Helicopter Flights Over Hawaii Petition

[snowflake_808]

i signed it

[Ilan]

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkP

I frequent HPP and other areas of Puna a lot. I won't be signing this petition. I just don't think it is that bad. Admittedly I am a pilot and am biased.

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I just found this post which is almost a year old but I would like to repsond to "MarkP", the pilot. You have NO IDEA just how BAD it really is for those of us unlucky enough to live in the flight path of these tour companies. Imagine 28 helicopters flying LOW over your house in less than three hours. Imagine having this continue ALL DAY, ALMOST EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK. Yes, you are biased because you don't want to believe that you or your fellow pilots are causing so much misery but the fact is YOU ARE. And if you continue to in your present "business as usual" mode of operating, you are perpetuating the misery of a lot of people and are a very large part of the problem. By not signing, you are saying you don't care how your actions affect others as long as it doesn't bother you. Shame on you.

[Carey]

Bring this forward due to a statement by the helicopter pilot that had a crash landing in Honolulu:
The pilot was grateful she was flying at '3,000 feet above ground, as it gave her a lot of time to plan the descent' Trib Herald A10

I have often commented on my concern for the low flying helicopters flying over homes & schools in our area...each of those helicopters means money, but could also mean disaster, if a failure happened at a low flying altitude over our schools...

Each & every day, these tour pilots have made the choice to fly low over homes and schools.... choosing AGAINST safety of those below.... and choosing against having that extra time to plan a descent....

[mary blonde]

Quote: You can walk on the lava. You can't walk on the water. Helicopters can autorotate to a successful vertical landing if they lose their engine.

Like they did on Oahu yesterday?
Lucky there wasn't much traffic or that student wasn't in his car when it was hit.

A friend came from the Mainland a few years ago & wanted to see the lava via helecopter. I wouldn't go but my boyfriend did. He took pics the whole way. I got a lot of really nice photos of my house in HPP/ 12th. He was told that was their regular flight path. He asked them why they don't fly over the ocean. Answer: Takes longer & uses more fuel.
So we have major inconvenience so the tour companies can save a little time and fuel. Sound fair to you?

[MarkP]

Yes. EXACTLY like happened on Oahu yesterday. Couldn't ask for a better example.

Fatal care accidents are a regular thing, about a dozen in Hawaii so far this year. Not saying you would be lucky to have a helicopter fall out of the sky on top of you, but going strictly by the anecdotal evidence of this particular crash, you would be less unlucky than having one of our fellow drivers hit you.

[Carey]

Mark, so glad that you endorse the Oahu example yesterday...that would mean that ALL HELICOPTERS FLY AT A MINIMUM OF 3,000Ft FOR SAFETY, just like in Oahu yesterday....

[MarkP]

I guess it is the difference in perspective between a pilot and a non-pilot. It's not the long fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end. I am not disputing that altitude is good, but in the case of the helicopter landing in downtown I guarantee you that she would have traded 3,000 feet over downtown Honolulu for 1,000 feet over puna any day. I say this because there seems to be this fanatical concern that if something goes wrong the pilot will feel compelled to dive his aircraft into the nearest occupied schoolbus. It is a standing joke among the aviation community that when the WWII fighter ace in a Hollywood movie can't find the carrier due to cloud cover and the necessity of radio silence and he runs out of gas, he immediately goes into a screaming power dive as though the wings have fallen off, culminating in a huge fireball fueled by all that gas he just ran out of. Whenever anything is going wrong the stick seems to come alive as though possessed and the pilot has to heroically fight it with both arms in a manner that a real pilot would never ever do.

