NOVEMBER 24, 2008

Listing some of what we do for Long Islanders

Occasionally journalists, political staffers, or the public will ask us, in the framework of public officials' calls for us to do nothing more specific than make their phones stop ringing with complaints about helicopters flying in the air, "what exactly is ERHC doing to address the concerns of Long Islanders this summer?".

We'll keep this list as up to date as possible, but as you can see, since we are volunteers, we are kind of busy accomplishing the things on this list. Residents of LI might want to compare this list to what their elected representatives have done for them.

To learn more about aviation, airspace, and helicopters, see the exensive FAQs in the "Learn" tab on our other public site, flyneighborly.net

Brief Background: Founded in 1977, incorporated in 1979, ERHC won the first ever Fly Neighborly award from Helicopter Association International in 1982 and has worked with airports around the region and FAA in developing seven versions of helicopter route charts to suit community and efficiency concerns. Airports around the region are satisfied with our members' voluntary participation in their local procedures. Members routinely win plaques at White Plains' annual Spirit of Noise Abatement Awards. ERHC leaders and members have won HAI community service awards five times since 1982's pioneering work.

Continuing our long-standing initiative, in March, 2007, we independently held a community-FAA-operator meeting to address complaints from the 2006 summer season and agreed to voluntarily reduce flights along the "Track" routing north of JFK airport. The air traffic control tower at JFK does not allow helicopters to fly overhead at altitude, as do LGA and EWR. This means helicopters must fly under the airline arrivals to achieve mandatory physical separation for safety. Operators would be happy to fly higher and overhead JFK in order to use the south shore of Long Island, but JFK refuses to allow overflights.

Since last summer alone, our volunteers have spent hundreds of man-hours and plenty of our scarce personal and organizational funds on things like:

