Here’s a first – someone (my neighbour and good friend) has asked me to write a blog on a specific topic. Yep, I’m now taking requests – how cool is that! Except the topic that has been requested is helicopter noise (probably prompted by my previous post). Sorry. Bit technical. Bit dry. I’ll start typing and see if the muse strikes. If it doesn’t then that’s another post collecting dust in my drafts’ folder.
And I was indeed struggling. Totally uninspired, until one of the buggers buzzed me when I was out walking last week, on a sunny day, lost in my own thoughts, enjoying the birdsong, the bees, the rustling leaves, the snorting of cattle … and then pulse pulse pulse, chop chop chop, grate grate grate.
Helicopter noise is different from the likes of SleasyJet and SwizzAir, because choppers generally fly lower, much lower, can hang around (I believe the technical term is ‘hover’), and I’m always suspicious who’s been flown where. If it’s an air ambulance, coastguard, police or military (especially Chinooks; I lurve Chinooks; so distinctive, so solid, so sexy) then fine. But if it’s the brash and tasteless nouveau riche heading to Silverstone or Pinewood Studios, then the finger it is. Some people make socialism a very attractive proposition.
A friend of mine recently complained to the Civil Aviation Authority about frequent low choppers over his pretty Bucks village. The response was laborious, technical, arse-covering, and so badly worded that I had visions of helicopters flying below ground. I mean, what do you make of, “[Helicopters] must not fly below 500ft from any person, vehicle, vessel or structure”.
Then there was the eyebrow-raising statement of the bleedin’ obvious: “… helicopters making an approach to land, or taking off … are permitted to fly lower than 500ft.”
The Government’s position on General Aviation (GA), which includes helicopters, as well as biz jets, gliders and microlights, etc., is to be protective and supportive. Not surprising really, given that the Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps, holds a pilot’s licence and has reportedly confused his profession with his passion more than once. Despite acknowledging that “Helicopter activity can also be particularly intrusive,” the Government’s solution to reassure the public is “that the GA sector should: develop and review its codes of practice and [it] would be interested to know how useful and effective these codes of practice have been.”
They couldn’t have mandated anything more meaningless had they copied from a Hilary Mantel novel. We all know about killing an idea by subjecting it to committee; well the Government kills promises of public protection by subjecting the harm to a code of practice, conflicted of course by their friends’, lobbyists and party donors’ interests.
In other words, politicians share a moral compass with the nouveau riche who use helicopters like e-scooters. Well whaddya know.
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