Hello Members, just wanted to let you now that several of us (HICoP) attended a meeting in Hilo on Sept. 22, 2016 with the FAA, Richard, and Hank from the State regarding low flying recreational tour helicopters in the districts of Puna and Hilo. The meeting was informative for us and we did received a lot of sympathy from all those in attendance. However, it was made very clear that the local FAA could not make policy and was only able to enforce existing rules.  Existing rules for helicopters allow the pilots to make nearly all the decisions on how, where, when and why they fly the routes they choose, as long as it's safe, except for landing and departing from the airport. This includes the height elevation they fly over residential homes.  As bazar as this sounds, local residents are not factored into any equation regard their impact. All policy making is at the regional level, which would be the Western Regional Headquarters in California.  Furthermore, there has not been a single conviction of a low flying recreational tour helicopter pilot that has ever been pursued by local FAA within the last several years in Hawaii, because pilots have such a wide latitude to operate their aircraft.  Because the FAA has allowed helicopter pilots such unfettered control over their aircraft both New York and California have introduced legislation to help combat this problem. It's apparent that this problem cannot be addressed at the local FAA level, they do not have the power, and we need to get more of our politicians involved to move this issue to the regional level.    We firmly believe the loud and constant noise generated by low flying tour helicopters all day long is a mental health safety issue.  There have been numerous studies done regarding constant loud noise and how it impacts the human brain.  In fact, this technique is used in the torture of enemy combatants.  We have noise ordinances that address this problem but do not include noise generated from above ground sources.   We are not sure if our local noise ordinance can be strengthened to include all sources of excessive noise?

(Helicopter Noise) - By Fred Cohen On October 31, 2011 · Add Comment
Last week we discussed an increase in the use of helicopters in Los Angeles correlated with nuisance complaints regarding loosely regulated helicopter flights. Here, we will review some interesting aspects of noise related to the flight. According to the Helicopter Association International (HAI) the difference in sound level of a helicopter flying at 500 feet and at 1,000 feet is nine decibels -- dropping from 87 dB to 78 dB. That effectively reduces by half the impact of the resultant noise. HAI notes that to meet the generally acceptable criterion of 65 dB, helicopters should fly at altitudes no less than 1,000 feet. Excessive and annoying noise goes beyond aesthetics and may be detrimental to public health. This is the basis for local and municipal governments noise control ordinances. Local governments cannot prefer the sound of Brahms to the B-52's, only when, where, and at what volume. Noise is the great leveler and while noise is born as a noun, it quickly morphs into an adjective, certainly in our context. In addition to hearing loss at the extreme and a loss of concentration at the least, noise exposure causes behavioral changes and irritation, according to the World Health organization. According to the Noise Effects Handbook, published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1979, noise can affect mental health and has been implicated in producing stress-related health effects such as strokes, ulcers, heart disease, and high blood pressure. In addition, people get really pissed off with an LAPD Bell 206 hovering over their barbeque! Helicopters rank especially high in causing undesirable noise. Eight different studies have found that the annoyance created by a helicopter does not correlate with the decibels it registers. The helicopter's unique sound, created by blade vortex interaction, causes people to rate its sound level as much as 10 dB's higher than it actually registers, doubling the noise impact. This would place perceived helicopter noise at around 97 dB, or a whopping 30 dB's over the generally accepted noise level of residential areas. These findings certainly suggest that helicopter flight should be regulated in response to the exceptional levels of noise they produce. Despite the findings on helicopter noise and the aesthetic-health issues linked to excessive, annoying noise, local and municipal legislators have no jurisdiction in this field of noise regulation leaving us to bemoan our fate.