In reply to Skywolfs post in my opinion the difference between flying a helicopter over London and a helicopter over Washington is one city has hysteria and paranoia created by the media to contend with, and its not London.
The UK has lived with terrorism for many years, read IRA etc etc, whereas the US recently began to experience what the UK public has been experiencing for years. Rather than be practical and open minded, organisations such as the TSA have just shut everything down, with some ridiculous rules that are amazing to say the least. I have spoken to numerous ENG pilots who when they get a notam closing off some area, they call the number on there and are transferred to 10 different departments, yet no one will make a decision and say yes you can or no you cant. These Government flunkies dont even have to justify closing off airspace, they just do it. Talking to the EMS pilots and if they have to do a medevac job which even remotely looks like its going towards the White House, they have a list of numbers they need to call which could double as the Los Angeles telephone book.
However in the UK its a different story where they have realistic rules and regs and in most cases trust the local helicopter operators to uphold them.
Anyway thats my opinion.
Oh and by the way you will probably find that Helmet Fire was sitting down, feet up somewhere, penning his memoirs while the TV crews were off doing the real work.
All Blacks