Destination: New York : The Ultimate Whirlwind Tour

The foreign tourists come in the daytime and the couples come at night. They all want to see the Big Apple from on high, even if it costs them $6.17 each minute.

The 12-minute, $74 helicopter flight is the most popular excursion offered by Liberty Helicopter Tours, one of two tour operators in Manhattan.

New York City is the third most popular site for helicopter tours, behind the Grand Canyon and the Hawaiian Islands, according to a 1992 survey conducted by Helicopter Assn. International, a trade group based in Alexandria, Va. In 1992, Liberty and its competitor, Island Helicopter, flew 123,000 people on city tours.

Despite high prices and short flights, foreign tourists and a few New Yorkers have flocked to these helicopter tours. What do they get for their money and why are they willing to spend? A look at Liberty provides some answers.

The company’s $74 flight begins with Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, southern Manhattan’s looming skyscrapers and Battery Park. The helicopter then flies over Wall Street and up the East Side. Before heading back to Liberty’s helipad on the Hudson River, it curves around the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in order to zoom over and up Central Park.

“I’m quite interested in seeing the city from the air,” said Carl Miller, a British tourist who earlier in the day had proposed to Joanne Eaton, also from Britain, at the top of the Statue of Liberty. “I’ve never been in a helicopter.”

In Liberty’s tours, two people sit in front with the pilot and four people sit in the back. A ride in one of the company’s four helicopters is a noisy extravagance because of the loud whir from the helicopter’s rapidly rotating overhead blades.

Like small airplanes, helicopters shake slightly on a windy day. Rudy Ioppolo, Liberty’s general manager, said the company has never had an accident since it opened in September, 1990.

Although Liberty’s employees say that night tours are far better, Ioppolo said foreign tourists prefer to come during the day because it is easier to take pictures and because they want to see Broadway shows at night.

He said more couples come after dark because night tours are romantic.

The city glitters at night, with its million sparkling yellow and white lights and lit-up windows. New Jersey’s ports look far more enchanting in the dark.

“It was great,” said Victoria Sanger, who took a night tour with her boyfriend. “It makes you proud to be a New Yorker.”