And at that price, for me, it might as well be a billion dollars :-)

Thats new price. You can buy them for under 100k second hand. Have a look on conttoller.com.

Half a billion, then. Mang, I'm trying to buy a house right now, $20k is a far-off and scary number to me where I'm at.

That should be controller.com

I must admit that I find the idea of owning a R22 or R44 quite attractive. Too bad the wallet is not cooperative.

Robbos are 'cheap' up-front because they're built for a 12-year / 2,200 flying-hour service life; they're basically disposable helicopters. They can be overhauled and rebuilt at that point, and every subsequent 2,200 hours, but it's expensive.

Furthermore here are some service-life-hours comparisons between components on an R22 and an Enstrom F-28C of the same category ( edit: updated from the FAA TCDS ):

  Main rotor blades: 2,200 / unlimited on-condition
  Main rotor spindle:  4,400 / 17,700
  Tail rotor blade: 2,200 / 3,100
  Tail rotor attachment:  2,200 / 6,200

Source: an acquaintance who runs a training school with R22s. He loves flying them but sells them on ASAP when they're anywhere near their service life.

Incidentally Mr Robinson originally designed the R22 with a target list-price of $22,000, hence the name.

Thanks, good to know.

Most of what I have seen comes from the Instagram feed of Bradley Friesen who seems to have some pretty awesome pictures of where he's able to land his R44. Makes me want to move to BC.

https://www.instagram.com/bradleyfriesen/?hl=en

You don't need a few million, but you better have a few more dollars lying around for maintenance, gas, and insurance. http://www.robinsonheli.com/price_lists_eocs/r22_eoc.pdf estimates operating costs at $140 an hour.

I expect that to be on the low side, given it is information from the manufacturer, and given that I spotted one white lie: they get at the $140 by assuming 8 gallons per hour, then derive $0.90 per mile from that, but casually mention a speed that uses 9.5 gallons per hour at cruise speed. A tiny difference on that $/mile figure, but it would add about $8 to the 'dollar per hour' number.

Yeah, can't really talk about costs unless you factor in running costs...