LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – With aviation safety being a hot topic around the U.S., FOX5 is hearing from a Las Vegas helicopter tour agency about how they navigate the airspace above the Strip.
Skyline Helicopter Tours Chief Pilot, Brian Lorenz, estimates he’s done about 8,000 tours over the Las Vegas Strip. He describes the airspace as “very busy,” and at times even “daunting.”
“You can look out the window and see a helicopter right there. They get very close,” Lorenz says.
He says around sunset, when helicopter tours are returning from the Grand Canyon, the airspace is at its busiest.
That’s why Lorenz says safety is always top of mind.
He says all of Skylines pilots are private, commercial and certified flight instructors. Their safety protocols start before take off, specifying which order passengers load into the chopper, and making sure their weight is distributed evenly.
Once in the air, Lorenz says a Letter of Agreement, or LOA, outlines the exact route that Skyline and about a dozen other organizations can take while flying over the Strip.
“Our route is different than say, Maverick or Papillon,” Lorenz says. “We fly what they call the ‘North Las Vegas Strip Tour,’ and they fly a different route all together.”
The members of the agreement are assigned a specific call sign. Lorenz says, anyone flying within 30 nautical miles of Harry Reid must have a transponder to send that call sign out.
“It’ll send airspeed, altitude, the track we’re heading, so many different things,” Lorenz says. “It will send it six times a second, and the tower has all of that information available to them.”
Lorenz says Skyline also participates in a quarterly Airspace User Meetings where they discuss safety concerns.
He says overall, the biggest misconception is that helicopters are unsafe. And, after the recent tragedy out of New York City, he has a message to anyone considering taking a tour.
“That’s the exception, not the rule,” he says. “Aviation and helicopter flying is very safe, and enjoyable too.”
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