I have a contact at Bell/Textron ...
Gotcha. I wouldn't be surprised at that number. I recall $16,000 per hour being thrown around for the 60, but the person who told me may have been speaking out of their cone of knowledge. I can't imagine though that many other helicopters would be cheaper to operate per hour. Short term maintenance costs might be lower, and even in the medium term when you start replacing things that can actually be purchased off the shelf - those costs may be lower - but I can't imagine that operating a slightly bigger helicopter using more gas and requiring more maintenance on higher end parts will save costs over the Bell 206, but maybe I'm missing something in this equation. Has fuel efficiency increased significantly? I'm not sure, especially when you consider almost everything being entertained as a replacement so far is larger.