Police in Canada have charged a helicopter pilot after he used his Robinson R-44 to get an ice cream cake from the local Dairy Queen. The unidentified 34-year-old pilot will appear in court in September charged with unsafe operation of an aircraft. On July 31, the man put the helicopter down in the parking lot of a school across the street from the DQ in Tisdale, Saskatchewan, a farming town of 3,000 about 130 miles northeast of Saskatoon. According to the police report, the helicopter blew dust and debris around the business district.
Unless your destination is the airport, aviation has a problem with getting you where you really need to be. If this R44 solution is illegal, what does that say about the future of personal VTOL aircraft?
It’s easy to forget that the original sense of “drive” was to push from behind (driving cattle, or a team of horses; driving a nail).
In that respect, the word shouldn’t really apply to cars either!
The only thing “illegal”, ostensibly, was “unsafe” operation, but I think he will try to show that what he did was NOT demonstrably (or actually) unsafe.
The problem with all such laws is that what looks unsafe to one person, say a cop, may be perfectly acceptable to someone with experience. It thus becomes more a matter of opinion than of fact.
Too many people with an over-rated sense of their importance, making stupid rules that are applied arbitrarily, such as the “police” in this story. Is their REALLY a law in this two-bit town against landing a helicopter where it landed? Just another town named “Resume Speed” in Canada… And they wouldn’t even notice if a drone with 4 or 6 turning propellers, that would be FAR more dangerous had landed there…
At most, it was just an unwise thing to do, but I doubt it was truly illegal, and it certainly wasn’t necessarily unsafe. The whole point of a helicopter is that you can operate where airplanes cannot.
I don’t know about the helicopter certification requirements in Canada, but in the US it’s actually a requirement that the training includes off-airport operations.
The pilot should have his license yanked for a while, for:
blowing junk around, which could hurt someone or at least damage property like cars (media I read say much stuff was blown around)
flying a single-engine helicopter low over populated area
As for whether or not landing was ‘illegal’, I recommend pontificators look into minimum altitudes in Canada. Probably varying with location, obviously out of densely populated areas helicopters do it as part of their work. The number 500 feet AGL comes to my faded memory from Canada and US.
Typically pads at hospitals and in city are licensed heliports, such as:
beside hospital on Salt Spring Island
beside Victoria General Hospital in Saanich
Camel Point heliport in Victoria BC (where Helijet commuter flights land).
Those may have somewhat lower minima than elsewhere, I know the pad beside SSI hospital has guidance/obstruction lights (trees in one direction), I forget VGH though the hospital building will be lit and I presume the new shopping centre across the street is lit - I know there is a sign prohibiting tall vehicles from the driveway between helipad and hospital when a helicopter is nearby. Camel Point approach may be from over the harbour as there are houses across the street.
All those can be looked up, Helijet produces the approach plates with approval from NavCanada/TransportCanada.
I call horse output on your drone claim - obviously the type of drone/UAV you talk about is far smaller than the helicopter involved. Check your facts.
And with either type of device there is risk of people getting too close to it out of ignorance.
Rotors of some helicopters are low in front - S76 for example, you do not approach from the front, and from the sides you have to keep your head down.
And the UAV’s little rotors can bite, as the guy who tried to demonstrate his in a parking lot near a prison found out when he tried to grab it to hold it down and turn it off.
Yah, perhaps did what one person claimed FAA did with the pilot who landed a Lear Jet on the straightaway/drag strip of Pacific Raceways/Seattle International south of Seattle circa 1970.
“Just don’t do that again!”
Looked to me like reasonable length, much clearway after liftoff, landing approach had been from that end (west). Landed early in the day, took off late in the day but race staff had to ensure surface clear (as they had to for racing anyway). A good drag strip and a nice piece of straightaway for the road racing course.
i Keith, it’s 1000’ feet above the highest obstacle in a built up area… “except for the purpose of taking off or landing”.
Canada is no longer pretending to be a free country. There are countless rules, purposefully written poorly so they can be used as weapons against us citizens. Occasionally when your lawyer finds a way out for you, surprise, you are still changed because the crown prosecutor and the judge (who work for the same government) find you broke the “spirit” of the law. I can’t even go into my yard with my .22. I’m very rural, with 10 acres of bush and no neighbors. So yeah, a Heli landing off airport? That can’t be legal! Actually, it is, but don’t worry, because of this “incident” I assure you they are drafting legislation right now to ban in outright. Won’t somebody please think of the children???
I use to do this, so did the local news copters. They stopped regularly at a McDonalds for coffee and a quick breakfast sandwich before continuing out for traffic reporting.
And if this gets charges… how do they think VTOL will ever work?
They clearly are not near anyone or putting others in danger…
I agree, people that fly those helicopter things are freakin nuts… lock them up.
And the plane pilot people too… they are just as bad. Lock them all up!