After touring the Robinson Helicopter factory in Torrance, I hopped in a Robinson R22 for a flying lesson with Bruce Cochran at Pacific Coast Helicopters. Before settling down to practicing the maneuvers and emergency procedures necessary for a Commercial rating we embarked on a scenic tour of Los Angeles, starting with a flight 500′ above the beach towards Marina Del Ray. The Class B airspace for LAX extends to the surface at the coast so Bruce called the LAX tower for clearance through the “Bravo” at or below 150′. Normally the FAA encourages pilots to stay 500-1000′ above houses and people but here it is more important to keep the transitioning helicopters below the jets departing LAX and heading out over the Pacific. By the time we got to the Santa Monica pier we were clear of LAX airspace and climbed back up to 500′ and continued up as far as Malibu before heading east toward the New Getty. The conventional altitude for helicopters is 1000-1200′ above sea level here and the New Getty is probably around 800′ MSL. So we were almost looking sideways at the museum and garden. Then we headed over toward downtown and the Los Angeles Cathedral and the new Gehry-designed concert hall, careful to avoid the police helicopters that are on more or less constant patrol in these areas. Heading south from here we again were required to call LAX and ask for a transition southbound over the 110 freeway at 900′. We finished our scenic tour over the Queen Mary in Long Beach before heading back to the Torrance airport for a little practice into winds that were now gusting up to about 20 mph.
I can definitely recommend this excursion for any helicopter student or pilot. Don’t try it solo, however, because you need to talk to so many different air traffic controllers and know so many local landmarks and customs.
[Pacific Coast Helicopters will take non-pilots on the same itinerary as a sightseeing tour. It is certainly fun for getting some perspective on LA freeway traffic. Lots of monster SUVs going nowhere burning premium gas that is now up to $3.10 per gallon in Malibu.]
May I ask a really stupid question? Is it really much fun to do a sight-seeing tour in a helicopter? Aren’t they loud as heck? And, since you do spend a lot of time in Helicopters, aren’t you worried about hearing damage?
Phil, Enjoyed the tour–will there be photos to follow?
And if you have spare time, this avid recumbent cyclist recommends repeating the same tour o’ LA via pedal-power. I’ll bet the recounting of your experiences (sights, sounds, smells, and other sensations) would provide interesting (and non-judgmental) reading for all.
TimD – KILL YOUR SUV should become a very popular bumper sticker. I dumped my ‘little’ pathfinder and picked up a used Kia. I expect to recoup its entire cost in 18months.
But seriously, owning an SUV in the city has got to be the dumbest idea that I have ever heard of.
btw, Phil… What is the rate of fuel consumption on a helicopter??? Can they use alternate fuels?
Just wonderin?
Guys, guys, settle down, you can have your SUVs and the clean air too (warning: plug) Just check out terrapass.com. With a TerraPass you can eliminate the CO2 impact of your car, for as little as $30 a year for a hybrid (yes, they smoke up too) and up to $80 for an SUV of the H2 type. It’s very simple, your money goes to renewable energy or CO2 remission projects on industrial plants that reduce their CO2 emissions in the equivalent amount as your car, which is typically several tons of CO2 a year. So, yes, you can drive your SUV AND remove its CO2 impact, which is all that’s left from the exhausts these days. Cars are typically pretty clean, compared to the CO2 output. The end goal: use good old American ingenuity and market mechanisms to do a social good.
Vele,
You’re forgetting to include the $$/gallon it’s costing us to fight for that oil. Fair’s fair, and as soon as our middle east wars are paid for out of a gas tax, everyone will stop bitching about SUVs.
Michael: Helicopters aren’t any noisier inside than small airplanes. As a pilot one generally wears headsets. I personally hate noise and wear noise-cancelling headsets most of the time (Bose pioneered this category but Telex and Sennheiser make the best current models) and also earplugs. By the time one is done with the earplugs and electronic noise-cancellation I think the overall exposure isn’t any worse than in a car. The reason that you might think helicopters are very noisy is that they typically fly so much lower than planes (a point source’s sound intensity will drop off as the square of the distance from the source) and also it is common to be very close to helicopters as they take off and land, whereas the endpoints of the runways at big airports are usually at least one mile from any terminal or other place where people gather.
