Helicopters in Sao Paulo: Sikorsky/Schweizer, July 2011

S300/H269

Sikorsky has only two civilan markets here: off shore and training (with the Schweizer). In the military market, however, the Black Hawk is widely used.
As far as VIP helicopters are concerned, Sikorsky has only 1 S76 here which is owned by the Government of Sao Paulo. I was told that Sikorskies are too heavy for the helipads here, and that Agusta has that 'beautiful' market.

There are 104 turbine Sikorskies here, working off shore and mostly based at Macae City near Rio de Janeriro, with a few at Santos, near Sao Paulo. The oil and gas market, already well developed off Rio is in development in Sao Paulo, with, for example, the Brazilian company Lide selling 49% of its shares to the British company Bristow Helicopters.

For training the S300 is very popular but there are more schools using the R22 - cost of course.
There do not seem to be any training Enstroms here, although there were a few Enstrom 480s in the country, they do not appear to have had a good history here - with the exception of one or two in the countryside. My information on Enstroms is not particularly wide...