HELICOPTER SERVICE. Wolfe Helicopters is to begin flying passengers from a helicopter pad in Berkeley, California, to the two large airports in the area, Oakland and San Francisco. Wolfe will operate two models—the HG30 and the WH10. The characteristics for each aircraft are given in the following table.
Wolfe has $1,800,000 available to purchase helicopters, and it wishes to have a total fleet capacity of at least 25. It also has a service contract with HMC, a helicopter maintenance company, for up to 140 hours of maintenance per month. (Additional hours would require a complete renegotiation of the service contract at a much higher cost; thus, Wolfe wishes not to exceed the 140 hours of the contract.)
a. Formulate and solve for the mix of helicopters that would bring Wolfe its maximum monthly profit.
b. Show graphically that there are only five feasible integer solutions. Evaluate the profit of each and verify that the answer to part (a) is correct.
c. What would be Wolfe’s optimal mix of helicopters if it had only $1,799,999 available to purchase helicopters? If Wolfe had only $1,799,999 for the purchase of helicopters, would you “invest” a dollar with Wolfe for a small percentage of the increased profits?