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Uber's Short-lived Helicopter Service In Utah Grounded (ksl.com)
New submitter captaindomon writes: It may come as no surprise that the Uber helicopter flights which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival were apparently illegal and quickly grounded. "Thanks to the support and partnership we have with Sundance and Park City Municipal Corporation, we were able to come to an agreement," said Summit County spokeswoman Katie Mullaly. "We are glad to have this issue resolved, not only for the safety of all those involved, but also for the wildlife of the area, affected residents and environmental concerns."
The issue was the landing site wasn't properly approved for helicopter landings. Fortunately, the local officials are reasonable and Uber made an agreement with the County to use the Sheriff's landing pad instead so that flights could continue during the festival.
From a follow-up story: "Thanks to the county's proactive outreach, we have developed an alternative landing site for uberCHOPPER that serves riders and accommodates residents," Patterson said.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
I might have some choice words with my neighbor if they decided to allow helicopter landings right next door to me. For the noise and one heck of a lot of other reasons, aircraft landings affect way more peoples' rights to use their own private property than just the guy who owns the pad.
Your private property rights don't override everyone else's.
Most likely because commercial helicopter passenger operations have to be to approved sites.
One-time flights are usually not an issue, but when you're doing a repeated service, the FAA is generally involved, and government in general can speak up to make your (economic) life difficult.
I don't really see why this is a problem and why you object to it. It follows the usual course of these things. Firstly things are allowed. Then people do egregiously crappy things and that gets banned. Then other people do other egregiously crappy things and they get banned too.
"Whatever we haven't explicitly permitted you to do is forbidden, obviously!"
Despity your "lol gubbmint is teh evul lol gubmint" thing, it's really the exact opposite. Things get banned in response to actual problems. Everything else is allowed.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
it isn't as if uber has invented some new technology.
it's business is to break regulations and squeeze out profits by not incurring the costs others pay in following laws.
this is no different from lawyers/accountants of big corps finding loopholes/book cooking methods to not pay taxes, etc etc,
by all means campaign to reduce rules,regulations, and taxes(most are harmful), but presenting rule breaking as praiseworthy innovation is not the way to go about it .
Local residents complained about the noise.... Where I feel for them, I don't think the county has standing to regulate this. The FAA reserves total authority over all airspace (basically from the ground up). They write the regulations, enforce the regulations, and are solely responsible for all the airspace over the nation. The state cannot regulate it's airspace, the county has no authority and the city has even less over it's airspace. All local regulations can really do here is claim a health and safety issue, which is tenuous at best when it involves federally allowed and regulated activities like flying aircraft for hire.
The only conceivable time local regulations could come into play is when the aircraft are actually ON THE GROUND and not flying. Otherwise, they are the FAA's problem to regulate.
However, I believe that this operation is actually still running. They are using a helipad provided by the Sheriff's office now and not the disputed private land. I imagine they still are causing noise issues for the locals, but there is no "land use" regulation issues they can use to stop this.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
it's actually a very messy situation - airports (certified aerodromes) are federal government objects, and state governments have tried, but failed to ocerrule them. Chicago tried, digging up the runways at Meigs Field, but was fined millions for contract violation (the FAA makes agreements for airport funding and improvements, provided the land stays as an airport for X years, usually 25+). The situation was so messy that the crash happened and the valuable real estate deals fell through. What was Meigs Field is now a dumpy "park" (really just a bunch of now-disintegrating buildings and overgrown weeds over pavement). All the jobs that were there flew (literally) to other jurisdictions.
Now, if you're not an airport, well, you could try setting up a private aerodrome - there are plenty of those (at least 10 times as many), but just because you can land your aircraft there doesn't mean it's necessarily legal - there's still noise ordinances and such to obey.
In the end, airports are usually established a ways from civilization and flight routes planned so existing residences don't get disturbed unnecessarily (noise abatement procedures - usually have you turning one way or the other when able and safe so you're disturbing the peace as little as possible).
And of course, even when you're out in the sticks, you can be the middle of it all in under a decade and having to deal with complaints from people who should've known better. Many an airport and railway have shut down because new neighbours moved in and complained.
Yes there is a reason.
In the USA, Federal law trumps local law. If there is a Federal regulation and a local regulation that are in conflict, the Federal regulation is considered to be "superior" (i.e. is what governs) if the Federal regulators wish it. Sometimes Federal regulators will, by choice, defer to local regulations, and not pre-empt them, but they have the right (and generally the inclination) to over-ride local regulations.
