A Plague of Helicopters In New York | Hacker News Reader

A Plague of Helicopters In New York

nytimes.com

45 pointsprostoalex66 comments

> And if the impact on the environment and on quality of life aren’t enough to spur action, consider the security risks. Each day, hundreds of tourists are recruited off the street, whisked past a light security “wanding,” with no X-ray machine or background check, and loaded onto an idling helicopter with no barrier between passenger and pilot. These helicopters then fly within 1,000 feet of the most densely populated urban area in the country.

Seriously, can we please stop abusing "terrorism fear" in each and every discussion? This is precisely what terrorists want.

I don't think they personally believe this, rather they are using it as a way to further their agenda which is to reduce helicopters in the air. Basically it's an opportunistic excuse.

This is important and largely true. There is, occasionally, a real terrorist threat. I personally am maybe too cynical and tune most shit like this out as utter bullshit. So we are creating a boy who cried wolf problem in addition to anti-factual fear mongering.

Agreed. The chance of terrorism is very small...

Although, I think it's just a matter of time until there is some kind of accident that'll bring a lot more focus onto the industry.

Back in 2009 there was a midair collision [1] between a tour helicopter and a private plane which sadly killed 9 people. If I remember right, there was some simple steps done to try to improve safety in the Hudson corridor, but nothing that really slowed down the growth of the industry.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Hudson_River_mid-air_coll...

There was a single aircraft tourist flight crash with fatalities in 2011 as well:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/sydney-woman-dead-after-chopper-...

(Which I only know about because one of the passengers ran a great tapas bar just up the street from my place...)

We could also stop the "this is what terrorists want". They usually want a caliphate or an independent Northern Elbonia, not scare you into avoiding tourist attractions.

They want you to be afraid. Without fear, terrorism is a useless military strategy.

Without fear terrorism is a perfectly serviceable strategy. All terrorists need to do is create enough disruption to make it cheaper to give them what they want. IRA would often issue warnings about their attacks.

> All terrorists need to do is create enough disruption to make it cheaper to give them what they want.

They won't get what they want because of something that happened, but rather because of the fear of it happening again. So yes, fear.

How about the thousands of uninspected cargo containers arriving every day?

Why would someone bother with a helicopter when they can just ship in a dirty bomb?

Deleted comment

> Can you cite this claim?

The very definition of the word "terrorism". Terrorists want to spread fear of terrorists and make us change our lives, abandon our freedoms.

And when I look at the "security" which has creeped into all our lives... mass surveillance, the TSA, anti-"money laundering" laws, free-range racists running up and down through our countries spreading anti-Muslim hate... we are tearing down our foundations of society because we are afraid of... what exactly?

The down-voted and deleted parent asked for evidence of the claim that "this is precisely what terrorists want." This post and the two others replying to it are playing word games. "Terrorists" is a term that's commonly used to refer to specific groups of people, almost none of whom have as their primary objective to "spread fear of terrorists and make us change our lives, abandon our freedoms."

Most of the legitimate concern over terrorism is fear of WMD use. If you estimate the odds of such an event are low by looking at the frequency of terrorist deaths in the past, you're doing it wrong.

Ah yes, the direct link between WMDs and tourist helicopters. It makes sense now.

I didn't get the sense that we were discussing the helicopter threat in this subthread.

Yes but those we call terrorists are more like upstart colonialist mercenaries and don't care about any of that. They only care about the opportunities our military response affords them.

Terrorism is a propaganda word used by the bigger powers precisely because it has misleading connotations.

> Yes but those we call terrorists are more like upstart colonialist mercenaries and don't care about any of that

Problem is: the fucking ISIS men on the ground believe that they are doing good for Allah. They don't listen to reason.

And US/Soviet troops believed they were in Afghanistan/Iraq to liberate, plant trees and help locals.

In reality they were enforcing a colonial order https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvZRsdHgxgA and the locals are fighting back in an attempt to secure power locally, not give it away to foreign masters and watch them grow more powerful as a result.

We in the West must ultimately favor our own victory in such matters. The main reason ISIS must listen to is the West can't tolerate their insubordination, culturally and economically. It upsets the capitalist global order. We won't have enough trade with territories that chose not to develop economically in order to preserve old customs or prioritize local economies above ours.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism

"In its broadest sense, terrorism is any act designed to cause terror."

