The Real Buzz on Helicopter Noise : It may be a nuisance, but it’s not an FAA safety issue

The list of those seeking a 1,000-foot minimum altitude for non-emergency helicopter flights over populated areas near Van Nuys Airport now reads like “Who’s Who in Local Politics.”

Mayor Richard Riordan, for example, threw his hat into the ring recently when he wrote the following in a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration: “The City of Los Angeles consistently receives complaints by residents who are awakened and disturbed by both early morning and low-altitude sight-seeing flights. In some instances, these interruptions make it impossible for residents to perform their normal daily activities.”

The issue in terms of complaints, therefore, is one of noise and its associated irritations. And the list of those politicians who have gotten an earful of it from constituents include U.S. Reps. Anthony C. Beilenson, Howard L. Berman, and Henry A. Waxman; state Sens. Herschel Rosenthal, Tom Hayden, Ralph Dills, and David A. Roberti; Assembly members Burt Margolin, Barbara Friedman, Terry B. Friedman, and Richard Katz, and Los Angeles City Council members Joel Wachs, Marvin Braude, and Laura Chick; as well as Council President John Ferraro and Supervisor-elect Zev Yaroslavsky.

All of the aforementioned public servants are on the passenger list for the 1,000-foot minimum requirement.

There’s just one slight problem. The FAA doesn’t alter flight patterns purely because of noise. If the elected officials don’t know this, we’re going to do a little explaining. If they do know this, then the time they are wasting with these letters ought to be a little irritating to those constituents.

Currently, there is no altitude minimum for helicopters flying over populated areas from Van Nuys. Why?

Well, according to the FAA experts who do a commendable job of traffic control in our crowded skies, it’s because the helicopters are more maneuverable. If their pilots get into trouble at a low altitude, they can land safely much more easily than the fixed-wing aircraft, which do have to conform to a 1,000-foot minimum.

Van Nuys Airport conducts both general aviation and corporate jet activity, and it is an intensely busy enterprise, with about 550,000 aircraft operations annually. Part of what makes it all work safely is the fact that the helicopter traffic is generally at the lower altitudes. Requiring a 1,000-foot minimum altitude for certain helicopter flights “could create congestion,” with the fixed-wing aircraft near the airport.

Ironically, that could become a safety issue, and that is what usually matters to the FAA.

“We don’t consider noise a safety issue. Safety is what the FAA gets involved with,” said one high ranking, locally based FAA official.

Petitioning or letter-writing to the FAA on noise grounds alone, therefore, figures not to matter very much. In that respect, it is similar to the complaints about the takeoff routes from Burbank Airport. Those routes have nothing to to do with whose neighborhood gets buzzed, and everything to do with a short runway, prevailing winds, and the fact that it would be nice to not have planes crashing into the Verdugo Mountains.

Lowering the noise levels is a reasonable goal, but minimum flight height requirements probably aren’t the way to go about it.