Hearts Aflutter Cause a Yearly Valentine’s Day Flap for Residents Below : Flights: Helicopters offering romantic rides are asked to stay on the official routes at Van Nuys Airport.

On Valentine’s Day, love is in the air. So are helicopters. And that, say residents living near Van Nuys Airport, is the problem.

Enticed by ads promising romantic nighttime views of a city twinkling with lights, many lovers hire helicopters for tours as Feb. 14 approaches. When the big day finally arrives, dozens of couples take flight.

One helicopter operator even admits, “Valentine night tends to be a nightmare in the sky.”

And on the ground.

“Last year was really bad,” said Van Nuys resident Prudy Schultz. “Every three to five minutes, one was overhead. It was horrible. It started about 7 p.m. and it went until midnight.”

This year, however, Schultz and her husband, Don, hope to enjoy a quiet Valentine’s Day.

Schultz wrote a letter to airport officials asking them to advise helicopter pilots to cut down on the noise by keeping to the official flight paths.

“I took the bull by the horns,” said Schultz, who with her husband organized the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Committee 10 years ago. It was launched, in part, because of the annual Valentine’s Day tours. “I called over there and asked if they would contact the operators and tell them to fly neighborly, and fly the recommended routes.”

So recently the airport sent pilots a big, hot pink Valentine’s Day card, asking them to use designated departure and arrival routes, which are designed to steer air traffic away from residences. On the back of the flyer is an airport map indicating the preferred routes, such as busy Saticoy Street, nearby railroad tracks and Bull Creek, which empties into the Los Angeles River.

Nigel Turner, owner of Heli USA, one of the region’s largest helicopter companies, said his company will abide by the noise-control rules and blamed independent chopper pilots for making Valentine’s Day a headache for residents near the airport.

“There are legitimate companies that do this all the time, and then there are companies that don’t normally do this and are just out to make money this one day,” Turner said. “Any helicopter owner that can get work will do tours on Valentine’s Day.”

Turner will have three helicopters flying up to 200 people today and tonight, an average of about 25 chopper flights, each carrying two couples. He said his operators fly high, at an altitude of 800 feet. They will start at 11 this morning and stop about 10:15 p.m.

Turner’s Santa Monica-based company, like many helicopter firms, is offering a Valentine’s Day special.

For $99 per person, lovebirds share brunch or dinner at 94th Aero Squadron restaurant at Van Nuys Airport, followed by a limousine ride to the helicopter pad, later to be whisked away on a romantic 20-minute tour of the Santa Monica Mountains and the coastline.

Airport officials said they have advised pilots to follow the established routes even though they did not view Valentine’s Day as causing a significant noise problem. Last year, spokesperson Stacy Geere said, the airport received two complaints, and one was about a police helicopter.

Schultz said many residents no longer bother calling to complain because it seems to do little good.

But Valentine’s Day noise is definitely a concern of her group, she said. Schultz added that one year she counted 27 flights over her house about a mile from the airport.

One helicopter company assures Valley residents that they won’t have to worry about its pilots buzzing Chatsworth and Reseda. Dick Hart, president of National Helicopter, said his pilots will head to downtown Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Marina del Rey and Topanga Canyon.

“We get people who want to see the city,” he said. “Who wants to look at the Valley? It’s pretty ugly from the air.”