Quote:
Originally Posted by CanSpice
These would be "commuter" helicopters and wouldn't circle overhead. They'd be akin to the air ambulances that service VGH and Royal Columbian Hospital. They're noisy when they go overhead but they don't stop and circle like the traffic helicopters do.
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I was going to chime in earlier and basically echo what Daryl said, but point out the TS statement.
1) Safety:
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-re...tion/index.asp
6 or so Helicopters are lost or accidents happen every year. That's not too bad, and the worst ones are collisions with terrain.
2) Rules:
https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviati...-menu-1026.htm
3) Technical/costs:
http://heliexpertsinternational.com/...stions-answers , only need a windsock and markings for daylight and can costs a few hundred thousand dollars. Night flights are more due to lighting.
The complicated thing is exactly how and where to place them. You can technically put them on any building or area that is more than 250 meters long, and smaller helicopters need smaller areas. The problem I see for Surrey is due to it's sprawling nature and approving everything without much future planning is that the only location that would make sense for a helicopter pad/heliports on a building is the SFU Building. The rest of the buildings in Surrey aren't wide enough and it's more likely they would be ground-level Heliports which take up more surface space. This is why Helijet is located at the harbour in both Vancouver (right next to the Seabus) and Victoria.
Optimistically, the logical thing would actually to have two full-service helicopter ports, one in Newton, and one at Surrey Central. If any other destinations are in mind, it would likely be YVR, YYJ, and the downtown Vancouver/Victoria Helijet. Again, it depends on the size. If these are "commuter" heliports, they will only have small helicopters and would require some place to be stored and maintained. If they are just an extension of Helijet, then there's obviously some other place already doing the maintenance.
Overall I'm not particularly upset about hearing about this, but it seems like Surrey has it's priorities backwards.