FAA to Put Inspectors on Valley News Helicopters

In response to homeowners’ complaints about helicopter noise from Van Nuys Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration has announced plans to place federal inspectors aboard news helicopters on flights over the San Fernando Valley.

In a letter released Friday, FAA Regional Administrator William C. Withycombe promised “to increase surveillance of aviation activity at Van Nuys” and “to address community concerns, improve awareness and ultimately reduce noise.”

The letter was sent to anti-noise activist Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino. Silver and other homeowner representatives have repeatedly called for measures to reduce the noise impact of helicopters and other aircraft over residential neighborhoods, particularly communities south and southeast of the airport and Sepulveda Basin.

The helicopter ride-along was proposed in April at a meeting of federal authorities and Los Angeles-area helicopter pilots and aviation company executives, FAA spokesman Tim Pile said.

Air traffic reporters and other media pilots “volunteered to have us fly with them to make sure we were comfortable with what they were doing and the hours they were operating,” Pile said.

“We’re not going to just march onto any helicopter we feel like,” he added. “That would not be appropriate.” He called the open invitation by media pilots, however, “a good gesture on their part so that the FAA could observe for themselves how they are conducting their operations.”

Residents have singled out television and radio news helicopters, many of which are based at Van Nuys, as the cause of early morning noise problems. About 40 helicopters, including about a half dozen used by the media, fly out of Van Nuys--more than at any other Southern California airport, federal and city officials said.

Los Angeles airport commissioners in March adopted a resolution urging the FAA to require helicopters to remain grounded between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Currently, helicopter flights are unrestricted and some news and air traffic pilots regularly take off between 5:30 and 6 a.m.

Bob Pettee, veteran television news pilot-reporter and president of the Professional Helicopter Pilots Assn., said such a curfew could severely handicap media operations.

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News and air traffic helicopters are crucial to “providing information to hundreds of thousands of people throughout Southern California,” Pettee said. “They don’t just hang around Van Nuys and buzz over people’s homes. They take off and they go away, to wherever the news is.”

The FAA letter to Silver also indicates federal officials are considering ways to track noise caused by helicopters, as opposed to fixed-wing aircraft. Silver said he is most encouraged by that proposal because he hopes it would help identify pilots who cause the worst noise problems.

“It’s like kids in school,” Silver said, “once you start getting names on a seating chart, they start to behave.”

But FAA officials said the proposed new radar system, expected to be implemented in August, will only detect the difference between helicopters and small planes without identifying specific aircraft.