Originally Posted by
Ascend Charlie
Fujii, there has never been a rooftop helipad in Oz, and probably never will, other than those for hospitals, and they are generally on top of the carpark.
The public has rejected piloted helicopters in populated areas, and has never allowed a CBD heliport in Sydney, except for a brief period on a wharf in Darling Harbour. Many a council now has a specific policy prohibiting helicopter landings in their areas.
Look at a rooftop, it is covered with mobile phone antennas, aircon units, flagpoles. The greatest rooftop helipad was Pan Am, and after the disaster when a chopper rolled over and killed people on the rooftop and a piece fell into the street and killed a pedestrian, it was shut down.
Who is going to supervise an arrival/departure? No building owner will permit Joe Blow to wait on the rooftop for his Uuuuber chopper without somebody to cover their backsides for liability. In fact, nobody is allowed on ANY rooftop without massive OHS precautions, coveralls, tie-downs, fences around the edges etc.
This jetson-like dream of zipping through the city streets like in 5th Element, landing on rooftops and over train stations has no chance of working in our NIMBY society.
Those all sounds like last century arguments. The Royal Melbourne and Royal Children’s hospitals both have a HLS on the roof. The RCH actually has two. There are no obstructions because the designers planned ahead. The single Darling Harbour argument doesn’t stand up as the ones on the Yarra River in Melbourne have been successfully operated for years.
Basing your response on helicopters doesn’t stand either. Drones aren’t helicopters. The lift system is completely different. Instead of a large main and smaller tail rotor with associated failure problems, drones have multiple lift engines and rotors with designed in redundancy.
Another plus for drones is that they don’t carry hundreds of litres of flamable fuel.
Your rooftop OHS argument is also flawed. Many rooftops allow persons on then without the massive OHS (now WHS) precautions. They are often referred to as observation decks and used by the public. Melbourne has a rooftop cinema. There are rooftop bars. I was on a rooftop in Starbucks in Harajuku yesterday morning.
The change is coming.