Most importantly, pilots, whether members or not, are flying neighborly from NYC to the east end. Our observations of flights to the east end show 80 to 100% compliance with enroute recommendations, and the latest airport-provided preliminary data show 85% compliance with East Hampton Airport's routes and 69% compliance with East Hampton Airport's altitude points-in-space. This is outstanding voluntary participation.
suggested and wrote the Continuing Cooperation and Compliance letter that Senator Charles Schumer tends to take credit for
worked directly with FAA in selecting appropriate points and path for the new North Shore Route, now depicted on version 7 of the NY Helicopter Route Chart
members purchased tickertape signs at heliports to display important messages to flight crews and public in regard to current events and neighborly flying issues
learned enough hypertext markup language (html) and cascading style sheets (css) by reading volunteer-purchased books about volunteer-purchased software to create three web sites
creating flyneighborly.net from scratch; The site includes complaint form and contact information, and a wealth of information for public learning
unique visits increased from 93 in January to 209 in May, were back down to 174 in June
in May, there were 138 views of the complaint page but only 56 of the "Learn" page and 27 of the helicopter FAQ page, indicating 6x more interest in complaining than in learning; in June, this changed to 106 views of the complaint page, 60 at "Learn", 28 helicopter FAQ, which is encouraging
re-created our erhc.org public (this site) and member web sites from scratch; updated daily with professional information and information on this topic as well as others
public site informs about ERHC and current events
members site informs in depth of history, events, news, and provides resources for professional enhancement
both sites combined grew from 257 unique visits in January to 528 in May; 539 in June
main public page viewed 1,064 times in May, members' news page 478 times; 916/419 in June
members site has significantly more content than the public site and is updated daily
published three newsletters emphasizing LI neighborly flying
devoted significant time to the topic at annual meeting in 2007 and two subsequent general meetings, to the exclusion of other important reports on current activities, total attendance approximately 175
conducted a special meeting of the primary East End operators among our members in January
spent many hours writing to news reporters off the record with corrections to their articles reporting on legislative leaders' misinformation they published, attempting to correct the public record
were not given sufficient advance notice to participate in Sen. Schumer's April news conference, but we did submit a news release which never made its way into print
sought detailed information from legislative offices about complaints received so we can better track and address them, but none has been provided
spent hours writing a detailed rebuttal to Sen. Schumer's news release from his late-May news conference, with no apparent effect, as a similarly flagrant, false, and misleading news release was issued on July 1
issued a press release to news media, inviting them to meet to review and correct misleading information that politicians routinely get published, so that the public's expectations can be better informed. Alas, no news media responded to our call to correct the record
spent an hour (offered as much time as needed) briefing staff at Sen. Schumer's district office and on aviation and airspace in general, as well as the unique environment of helicopter operations, but the subsequent July 1 news release betrayed our good will effort to bring facts to public discourse for the benefit of all Long Islanders
offered free aviation information briefings by volunteers on their days off to Rep. Bishop's staff, but the offer has not been accepted yet;
established a database and tracking methodology for complaints we receive directly from public (311 system reports have almost no useful information in them and are not received weekly as advertised originally); published map links to results on member web pages
publish Gabreski and East Hampton's statistical reports on our member web pages
publish East Hampton's Voluntary Noise Abatement Procedure graphic and operations memorandum on our members web site, at no cost to East Hampton airport, which does not have a web site
process, separate, distribute East Hampton airport's weekly helicopter tracking reports directly to identifiable operators, at not cost to East Hampton airport, whose staff does not have time to fullfil this pledge
publish/disseminate Town of North Hempstead/Nassau County 311 call locations, and plot towns, county, and town on online map for pilots to reference
identify operators, contact, and discuss with them, non-compliant East Hampton flights
actively identifying and contacting helicopter operators (non-members) on LI with a discussion of the issue (we believe we have reached all training operations and public service operators);
regular communication and meetings with legislative staffs, airport officials, and FAA from Region Administrator on down;
meeting with Mayor of Southampton Village to clarify recent local law amendments and encourage them to properly publish their information
worked with the Mayor to get new hours, fees, procedures published to our members, published his letter to pilots on our web site as well as FAQs and other information in the spirit of good will at no cost to Southampton
meeting with East Hampton Town Supervisor, pledged to follow up non-compliant flights, and to provide, at no cost, research into best practices for helicopter passenger loading and to facilitate training of East Hampton line service crews, who handle luggage and passengers, to enhance safety at the field; a Regular member has volunteered to provide line crew air transportation for this effort
a Regular member provided free flights to East Hampton staff and an airport critic, providing orientation on the pilot's point of view of the routes, as well as identifying errors in the AirScene flight corridor depictions, thus enhancing the accuracy of their analysis of route compliance
Special Advisor has participated in 28 meetings/site visits representing ERHC, conducted numerous news media interviews, participated in numerous public meetings on helicopter topics
processing complaints that come in from web sites and phone calls (data collection/return calls & email, site visits--Robert Grotell is handling much of this and it's very time consuming)
established a new, toll-free phone line for public complaints in May
study flights from NYC to mid-Suffolk county for compliance with procedures
collect weather report data to help analyze observed flight data
compare complaints with observed flights to determine balance
virtually eliminated complaints from LI's south shore, by flying the highest available routes to the north
worked with FAA Safety Team to get a postcard and email mailing out to 2,300 pilots in the region about the importance of neighborly flying
challenging airport managers to implement specific suggestions to raise the bar region wide among airports for better noise abatement procedure information in the Airport/Facilites Directory
facilitated development and distribution of Gabreski's new voluntary noise abatement routes
distributed Helicopter Association International Fly Neighborly Guides and training videos, the worldwide industry best practices standard, at three membership meetings
distributed HAI's "Helicopters: A Day in the Life" video to legislators, staffs, and members at no cost
purchased access to proprietary radar data in order to provide accurate, responsive feedback to complainants as well as to collect factual data for discussions
sought news coverage, in trade and general media, of positive side of helicopter industry
sought support of politicians
sought support of helicopter users
sought support of manufacturers
sought support of other aviation trade groups
brought factual, expert information to many, many discussions and written communications

A small sample of efforts in other areas:

worked closely with the Teterboro NJ Noise Abatement Officer to better assess helicopter flights at that field, and review the routes there; member donated a flight for him along all the routes; ERHC attended community meetings (TANAAC) on the topic of area noise abatement efforts
participated in 3rd annual heliport safety preparedness drill in Manhattan, with NJ State Police and a EMS helicopter from NJ donating their time and personnel for professional education (also participating was FDNY, attendees included FAA and President of HAI among many others)
maintained great relationships with Air Traffic Control, FAA administratively, airport managers, noise abatement officers around the region (call any and ask what they think of ERHC and how our members fly their voluntary routes)
maintain a list of volunteer emergency responders who will fly their aircraft in support of regional emergencies, similar to HAI's national program. Our program is to be featured at an upcoming national Search and Rescue Symposium in September, organized by Rotor & Wing magazine.

Learn more about ERHC at the "About" link at the top of the page.