42.4 F
New York
Friday, March 29, 2024

Uber Helicopter Services Roil Brooklynites with Constant Loud Noise

Related Articles

-Advertisement-

Must read

By: Pablo Vilicozza

Add yet another complaint to the long list that New York City residents like to whine about: helicopter noise.

Some locals are angry over the sounds of overhead on-demand helicopter services like Uber Copter and Blade. While passengers are shuttled from airports to midtown, residents in Brooklyn and Manhattan reportedly can’t hear themselves think.

“It’s horrible. It’s like a lawnmower going through your living room,” Jerry, a resident of Lincoln Place who declined to provide his last name, told the New York Post. Bill Parsons, 71, told Post reporter Sara Dorn that he compares the sounds to “a Harley revving. From the Vietnam War, I know what a Huey [helicopter] used in the Army sounds like. These are bigger. They’re louder … They sound like they are jet-propelled.”

Added Jess Lynn, 62, “The helicopters are coming very low … and they come at quite a pace.”

Uber, wrote Dorn, “admits it flies directly over Brooklyn — departing the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, heading south down the East River before looping around Governor’s Island and making a sharp eastbound turn toward the airport, according to spokesman Matt Wing. But Uber insists it doesn’t generate many complaints because it flies a more limited schedule than Blade – 2 to 6 p.m. on weekdays only. It also claimed that it tries to keep its copters at a noise-minimizing altitude of 1,500 feet over residential areas. It would not divulge how many trips it flies.”

While no one likes noise, the copter services are a tremendous boost for many.

The Uber Copter, which was launched on October 7, takes passengers from lower Manhattan to John F. Kennedy International Airport with an eight-minute chopper ride. Each trip comes with a $200-$225 price tag, depending on demand. Rides on the five-seater helicopter are available on weekday afternoons from 2-6 p.m.

For instance, Blade Urban Air Mobility is a short-distance aviation company “committed to reducing travel friction by enabling cost-effective air transportation alternatives to some of the most congested ground routes in the U.S. and abroad,” it said on its web site. “No company flies more people in and out of city centers than Blade.”

Indeed, its long-term goal is “to make aviation more accessible by preparing for the adoption of eVTOL (Electric Vertical Take Off and Landing) quiet, carbon-neutral and cost-effective aircraft that are currently being developed by our investors and partners,” it boasts. “Blade is an integral part of this urban mobility revolution and we invite you to fly the future today.”

balance of natureDonate

Latest article

- Advertisement -