RandomNobody

It's technically called the Helicopter-height velocity diagram. But yes, straight up and down is not as safe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helico...locity_diagram

LarryJ

Operatings in the vicinity of airports is governed by Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations, Parts 91.126 through 91.131. These regulations covers all categories of aircraft as well as both towered and non-towered airports.

https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-id...se14.2.91_1126

Notice the differences were the regulation refers to "aircraft", "airplanes", and "helicopters". Both airplanes and helicopters are aircraft but a helicopter is not an airplane and vis versa.

s0ssos

Wow, didn't know it was that dangerous.

CPRich

Depends on which airspace you're in. Helicopters certainly can't just fly into the restricted approach and landing patterns over an airport. And airplanes can freely fly around unrestricted space without ATC - typically radio/visual communication with other planes. Fly a bush plane in Alaska some time and you'll see.

ArmyFlyer05

There are a lot of different topics going on here.

No a helicopter can't just go anywhere it wants at the airport. There are 3 types of areas at an airport. Non-movement like parking areas, movement areas like taxiways, and runway areas. You can move around a non-movement area without talking to anyone, you talk to ground control in a movement area and tower for the runway area. As a helicopter you can take off from any of these areas with clearance. There are a lot of reasons to choose different ones. For all of the helicopter tours in Hawaii they just take off from parking pads and will fly whatever direction they are going. If you have a large helicopter and do that you will cause some serious damage to some light airplanes parked nearby. I would takeoff from a runway or taxiway if we were heavy or it was hot out as well because you need a running takeoff where you stay in ground effect longer. If you are light you can do a max performance takeoff and just go straight up with a slight forward movement.

When landing it is similar, I would never try and land directly to a pad with other light aircraft around me. Especially if the helicopter was heavy. You would pull a lot of power at the bottom and cause damage. In those cases at very busy airports I would try and land to a taxiway to leave the runway clear.

For flying in NYC, that is class B airspace that encompasses from the ground to 10k MSL. There is a SFRA (special flight restricted area) that encompasses the Hudson River and has multiple sets of rules, reporting points, there own radio frequencies.

TuxTom

Airports have fuel and hangars. Of course, many helicopter operations have their own heliports with their own fuel, but when moving around from place to place you can't just land it at the local gas station and fill er up.

and as explained in a few other posts, VTOL ability is limited so most pilots will follow the flow of fixed wing traffic and take off into the wind, either over the runway or taxi way. It's also more courteous than passing low level directly overhead of adjacent buildings.

s0ssos

Does it depend on the city?
It looks like in NYC you can land basically anywhere:
Manhattan (NYC) Area Heliports & Helipads
And I presume they do more VTOL at these places? Just a skill level thing?

chrisl137

You can't land just anywhere around here (LA County) but there are at least 3 helipads within a few miles of my house.

The fire and rescue choppers around here do a lot of low altitude hovering.

ROCAT

It varies on location but where I work we have a state police helicopter unit and two ANG helicopter units and unless they are shooting an instrument approach they generally do not land on runways. Even on an instrument approach it is rare for them to actually land on the runway and will instead break off the approach on short final. With a helicopters increased mobility it is usually easier to not mix them with fixed wing traffic.

TuxTom

To be clear, I'm not a pilot myself, but I work in helicopters doing aerial surveys so that's where I can draw my experience from. There are local restrictions in many places, but for the most part a pilot can legally put it down where ever they need to. I would say the vertical space needed is as much skill as it is aircraft I haven't flown around NYC myself, but it seems those heliports in the link are all along the water? That would provide similar open space as a taxiway or runway for ascending and descending.

steveo

I ride helicopters quite a bit for work. Usually when we're on land we take off from an airport or atleast some sort of airstrip. Taking off from a small space like an offshore platform is a fascinating experience and not particularly enjoyable. Its not what I would expect, i.e. going straight up. Landing on a strip is similar feeling to landing on a normal plane.

SJWarrior