When you run out of gas or lose your engine you're probably going to crash but that doesn't mean anyone needs to die. You crash as gracefully as you can and aim it between the trees. Fly it as far into the crash as you can. The first thing you do is try to pick the most open spot with the least obstacles and of course the fewest people. Obviously the higher you are the more spots are available but unless you have infinite altitude you can only glide so far. If you can't glide far enough then any extra altitude only gives you more time to think, which is always good but doesn't compare to simply having a good landing spot in front of you. I have had dozens of rope breaks at 500 feet or less and none of them were very scary because I had already planned what I was going to do. I have been more scared when I have gotten low a long ways from the airfield. I am not saying that altitude is bad. Obviously all else being equal it is good. What is getting me riled is a seeming lack of consistency, a tendency to mix and match risks and hazards in order to make the best case for one's particular argument. Making a dead stick landing in downtown Honolulu is something like, I dunno, 100 times more dangerous than a similar situation over most of Puna. Using weird math as seems to be all the rage in these arguments I would argue that if 3,000' is a safe altitude over Honolulu then 3,000'/100=30' would be safe over Puna. Yeah, that's stupid. What is safe varies second by second as the countryside rolls by underneath you. Over Honolulu, 10,000' in a helicopter would have allowed her to crash much more gracefully at Punchbowl, Tripler, Kapiolani Park, or maybe the Kahala Mandarin or Ala Wai golf courses. 3,000' got her to where she crashed between parked cars. Of course she was glad to have it and would have welcomed more but almost no amount of altitude would make up for having to land in downtown unless it was enough to get you PAST downtown. This link http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/Vol...-N789N.htm talks about how the guys that wound up in the crater didn't make it home either but still survived.

I have gone off on a rant that I will undoubtedly regret in which I have challenged the ancient wisdom of all aviation that altitude = safety. However I have seen people do stupid stuff and feel good about it because they read it in a book, hence my negative reaction to people without ANY experience making grand pronouncements about what pilots should do. My honest reaction upon reading that a helicopter was able to land in downtown Honolulu where 90% of the ground is covered with people, vehicles, and buildings without anyone dying was that it would put to rest some of the concerns of Puna residents that falling helicopters will steer clear of the 90% of Puna that is not people, vehicles, or houses and instead home in on their living room. No, it turns out that pilots are not suicidal. As for the 3,000' that that particular pilot was flying at vs the 1,500' minimum that most helicopter pilots generally fly at when they have innocent children riding in the back, the manual says that the best glide ratio of a Robinson R-22 is 4.5 to 1. Keeping in mind that when the surrounding high-rises are 400' tall you only have about 2,500' to glide sideways with, even less really since you should have your spot picked with a few hundred feet to spare, a direct comparison with an open lava field is laughable.

When I was learning to fly 34 years ago a farmer a couple of miles from our little grass strip insisted that the gliders were making low passes between his barn and silo. I can't imagine how he was able to convince himself of that but the human imagination is a powerful thing when unfettered.

[Carey]

Mark, You do seem to agree with me, but don't seem to want to... I have been alarmed at the low flying over the Keaau Schools...there are 5 schools & a senior Living Center all on less that a 1 mile radius...this is NOT the place to fly low, esp right over the schools, but many of the pilots have these schools on their "routine" flight paths... hundreds of over flights (one out, one in) every week....


Yes, the odds of one flight having trouble is very very low... but the more flights, the more you increase the odds of a helicopter problem

Now add helicopters going over the area with 5 schools (not just one), & the lower altitudes that these pilot have chosen to fly and the potential of a very rare event going worse also increases.... sorry it is just math & actuarial science.... if it IS safer to flying at a higher altitude, then YES these guys should be flying higher...

Maybe not over low population jungle Puna, but YES. over schools & senior centers...that IS what is expected, that we strive to protect these areas from harm...

[kalakoa]

See figure 1: "job creator/tax revenue".

Flights will continue until there's a horrible crash that claims several lives. Then, flights will stop while the legislature acts concerned; any bills introduced to "solve the problem" will either die in committee or be enacted with a short sunset.

Public memory is short, even with a tragedy, so flights will resume within a few months, possibly longer if the crash involves schoolchildren.

Lather, rinse, repeat...

[Frank]

aloha MarkP...your keen on flying, couple of questions i hope you will be able to answer...1. any idea of the glide ratio for the tour hilos and if so, 2. what is the possibility of a stricken hilo to make shore if it were flying 1/4 mi. (approx 400yds) out from shore at 3000 ft., useing a controlled decent? the tour hilos presently fly approx 1/4 mi. inland from shore very frequently.

adding 1 mile (1/4 out from hilo airport, 1/4 in between pohoa and kapoho), you get the idea, how many dollars would be added to the operating expense of these birds? again, these birds fly this route very frequently (that is, approx 1/4 mi. inland from shore).

suggestion...add the additional cost to the price of a ticket. tha state will love it! more get taxes from those tourists. thanks