In the case of the FAA, they are a federal level organization which governs ALL airspace, starting from the ground on up. They do NOT allow local (city, state or county) regulations to pre-empt their rules, but have made it clear that the FAA reserves ALL authority in their area of responsibility.
So in this case, the city, county or state have zero authority to regulate the operation of aircraft when they are flying, even 1 inch off the ground. The FAA does not allow local authorities to do this and will actively pre-empt any attempts by local regulators to regulate aircraft operations. They've done so in the past, and I have no doubt they will actively protect their authority to regulate the nation's airspace in the future.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Actually you're frothing at the mouth in your hatred and it's none too appealing, sir.
Try to keep a civil tongue in your head and go back to high school.
And sorry your taxi medallion isn't worth more than your chest hair.
Uber and Lyft are great (this stupid "Uber chopper" thing notwithstanding)
People who hate Uber and can't articulate without frothing at the mouth aren't great at all.
Best regards, and go off yourself to feel better.
E
You make a compelling argument, but you happen to be mistaken. See sections 113 and 114 in this FAA advisory. State and local governments can regulate helipads, via zoning or otherwise.
http://www.faa.gov/documentlib...
The FCC is more like what you imagine the FAA to be. Specifically, as noted in that FAA advisory, the FAA is legally charged with the SAFETY of air travel only. This is in contrast to the FCC, which has wide authority over anything related to radio spectrum. The ATF is somewhat the opposite- you have to certify your explosives storage complies with local and state law BEFORE they'll start the federal process.
Things get banned in response to actual problems.
Or lobbying and bribes.
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
it's actually a very messy situation - airports (certified aerodromes) are federal government objects
Sorta. Many are Federal properties, but not all. In particular, they accept Federal "management" when they accept money from the FAA.
Chicago tried, digging up the runways at Meigs Field, but was fined millions for contract violation (the FAA makes agreements for airport funding and improvements, provided the land stays as an airport for X years, usually 25+)
In Chicago's case, when you accept Federal (FAA) money for an airport, you better use it on that airport or suffer the consequences. Frankly, I don't think Chicago paid a high enough fine. I believe KSMO's problems stem from similar matters. I'm surprised they haven't tried the Mayor Daly approach to airport management.
Well the issue was actually really simple. You can not just plow off a field in a residential neighborhood, and start running commercial flights into it every 15 minutes. It is the same rules that prevent you from opening an auto repairs shop, or a strip club, or a bar in a residential neighborhood. The only way they might have had a chance at that was to not charge at all, and even then they would be in violation of noise ordinances. You can't just do whatever you want in a residential neighborhood for very good reasons, such as keeping all of the neighbors from killing each other. You are allowed to operate a small home based business, with 2 or less employees, that does not take customer visits (i.e. a store front) in a residential neighborhood.
:-).
If Uber had applied for a permit, or even worked with the county, before pulling off this stunt, they probably would have been accomadated in a commercial zone. The sheriff's office considered allowing them to use their EMERGENCY helipad as a stop gap, but once they thought about it they realized that could interfere with their ability to respond to an actual emergency. I know, as I have worked with the sheriif's office and used that helipad. It is not designed for commercial flights every 15 minutes. The debris alone there can be hazardous on a chopper landing, and we would have to walk it before one came in.
On the first day they ran, they also violated the minimum altitude rules flying over my house on approach, as they used a loose approximation of AGL ignoring the mountain peaks. I had helicopters a few hundred feet off my roof ALL DAY long. You try working under those conditions.
The other story you don't hear about is the locals hate Sundance, myself included. It attracts the most pretentious, self righteous, jerks you have ever seen. I literally have had people push me out of line in the grocery store because 'They were late for their film'. Mistake to do to a local as we push back
Uber blew it. They didn't even try to work with the local government, nor the locals, to come up with a reasonable plan. The drive from SLC airport to Park City is only 35 minutes. It is actually quicker than taking the uber from the terminal, to the helipad, then wait for the helicopter, then land in a neighborhood, then drive in from there. They also could have landed at Heber airport, that is setup for private jets even, and is only 15 minutes away. They were selling an image to a bunch of pretentious wanna bes, and Uber got caught. Blade only joined in after the announcement by Uber.
The other thing they did not mention that I have not seen in the news is they originally planned to land within Park City limits. They knew the city would enforce every rule on them immediately, and were told so by the city government, so they moved just outside of city limits last minute. Generally, the county is more lenient, but obviously decided it was in their best interest to enforce the rules after that game. Uber got what they deserved, and should now actually be forced to pay a fine as they cost us tax payers a bunch of money for law enforcement and attorney fees.