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As cool as Manhattan rooftop helipads were, takeoffs and landings within dozens of feet (horizontally) of some of the most densely populated sidewalks in the world seems a little nuts. The air over Manhattan can be very turbulent (this is supposedly part of the reason why the Empire State Building's spire was never used as a mooring mast) and, combined with the gusts that must be present 800 ft up, I suspect that operations at the Pan Am Building helipad were more challenging than at a typical helicopter base. When something inevitably goes wrong, it's almost certain to come down on top of a lot of people. In this incident, they got off easy - the entire helicopter could have easily gone over the side rather than just a few parts. Since, oh, the 1920s, that kind of effective proximity to flight ops hasn't been allowed anywhere in the fixed wing world outside of shipboard aviation. Within the US Navy anyway, a flight deck is called the "world's most dangerous workplace".

<blockquote data-quote="taildragger" data-source="post: 152555" data-attributes="member: 2254"><p>As cool as Manhattan rooftop helipads were, takeoffs and landings within dozens of feet (horizontally) of some of the most densely populated sidewalks in the world seems a little nuts.&nbsp; The air over Manhattan can be very turbulent (this is supposedly part of the reason why the Empire State Building's spire was never used as a mooring mast) and, combined with the gusts that must be present 800 ft up, I suspect that operations at the Pan Am Building helipad were more challenging than at a typical helicopter base.&nbsp; When something inevitably goes wrong, it's almost certain to come down on top of a lot of people.&nbsp; In this incident, they got off easy - the entire helicopter could have easily gone over the side rather than just a few parts.&nbsp; Since, oh, the 1920s, that kind of effective proximity to flight ops hasn't been allowed anywhere in the fixed wing world outside of shipboard aviation.&nbsp; Within the US Navy anyway, a flight deck is called the &quot;world's most dangerous workplace&quot;.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="taildragger, post: 152555, member: 2254"] As cool as Manhattan rooftop helipads were, takeoffs and landings within dozens of feet (horizontally) of some of the most densely populated sidewalks in the world seems a little nuts. The air over Manhattan can be very turbulent (this is supposedly part of the reason why the Empire State Building's spire was never used as a mooring mast) and, combined with the gusts that must be present 800 ft up, I suspect that operations at the Pan Am Building helipad were more challenging than at a typical helicopter base. When something inevitably goes wrong, it's almost certain to come down on top of a lot of people. In this incident, they got off easy - the entire helicopter could have easily gone over the side rather than just a few parts. Since, oh, the 1920s, that kind of effective proximity to flight ops hasn't been allowed anywhere in the fixed wing world outside of shipboard aviation. Within the US Navy anyway, a flight deck is called the "world's most dangerous workplace". [/QUOTE]

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