At least commercial drones won’t be deafening.........hopefully....
I’ve told this before, but for you newbies, I had an FAA Investigator from Honolulu come to my house in Hilo, Hawaii, to investigate my complaint about constant low-flying helicopters. Nice guy, he told me (off the record), The Helicopter Association International lobbying group, has a seat at the FAA table for any proposed flight rule changes. The system is rigged. Unless there are specific exceptions for specific areas (very rare), helicopters have no minimum altitude. The rules are very loose.... a verbatim quote:
"A helicopter could legally fly down your street at 10' AGL, and be perfectly legal unless 'the flight endangered life or property'. ”
That's truly the bottomline. It’s written somewhere, buried deep from public review. It doesn’t matter if it’s commercial, police or emergency services. Unless there‘s a specific FAA exception, they really can fly as low, loud, and frequently as they desire. The only exception is VFR’s apply. If it’s stormy, only non-commercial can fly. As far as area restrictions— the only ones I know of as of 2016, are Crater Lake NP in Oregon (Or. Senators got a bill passed in the dead of night to ban Helo’s from Oregon’s NP’s). NYC cut them by 50%, and LA can’t figure out what to do (about anything, really, LOL). Rich folks in the Hampton’s told NY Senator Schumer they were tired of low, loud Helo’s overflying their summer retreats. If the Senator wanted the contributions to keep flowing, deal with it ASAP. Without a single hearing, the Senate Minority Leader forced Helo’s to fly higher and further off-shore. The reason stated by the FAA mandate was “noise abatement“. So, I tried to cut and paste that enacted FAA rule to Hawaii Island. You’d think I joined Al Queda. My small band of rebel home owners were attacked by every union, politician & business leader on the Island. Even my neighbor, Hawaii County mayor Harry Kim (a good guy), sided with the helicopters, even though they were flying directly over his house everyday too. Unions contribute..........
The single loudest devices allowed in public outside an airport‘s 5 mile perimeter zone are helicopters. So loud — if the same device was on the ground, it would violate 95% of the noise regulations world-wide. The vast majority of low, loud helicopters we all experience, are commercial-based, not police, military or EMT. They could all fly higher. It’s more fuel, more time, longer turnaround times. That’s their bottomline — but they deflect these facts, hiding behind police/fire/EMT accessibility/versatility. They lobby hard, and are in the driver’s seat, so the public suffers...
