hours each year. Mitchell said that for a VIP aircraft, “that’s busy” — particularly taking into account that most of its flights are only about 15 minutes long.
“The main job for this type of helicopter is basically airport runs,” he said. “We’re connecting Luton, Stansted, Biggin Hill, Farnborough — those major business airports — with central London. That’s 85 percent of the work.”
It has carried “the full range of the people we work with” said Mitchell, from A-list celebrities to big corporate clients.
“Everyone seems to like the aircraft,” he said. “It’s a nice airy cabin; it gives you this feeling of space and airiness that appeals to everybody, with good visibility.”
The aircraft is equipped with the same Bell-completed VIP club seating, with tan leather seating as it arrived with. It also still has its original livery.
“You give credit where credit is due,” said Mitchell. “The fact is that we’ve got an aircraft with exactly the same paint job it arrived with and it looks immaculate — it’s got the same interior and it looks immaculate, and thousands of people have been in and out of it.”