David: No photos, sadly. I was flying with the door off so it would have been perfect. But I had my hands full flying the machine and didn’t think to take pix. And of course one wouldn’t want to get sued by Barbara Streisand (she sued the Northern California couple that was documenting coastal development from a Robinson R44).
Gary: An R22 helicopter (as seen coming up out of the train towards the end of the James Bond movie Goldeneye) uses 8-9 gallons per hour of fuel and cruises about 100 mph. So in theory it gets about the same mileage as an SUV. However, the helicopter goes in a straight line and helicopters don’t get stuck in traffic. The SUV in LA traffic, by contrast, probably spends at least half of its time stopped and therefore getting 0 mpg. Most helicopters use Jet-A, which is basically diesel. The cheapest lightest helicopters have piston engines and burn high-octane gasoline. No hope of biodiesel yet. Fewer than 1000 helicopters are shipped to U.S. customers every year (compared to about 2500 small airplanes) so the total fuel consumption is insignificant compared to cars and trucks.
The more time I spend in Southern California the more sensible electric cars seem. A guy stopping by my hotel in Carlsbad talked about his morning commute: 11 miles in 50 minutes. He needs some kind of vehicle that doesn’t consume energy when idling or crawling very slowly, i.e., electric. He certainly doesn’t need a vehicle optimized for travel at a steady 70 mph.
You could always give us a google-sightseeing tour of your trip and mention certain idiosyncrasies or peculiarities you noticed. Here’s the santa Monica Piere:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.008586,-118.494673&spn=0.010664,0.016158&t=k&hl=en
I tried to find a nice picture of LA traffic, but miraculously there seems to be little traffic in these sattelite pics. Anyhow, heres the CHP Headquarters for LA(it’s the blue building):
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.037683,-118.274335&spn=0.005332,0.008079&t=k&hl=en
Of course we’d much rather enjoy the prespective from a helicopter, not to mention Philip’s photography acumen. Perhaps we can still get Philip to take some arial pics of LA for us? I for one request a Philip Greenspun original of my school, UCLA.
Opps, lost my entry. Thank god for strings /dev/mem | grep -4 “Santa Monica”
You could always give us a google-sightseeing tour of your trip and mention certain idiosyncrasies or peculiarities you noticed. Here’s the Santa Monica Piere:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.008586,-118.494673&spn=0.010664,0.016158&t=k&hl=en
I tried to find a nice picture of LA traffic, but miraculously there seems to be little traffic in these sattelite pics. Anyhow, heres the CHP Headquarters for LA(it’s the blue building):
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.037683,-118.274335&spn=0.005332,0.008079&t=k&hl=en
Of course we’d much rather enjoy the prespective from a helicopter, not to mention Philip’s photography acumen. Perhaps we can still get Philip to take some arial pics of LA for us?
An even better flight in the helicopter would be to leave Torrance and head south. You’d get to see Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Crystal Cove, Dana Point, and a lot of other beautiful sights. You can cruise right down the coast without talking to anyone. At 500′, you’d be under the SNA Class C and would be free and clear.
I made this flight in my Skylane and have some pics here:
http://www.rapp.org/url/?D10DKRUY
Philip – You’ve now discovered the number one quality of life issue in LA which is not discussed: helicopter noise. Between the LAPD, the new copters, and Robinson, you’ll find that most people in LA have an extremely negative view of helicopters. Think anyone at the Getty or in Santa Monica appreciated your flight? While airplanes across the country are trying to restrict noise and fighting for airports, helicopters are turning everyone off.
BTW, thought you were going to call or write to take a ride in the DA-40/G1000…