Quote:
Originally Posted by gramsjdg
Does NYC have a rooftop helipad ban? That's a shame. I guess it figures, I haven't seen a movie since the late '70s showing NYC rooftop helipads being used. I'm guessing only hospital helipads are allowed now?
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Yes they do, ever since the New York Airways PanAm building incident in 1977. I think the FAA grants some exceptions to this ban but only with very special permission. The sorts of helicopters that would ever be open to the general public are simply not allowed to land on manhattan island, period. The only reason any public helicopter tourism companies can remain in business is via a loophole in the regulation: Their helipads are –technically speaking– not actually
on manhattan, but in the rivers
Edit:
It is unfortunate, but helicopters are actually fairly dangerous.. on a purely #of vehicles/#of crashes basis, they crash well over 100x more often than planes. This is likely because of their unholy combination of inability to generate unpowered lift and literally dozens of possible single points of failure. (Theoretically, until you get up to 4 separate rotors, multiplying the number of rotors does not give you any redundancy, it simply doubles or triples the number of possible single points of failure)
Flying cars (which will probably have 4+ rotors) are likely to change all of this, but for now, we are stuck.