Helicopter ID

[rainshadow]

Excellent link Carey, - thank you for sharing that.
Here's another one, this one specific to our area. Note the maps of the big island and the color coded keys relating to altitudes for air tours.

http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/fiel...n_proc.pdf

This is the document I am most interested in getting changed, since it defines what air tours can and can't do specifically above my roof.

-- rainshadow

[islandlvng]

I have a document at work I believe signed by the Chief of Police regarding green harvest flight regulations. They are to observe the 1000' limit unless they see plants. I believe there is a paragraph saying at no time under 500' unless actively engaged in the recovery process of plants. I will find it and hopefully it has a link to the site I downloaded it from. We used to regularly not take sales calls on our busiest days when they would be flying low overhead. Could not hear a word anyone was saying over the phone. Usually a monday.

He have called FAA Flight Standards in Oahu, the tower at hilo airport, both times spoke with someone, both confirmed the above law was in place but not followed and get complaints in the hundreds on fly days. And? You guessed it. They took our information and nothing was ever done. The flights continue till this day. If in fact they do log it and those logs could be released to the public, the numbers would be staggering.

I remember 15 years or so ago in lower paradise park seeing my neighbors horses running through our property right after a copter buzzed overhead. Broke right through the 2x6 boards. Was so low and fast you couldnt hear it coming till it cleared the trees and boom. And to this day.............

[dmbwest]

+1 on "And to this day' ending.

Wonder what would happen if you went out and started hurling rocks vertically or 'air' machine gunning them.

aloha,
pog

[rainshadow]

islandlvng - you could likely get the log info through the Freedom of Info Act. Here's a link to the specific FAA request site (which might not be relevant to these specific call logs you reference).
But, sharing, nonetheless...
:~}

Freedom of Information Act request link: http://www.faa.gov/foia/



-- rainshadow

[Carey]

I understand all of the crime stuff & such, but the ONLY time one of those helicopters was harvesting anywhere near here, it was in one of the large landowner lots over a year ago.... & got me thinking.... What grower in their right mind would plant on their own land (I do realize that some of them are NOT in their right mind).... I would guess (this is a wild guess - no facts at all) that most of the harvesting done is on land that is not owned by the grower, and probably a lot of that is vacant "investment" land.... without a caretaker looking after the land.... if so, what is the loss to the grower? a few hundred seeds? What is the loss to the landowner? ARE THEY RESPONSIBLE? ( in the case near our house, I would hardly think that anyone would hold this landowner responsible)

So basically my guess is that most of the harvests are just to weed an absentee or large landowners property, probably at no cost to them for ALLOWING this to occur on their land, and the main cost of a few hundred seeds for the grower, unless they are dumb enough to own the land or be on the property when there is a harvest & get caught....

So how many harvests actually catch someone? How many of these harvests are just weeding operations & truly a benefit for a landowner that is not supervising their property? What is done to a landowner that has repeat weeding on their lands?

Me thinks that most of this is just a way for some pilots & others to get extra money to weed someones lot (I'm gonna even guess that some of them are doing this on overtime...esp. Maui Cty pilots - but again this is JUST a guess, no facts on this that I have been able to find), and of course annoy a lot of people - but we do not count in this!

[Bullwinkle]

Its bigger than that in my opinion - the only way to keep prices up on a commodity is to keep the amount of said commodity scarce.

G.H. does not reduce the number of consumers but it does increase the price.

Which is happily increased by the out of country cartels to adjust to increased demand.

The money flowing into banks from the cartels - help prop up the economy in this time of "Ill Liquidity" IE the governments on the fiat accounting basis supporters are out of cash - the investment banks are happy to help.....

