Information required - helicopters in USA

[Deano Wide Bodied]

A friend of mine is an author, and has asked me for some info. I fly 777s, so my knowledge of US helicopter operations is, shall we say, limited. And so, I'm looking for some gen from someone with knowledge/experience relevant to the message below...


I'm writing a book and my protagonist plus 3 others need to take a helicopter flight from one of the New York City heliports to a private heliport situated in Washington DC. I did some research on the internet and it seems the flight would take around an hour.

Now, I need somebody who is familiar with the area and who knows what he's doing in the air to tell me if this is possible. Could the helicopter take off from any of the NYC heliports or is there a particular one which would be for trips like NYC/Washington? Is there a problem with airspace around Washington? Would the flight path be direct, i.e. as the crow flies?

Any other info would be much appreciated...



Many thanks in advance for any help you can give

Dean

[darrenphughes]

Well you could fly from one of these 3 heliports;
AirNav: KJRA - West 30th St. Heliport (http://www.airnav.com/airport/KJRA)
AirNav: KJRB - Port Authority Downtown Manhattan/Wall St Heliport (http://www.airnav.com/airport/KJRB)
AirNav: 6N5 - East 34th Street Heliport (http://www.airnav.com/airport/6N5)

Where the NYC helipads are, is the Class B exclusion area for NYC(uncontrolled, but now also a SFRA- special flight rules area) the flight is about 180 nautical miles & would take more like 1.5 hours depending on the aircraft & conditions. Direct is no problem apart from dodging 1 or 2 small restricted areas along the way.

DC, I'm less familiar with, but I found this heliport, which seems to be the only civilian one among the dozens of Military/Government ones.
AirNav: 09W - South Capitol Street Heliport (http://www.airnav.com/airport/09W)

To fly into the SFRA airspace within 30NM around DC the pilot would need to have filed a flight plan and squawk a discrete code. To get into the DC FRZ which is about 10-15NM around the center the pilot would need a security clearance and a PIN to gain access. Even if you do have a PIN, it's possible that you may need a lot of prior notice before flying in there, not sure but I've heard someone mention 2 weeks(crazy, i know). Maybe someone else from DC can shed more light on that.

Hope that helps.

[birrddog]

If you are flying to DC, I am guessing here, out of the three NYC heliports I think the Wallstreet one might be the only viable one as it has TSA screening, and the last I read re: DC SFRA you could only enter from GA airports where TSA screening is available.

Something to look into, anyhoo.

[darrenphughes]

Do you mean the FRZ birrddog? Cause you definitely don't need TSA screening for the SFRA. You just need a flight plan to say which of the 3 "gates"/direction you'll be entering from and contact Potomac app 10 miles out. For the FRZ, I've never flown in there so I'm not so sure about that one.

[Deano Wide Bodied]

Great stuff! Thanks to you all for your help.

Edited to add..
Just out of interest, the reference I found for the TSA clearance requirement is specifically for Washington Reagan National Airport: Appendix B Current TSA GA Security Requirements (http://avstop.com/news/oig_report/appendix_b.htm)

[MikeNYC]

You mentioned that your protagonist would be flying to a private heliport. However, if the helicopter flies to DCA (Reagan National), they would have to depart from one of about 18 "Gateway" airports, AND carry a TSA-approved armed security guard (http://www.tsa.gov/lawenforcement/programs/aso.shtm) (ASO, or private air marshall) in addition to the numerous paperwork hoops to jump through to land there. They wouldn't be able to make this flight direct from any of the 3 NYC heliports as none are approved as a gateway airport (despite standard TSA screening), but would most likely make a pitstop at Teterboro for that screening. Read more about the DCA Access Standard Security Program (DCASSP) here (http://www.nbaa.org/ops/security/programs/dassp/).

This is only for GA aircraft and only applies to DCA Airport, not a private heliport.

[birrddog]

Darren, I was not sure what I was talking about (nothing new there...), just had a brain fart and thought I could spur on someone who actually knew what they were on about to correct.

It appears to that end my post worked :E

A tired birrddog in another TZ upsetting sleep.