I spent a couple of months in NY and NJ, right on the Hudson, just this last year, Oct-> Dec. I was blown away at the amount of helicopter traffic. If you're in NJ, there's a beautiful public area running roughly from West NY down to Weehawken. Monuments to military figures, veterans in general, the dueling grounds where Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton fought, all on cliffs overlooking the Hudson with exquisite views of Manhattan (better imho than from Manhattan to NJ). I used to go walking there everyday. And everyday, the entire time, helicopters were buzzing up and down the Hudson. It was surreal. I wish I could capture how surreal it was. You might come away from that article with a bit of schadenfreude, "NY and noise, shocking" or "bourgeois complain of noise, news at 11" but seriously, it is insane how constant the helicopters are. And I'm from a small Texas town with two airports where it seems that everyone who breaks into the millionaire class is contractually obligated to buy a Cessna or a Piper.

Same with Governors Island. You can't use the entire eastern side to relax because the helicopters are going nonstop. It's infuriating!

The technology to make quiet helicopters has been around for a long time.[0] Unfortunately its military utility seems to have prevented it from being apllied in commercial aviation until recently. That said, the commercial sector is making progress.[1]

If NYC implemented some sort of noise reduction regime and/or retrofit program it would help. Whatever they have now probably isn't aggressive enough.

>Each day, hundreds of tourists are recruited off the street, whisked past a light security “wanding,” with no X-ray machine or background check, and loaded onto an idling helicopter with no barrier between passenger and pilot.

The author must have taken that scene in The Dictator to heart.[2]

Seriously though, doing some invasive TSA-style searches won't help; all bad actors need in that situation is their bodies. The best defense in this case is the instincts of the pilots.

[0] https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-cia-built-a-special-hel...

[1] http://www.wired.com/2010/02/eurocopter-moves-one-step-close...

[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JnszgkE3O8g

Now imagine how it will be when Amazon unleashes its delivery drones over the city.

would those run on electric or combustion engines?

The engines are loud but the prop noise is the really noisy part.. In that regard it doesn't matter the power source, if you've been near Phantoms or any other 'drones' you've heard how obnoxious they can be.

it would still eliminate the pollution aspect.

also, aren't drones generally higher-pitched than regular helis? as far as I know higher frequencies are more strongly attenuated by air.

I came here to say this.

This is really why flying cars will never be a thing. That and I don't want Doc Brown running out of fussionable materials over my house.

The future of transportation is moving it all underground in densely populated areas, We need to free up the land for humans to walk and cycle and skate. And free up the sky for the birds.

Yes, without robotic construction to build cheaply underground, that is an expensive proposition. But the alternatives have a lot of costs too, many of which are borne by those who don't reap the benefits.

> I don't want Doc Brown running out of fussionable materials over my house.

The fusion reactor was to provide the 1.21GW of electricity for the flux capacitor, replacing the previous fission reactor. The other flying cars did not have any visible fusion reactor, suggesting that the hover conversions used a different power source.

> Yes, without robotic construction to build cheaply underground, that is an expensive proposition.

That's not a perfect solution either: all the rock you dig out has to go somewhere. Dump it in the ocean and you destroy the sea life. Dump it on the country side and you'll have NIMBY squads in arms.

You just need to plan where you put the spoil. There's plenty of ruined shore than can benefit.

London used the spoil from the most recent tunnel to make a 680ha wetland / nature reserve. There's some pictures at the bottom:

http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/crossrails-final-sh...

> The RSPB will require more than 10 million tonnes of excavated material to create the reserve and is currently seeking partners to provide the remaining 7 million tonnes.

If Crossrail is only providing 3M tonnes from 42km of tunnels, where on earth do the RSPB think they're going to get another 7M from?

Is there a big "I don't want a hill in my backyard" movement?

It is an issue in big construction projects, especially since you neither want to store the stuff for ages nor ship it large distances. If you build something like a highway it's relatively easy to balance dirt production with dirt usage, but for projects that heavily skew in one direction it can be difficult. The put a hill somewhere you need to own the land, transport everything there, probably do landscaping, ...

So it can be done. As long as the value created is much greater than the costs, it works.

I have to say I'm a little bit low on sympathy. Since when has anyone moved to New York City for the quiet?

I hate this weird condescending attitude about New York City. "NYC's a loud filthy crime trap. Everyone knows it. How dare people try to improve things."

Generally speaking NYC is loud because of things people do. If we can reduce the amount of noisy shit happening in the city, then yes, it'll be quieter and a better place to live.

People in large cities are allowed to demand a decent quality-of-life.

And there are still some very quiet areas in Manhattan. Financial District is one of them at night.

And to extend your point:

NYC != Midtown Manhattan

Generally when people bitch about NYC in some kind of stereotypical way, they're complaining about Midtown. The majority of New Yorkers neither live in, work in, nor spend much time in Midtown Manhattan.

Nor they live in the Hudson waterfront,where the article locates the source of noise pollution. Since most of them live in the other boroughs, I'm pretty sure there are things with more impact to increase the quality of living...

I think if you follow the thread you'll see that I was responding to ilyanep's derisive comment about NYC as a whole being somehow unworthy of improvement.