Follow the money - just my 2 cents, you cant stop the DEA following the Feds' orders with out regime change

[rainshadow]

That little yellow chopper that is part of the "annoying crowd"? It comes from here (info via the Mayor's office in Hilo):

Windward Aviation Maui
windward@mauigateway.com
808-877-3368
http://www.windwardaviationmaui.com/index2.php

-- rainshadow

[Carey]

Yep, have a photo of it flying low over the Keaau Inter on Wed... that is how I figured out that it was the Maui F&R.... you can see the back tail lettering easily in the photo & I know OUR counties F&R helicopter markings...so I figured it had to be another counties... ( photo was no zoom, just like I was told when I was talking to the FAA when the little bugger flew over...even the FAA clerk person was amazed at how loud that bird was over the phone.... I told her it was worse here....)

It is better today, seems to be just the normal tour guys up at their non-reverberating altitude.... but when our totally deaf dog "hears" the vibrations & starts going bonkers like on Wed... I know those birds are flying too low!

I do wonder if Bullwinkle has a point - the fact that these law enforcement guys have no qualms about flying sooo obviously GH.... if they really do want to stamp this out, shouldn't they be less obvious?,Esp if they are sooo obvious enroute - this is NOT a shock & awe... where the birds come out of no-where, anyone from Hilo on out can tell these guys are up & flying low! (I would think that they would want to fly higher & less obvious if they really want to "catch the criminals"

[oink]

I don't currently live on island but all this copter talk had me thinking.
I know in my current area there is plenty of open vacant land but it's
not used for grows much. Most all of the grows are indoor. They are fairly
common and pretty sofisticated. I was under the impressi0on that all "quality"
grows were indoor so the females don't get fertilized. Bottom line, copter
overflights for grow detection are few and unnoticable.

As for Hawaii County, in the time I spent there, I wasn't annoyed by copter
overflights, and I spent most of my time in Puna. They weren't even common
enough for me to have remembered them. Maybe I was just lucky.

Trying to make sense of all of the copter posts I've read, I've made some tentative alternative assumptions about possible explanations:

1 Green Harvest

A. The overflights aren't really that frequent or annoying and their benefit
of erradicating illegal grows far outweighs the small annoyance caused by the
overflights. Those leading the outcry against them are mostly growers,
wannabe growers and pot smoking sympathizers with an underlying, unsavory
vested interest in stopping them.

or

B. The overflights are truly annoying and oppressive, but the PD, the DEA and
the County government in general, consider the Puna area (and possibly others)
to be primarily populated by illegal growers, wanabe growers, potheads,
sympathizers or other undesirables for which the afore-mentioned government
organizations have little respect or use. Officials don't consider residents of
the area will ever have enough political clout to be of much concern.
Therefore, as they consider the residents of the area to be primairily
composed of undesirables, many engaged in illegal activity, they have little
concern the overflights are annoying the populace, and may in fact consider
annoying and harrassing the populace to be a legitimate activity akin to
parking a patrol car in front of a drug dealer's house.

2 Commercial Flights

A. The commercial overflights aren't really that annoying and what little
annoyance they cause is far surpassed by the economic benefit they bring
to the County as a whole.

or

B. The commercial overflights are truly annoying and oppressive to the
populace but unfortunately, federal regulations being what they are, there
is little to nothing that can be done.

or

C. The commercial overflights are truly annoying and opressive to the
populace most subjected to them, but that populace has little political
clout. The majority of the residents and leaders of the county see the
flights as a significant economic boost to the county, and as the flights
don't seriously annoy them personally they care little about the suffering
of those that are most subjected to them.

or

D. The commercial overflights are truly annoying and opressive to the
populace most subjected to them (Puna), but that populace has little political
clout and the majority of the populace, including the leaders of the County,
consider the Puna area (and possibly others) to be primarily populated by
illegal growers, wanabe growers, potheads, sympathizers or other undesirables
for which the afore-mentioned majority populace and government, have little
respect or use. Therefore, they don't care how annoyed it makes that undesirable
populace with little clout.

Well, that was my two bits. I obviously haven't setteled on an opinion as of yet. I guess I will after I move there, soon I hope.

Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.

[rainshadow]

There's a lot to address in that post, but I'll leave it, and just be comfortable knowing that I'm part of the 'undesirable populace'. Definitely.

Also, when you do arrive at your opinion, will it include which of the populaces you will belong to when you arrive in Puna?



-- rainshadow