5 ms·

I'm an LA resident and there's not many kinds of businesses I think should be categorically banned, but helicopter transit is one of them. It's a public nuisanc

I'm an LA resident and there's not many kinds of businesses I think should be categorically banned, but helicopter transit is one of them. It's a public nuisance. I will regularly need to interrupt phone conversations to let a helicopter pass over, which is sometimes impossible when they decide to hover (though this is usually police helicopters).

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
The rest of the country gets by without lookie-loos enraptured by the latest highway chase.
- cafard 7y ago
  Hah. Trying living in much of the Washington, DC area. The notion of a highway chase is mostly ridiculous here, but one has plenty of VIPs hurrying about by helicopter, and now and police searches.
jngreenlee 7y ago
Marketing idea...embrace it, offer free branded earplugs!
jMyles 7y ago
> (though this is usually police helicopters) I was astounded at the frequency, low altitude, and cacophony of police helicopter missions in Fresno when I spent about 6 weeks at @dmpayton's house. Like, WTF. It feels like they just want to remind you that they exist every couple hours. They were frequently low enough to be deafening or painful to the ears. On several occasions, I was able to feel the ground effect. One of them was so low (I estimate, based on my fairly humble amount of experience at drone flights, that it was around 80-100ft, perhaps briefly even lower than that) that it blew all of the leaves off of a tree (this was in November, when they had already turned). The next morning a bunch of neighborhood kids had a ball playing in the enormous pile of fresh crunchy leaves. I'm confident that the number of helicopter missions in Fresno can be reduced by 95% with no noticeable impact on public safety.
jessriedel 7y ago
It would be better to set a price per minute, depending on decibels and population density of the area.
- evanlivingston 7y ago
  Why would that be better?
  - gbear605 7y ago
    Suppose that there is a helicopter overhead that you (and the five thousand people around you) would pay a dollar to get rid of. If you tax that flight $5000 and distribute it to the 5000 people who could hear that helicopter, then you get that dollar and you're just as happy as if that flight didn't exist. If you tax that flight $10,000, and distribute it to the 5000 people, then you get two dollars, making you happier than in the scenario where the flight didn't take place. Obviously, it's impossible to give that money to the people who heard the helicopter, but if you amortize all the flights in the area (say, all of LA) over all the people who live there, and reduce their taxes by that amount, then financially it works out the same. That still leaves some problems (complexity in setting a new tax on helicopter flights, differing value on not-having-helicopter-flights, difficulty of estimation, and so on), and many people want to discourage the mentality of "you can throw money at a problem to get rid of it", but conceptually it seems plausible for taxing the flight to be better than banning it entirely.
    - ryacko 7y ago
      That already exists, housing will cost less near airports, which in turn reduces property taxes or rents for people living near the airport.
    - holy_city 7y ago
      See I don't like this attitude towards tax incentives because you're missing the tree for the woods. This solution pays me for my inconvenience. It doesn't prevent the inconvenience in the first place or from happening again.
aeternum 7y ago
Many motorcycles are even louder, regularly setting off car alarms and we don't do anything about those.

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago

The rest of the country gets by without lookie-loos enraptured by the latest highway chase.

cafard 7y ago
Hah. Trying living in much of the Washington, DC area. The notion of a highway chase is mostly ridiculous here, but one has plenty of VIPs hurrying about by helicopter, and now and police searches.

jngreenlee 7y ago

Marketing idea...embrace it, offer free branded earplugs!

jMyles 7y ago

> (though this is usually police helicopters) I was astounded at the frequency, low altitude, and cacophony of police helicopter missions in Fresno when I spent about 6 weeks at @dmpayton's house. Like, WTF. It feels like they just want to remind you that they exist every couple hours. They were frequently low enough to be deafening or painful to the ears. On several occasions, I was able to feel the ground effect. One of them was so low (I estimate, based on my fairly humble amount of experience at drone flights, that it was around 80-100ft, perhaps briefly even lower than that) that it blew all of the leaves off of a tree (this was in November, when they had already turned). The next morning a bunch of neighborhood kids had a ball playing in the enormous pile of fresh crunchy leaves. I'm confident that the number of helicopter missions in Fresno can be reduced by 95% with no noticeable impact on public safety.

jessriedel 7y ago

It would be better to set a price per minute, depending on decibels and population density of the area.

evanlivingston 7y ago
Why would that be better?
- gbear605 7y ago
  Suppose that there is a helicopter overhead that you (and the five thousand people around you) would pay a dollar to get rid of. If you tax that flight $5000 and distribute it to the 5000 people who could hear that helicopter, then you get that dollar and you're just as happy as if that flight didn't exist. If you tax that flight $10,000, and distribute it to the 5000 people, then you get two dollars, making you happier than in the scenario where the flight didn't take place. Obviously, it's impossible to give that money to the people who heard the helicopter, but if you amortize all the flights in the area (say, all of LA) over all the people who live there, and reduce their taxes by that amount, then financially it works out the same. That still leaves some problems (complexity in setting a new tax on helicopter flights, differing value on not-having-helicopter-flights, difficulty of estimation, and so on), and many people want to discourage the mentality of "you can throw money at a problem to get rid of it", but conceptually it seems plausible for taxing the flight to be better than banning it entirely.
  - ryacko 7y ago
    That already exists, housing will cost less near airports, which in turn reduces property taxes or rents for people living near the airport.
  - holy_city 7y ago
    See I don't like this attitude towards tax incentives because you're missing the tree for the woods. This solution pays me for my inconvenience. It doesn't prevent the inconvenience in the first place or from happening again.

aeternum 7y ago

Many motorcycles are even louder, regularly setting off car alarms and we don't do anything about those.