Charity Helicopter Rides in a Robinson R44

Charity Airplane Rides in a Robinson R44

with Philip Greenspun

This page explains the offer of a sightseeing helicopter ride in a Robinson R44 with Philip Greenspun, to be auctioned for charity.

What's it like? Listen to a 30-second voicemail message, used by permission, from a friend whom I took up and down the Concord River: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/testimonials/bonnie-helicopter-ride.wav

The Pilot

Your pilot is Philip Greenspun, who holds an FAA Commercial pilot's certificate with instrument, multi-engine, single-engine seaplane, and helicopter ratings. Greenspun has more than 1300 hours of flying experience including trips from Boston to Alaska (twice), Mexico, the Caribbean, Labrador-Newfoundland, and back. Born in 1963, Greenspun studied engineering at MIT, receiving bachelor's, master's, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from that school.

Greenspun is also an FAA-certified flight instructor and teaches airplane flying, instrument flying, and helicopter flying at East Coast Aero Club at Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts.

The Helicopter

We will be flying in a Robinson R44 helicopter. This is a simple modern 4-seat helicopter with excellent visibility through a large Plexiglas bubble. This is the world's best-selling helicopter right now, with about 500 coming off the assembly line in Torrance, California every year. The particular R44 that you'll fly will be purchased factory-new by Greenspun in May 2006 and flown by him back to Boston over a two-week period.

The doors are removable, so if the weather is warm and you want to take good pictures, we can fly with some or all of the four doors removed.

Who does the flying?

The R44 is equipped with dual flight controls. If you want to try your hands and feet on the cyclic, collective, and pedals, we can climb up to a safe altitude and you'll see what it is like to fly a helicopter (hovering is the hardest part, but we can save that for another day). If you're not interested in flying and want to concentrate on taking pictures, we can remove the controls on your side.

When we fly

Wind and mid-day heat produce a lot of turbulence here in New England. So it is best to fly on a day that is forecast to have calm winds. Early mornings are usually the least windy and therefore calmest time of day.

Starting Airports

Greenspun and the Robinson are based at Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford, Massachusetts. This is near the intersection of Rt. 128 (I-95) and Rt. 2, about 15 miles NW of downtown Boston.

Where we go once airborne

Taking off from Hanscom/Bedford it is often possible to get permission to fly right over downtown Cambridge and Boston to take photos. This airspace is owned by Logan Airport and they are generally very accomodating unless unusual winds force them to direct landing airplanes over the city instead of over the water (baseball games at Fenway also interrupt our fun because the sports teams owners used the events of September 11th to obtain a flight restriction that they had been seeking for many years (they didn't want banner-towing airplanes to interfere with their own in-stadium advertising)). During foliage season there are beautiful nearby hills and river valleys. A personal favorite is to fly down the Merrimack River to the beach at Plum Island then fly at 500' over the beach to see the houses and then Cape Ann, including the Crane Mansion, Rockport, and the port of Gloucester.

How many people can fly

There are three empty seats in the R44 but we are limited to about 450 lbs. for passengers and baggage. Usually that means the pilot plus two adults or one adult and two children. One of the ways that the helicopter achieves high speeds and reasonable efficiency is by being very small. The interior is smaller than an old Volkswagen Beetle and is not a comfortable place for for very large people, though a 6'2"-tall person can sit in the front.

Safety

I'm not a daredevil and the Robinson is not certified for aerobatics. We won't be doing loops or any scary abrupt maneuvers. Helicopters have a bad reputation for safety and there is no question that it is safer to sit at home on the sofa than to be flying through the air at 90 miles per hour. Most helicopter accidents are due to bad weather, night flying, flying low and hitting power lines, or trying to land in a friend's backyard where there are a lot of trees and power lines obstructing the approaches. We will be flying during the daytime in good weather and taking off and landing only at airports, which are vast open spaces cleared of obstacles.

To the charity

If the underbid is at least $750, feel free to "split the donation" and sell a second ride to the underbidder. (To be concrete, if Joe Smith is the highest bidder at $750 and Mary Jones is the next highest bidder at $700, you take $750 from Joe and $700 from Mary and I give both of them rides.)

The typical R44 charters out for $450-500 per hour, so you can put down the value of the donation at $450.

Winners can contact me directly via the email address at the bottom of this page or by calling 617-864-6832.

To my fellow pilots and helicopter owners

If you would like to use this page as a model for your own Web site, please feel free to do so with hyperlink credit back to http://philip.greenspun.com.

philg@mit.edu