Sean Brown, Heli Air's md, who will bring into service the first R66 in the UK and Europe, has become only the fifth pilot in the world to be put through his paces on the helicopter at Robinson Torrance in the United States.

He concludes: "What a machine. I have over 15,000 hours flying everything from an R22 to a 747 and this beats them all! For the private owner you will never have had such huge safety margins in power, ease of operation, speed and passenger comfort in a helicopter before."

Brown adds: "For the flying school operator you have all you could dream for in a training and self-fly hire helicopter. No more will your instructors feel the need to creep around low level for fear of an engine failure in the hover. No more will students feel robbed as the instructors are all over the controls in limiting manoeuvres. The margins are so large in terms of handling and inertia that I can see all instructors feeling happy to let the students actually flare and land in an engine off."

He says: "With the engine monitoring unit the days of guessing who wrecked your engine are a thing of the past: check the EMU on power on and the evidence is there for all to see. That said, the useful payload is so good that rarely will a student ever get near any limiting factors."

Brown advises commercial operators: "You have a helicopter that makes economical sense. Operationally, this is a comfortable five-seater with plenty of baggage room and a sensible cruise speed. Additionally, with fixed costs and the fact it will do the 2,000 hours to overhaul, you can actually feel confident when quoting for work as you have a good idea of your actual costs. Gone are the days of working out costs based on component times to half life inspections then having a shock that the component is scrap at half life!"

Brown's overall conclusion is that you cannot judge what a helicopter is like until you have actually experienced what it can do. "I have been known to describe the R66 as an R44 on steroids; I cannot believe how wrong I was."

The R66 is a five-seat turbine-powered helicopter with a two-blade teetering rotor system. It should be certified by the end of 2010, with customer deliveries in 2011.

EBAN plans to document Sean Brown's experience in EBAN February and there are further details on www.heliair.com