Yes, the article refers to something that affects a relatively small number of New Yorkers.

yeah, I expanding on what you said, not arguing against it :)

I've stayed in Downtown Manhattan several times and I haven't heard helicopter noise, but I have heard sirens and honking horns throughout the night. It didn't bother me much; I have a reasonably high noise tolerance and I pretty much expect that out of being inside a dense city. This is why the shrill tone of "the tourists are ruining our city" in the article falls flat to me.

It sounds like you live in NYC. Do the helicopters tend to bother you?

I live in NYC, but not in Manhattan.

Yes, helicopters fairly regularly fly over where I live. They can be very loud.

So people who live in cities have no right to have some quality of life; they deserve the noise pollution on top of the air pollution.

I responded to a similar comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11015522

Is tourist helicopters really the biggest source of noise problems for you in the city? Why not instead focus on reducing the number of honking cars that drive by you?

This seems to be a completely different line of argument than the parent.

Yeah, I'm surprised you can hear them over the general din of the city.

Persistent aircraft noise is horrible. I don't have experience of NYC, but the flight path to London Heathrow descends over a swath of west London, and I imagine persistent helicopter noise to be worse.

When I worked in London, my office was very close to the flightpath for LHR. Aircraft were at 580m overhead (according to FlightRadar24.com) about every 90 seconds all day. If the noise stopped (wind in the "wrong" direction) it felt like a huge stress just disappearing. Pretty much the same effect as an unexpected sunny day in winter :-)

https://www.flightradar24.com/51.5,-0.31/12 (note that LHR's night flight restrictions are from 23:30-06:00 UTC, but replaying from earlier in the day doesn't work for me: https://www.flightradar24.com/2016-01-31/09:00/12x/51.5,-0.3... )

Recording ambient sound in Greenwich Park (sometimes binaurally) has made me appreciate just how much air traffic noise there is.

I grew up in this neighborhood, and it really is a nuisance. There are very few quiet stretches along the Hudson river (thanks to the West Side Highway), and those that aren't directly next to the road are now constantly swarmed with helicopters.

Since the helicopter port is directly on the river, I've also seen plenty of tourists play leapfrog through the highway traffic (a death wish in midtown) and promptly run into cyclists and joggers on the shared path in front of the port.

Once again another problem that could be solved by a carbon tax that forces businesses to bear their external costs.

Even the staunchest Libertarian should be in support of a carbon tax, given that one of the planks of the platform is to protect the environment from harm [0]

https://www.lp.org/platform (Section 2.2)

Not true. Noise pollution is part of the challenge here - which carbon tax won't help solve.

That's a fair point. A carbon tax would probably be enough to push the price above where most people would do it, but there is no reason not to institute a noise tax as well.

The author appears to labor under the delusion that policy in New York City – and Manhattan in particular – is made with the intention of benefiting those of us who live here.

If that were actually the case then the streets and skies in general would not be managed to the end of maximizing vehicular throughput at the expense of essentially everything else.

A plague of hyperbole ruined journalism decades ago but people keep putting up with it.

It is a byproduct of agenda first journalism preaching into an echo chamber of self aggrandizing pricks. Take the 'political correctness' movement for example, whether you agree or disagree with the sentiment, it is a nich marketing ploy that attracts a demographic that is highly invested and passionate about an agenda and uses it as a magnet. The people attracted by this will either have a high chance of conversion (down a marketing funnel) or will be so put off they will drive it viral through controversy.

Often, anti-factual fear mongering and scare amd shame tactics are featured prominently in these articles.

it isn't a question of putting up with it. Manufacturing this content is nearly effortless so it happens all over the place for many diverse issues.

Someone really doesn't like helicopters.

I, personally, have never even noticed them. It really seems like a huge non-issue.

The solution is to mandate explicit maximum noise levels and pollution emissions and budget for random, mandatory testing with large financial penalties for noncompliance. This, in turn, will greatly increase costs to the tour operators in order to comply. If it's still a viable business for tour operators when they have to internalize the costs, then the show goes on and tourists pay for the luxury. If not, the problem solves itself.

I hate to say it, but this sort of comes with living/traveling in New York (or any major industrial city). You're probably not living there for the natural spaces and silent quietude. There comes at a certain point some tradeoff between isolation and security.

There is an expectation that living in the city will be more noisy/less private but to say large motors spewing tons of gases outside our windows is part of the experience is really stretching it.

A plague of helicopters is ruining Hawaii. We expect New York to be noisy.

If you live or visit New York City, helicopters are the least causing noise and air pollution.

Ruined! Ruined!

(FYI: the original link title described how helicopters were ruining New York)

"8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City Terrible Place to Live"

http://www.theonion.com/article/84-million-new-yorkers-sudde...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com