Liberty all over (Helicopter Tours)

Member Name: MykReeve

Product:	Helicopter Tours
Date:	23/03/01 (335 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An interesting view of the city of New York, good safety record, spacious helicopters

Disadvantages: Stunningly expensive, all too brief

The first time I went to New York City, in September 1999, like most tourists visiting the city, I seemed to develop an unnatural fascination with the Statue of Liberty, seeking to view it from all potential angles. I took the Staten Island Ferry, to pass it from a distance along one side. I took the Liberty Ferry out to it, so that I could look at it from below, and go inside it. I even climbed all the way up to the crown, so that I could experience first-hand the statue's view over the Atlantic. However, unquestionably the most costly of my trips out to look at the statue close to, was a helicopter ride with Liberty Helicopters.

LIBERTY HELICOPTERS

Liberty Helicopters are the only company operating tourist helicopter flights over the city of New York, or rather, more accurately, Manhattan, from their two heliports on the island. Liberty has been operating as a charter company since 1985, and has run sightseeing tours since 1990.

The organisations' safety record is impeccable, having received the Five Star Diamond Award for 1996, 1997 and 1998. Their flight crews and aircraft have been certified and inspected by the Federal Aviation Administration.

One of their heliports is located downtown, near the south tip of Manhattan Island, on Pier 6, on the East River. However, their main heliport, and the one from which the most tourist flights depart is in Midtown, on the west side of Manhattan, at the end of 30th street, on the Hudson River.

Liberty offer a variety of flights to suit all (large) budgets. The cheapest currently weighs in at $48-52, depending on which day of the week you go (weekends are more expensive), and the dearest is $155-180. I'm sure that if you wanted a longer journey, and money wasn't an object, they'd be only too pleased to accommodate your wishes with a chartered helicopter!

The cheapest-priced tours leave from the Downtown heliport over to the Statue of Liberty and back,
and from the Midtown heliport up over Manhattan to Central Park and back. Their mid-price tour ($83-104) leaves from either heliport, and takes in both the Statue of Liberty and the whole of Manhattan, up to Central Park. The most expensive tour leaves from either heliport, and tours Manhattan as well as visiting all of the five boroughs of New York City.

If there are two or more of you, my advice would unquestionably be to book in advance, so that you get the tour that you want, at a time that's convenient to you. If there's only one person who wants to go on the tour, then they should be fine turning up, and waiting for the tour that they want.

THE HELICOPTERS

Liberty uses American Eurocopter AS350 helicopters, which have air-conditioning, and seat seven people in addition to the pilot. Having said that, tours generally operate with 6 passengers, rather than the seven, which is considerably more comfortable. The windows of the helicopters are large, and there's plenty of space for all of the passengers (including those in the middle at the back) to see out easily.

MY EXPERIENCE

When I was in New York, it was only me who wanted to go for a helicopter ride (that's what happens when you go on holiday with someone who suffers from acute vertigo, and has a fear of travelling over water), so I could just turn up on spec. I really wanted, as I mention above, to view the Statue of Liberty from the air, so I went along to the Downtown heliport one weekday afternoon. Unfortunately, as there were no other tourists there, and none turned up over the 20-30 minutes that I waited there, they told me to head over to the Midtown heliport. Not much fancying a trip across town, just for the helicopter ride, I decided to put the tour off for a couple of days.

When I did visit the Midtown heliport, a few days later, it was certainly noticeably busier than the Downtown one. I asked if it would be possible to be put
on a tour in the near future, and was told that I need only wait about ten minutes, and could get on the next one. "Ideal", thought I, evidently having read too many Stephen Fry novels recently.

Even more fortuitously, the person behind the desk at the Midtown heliport informed me that the next tour would be visiting the Statue of Liberty, rather than Central Park (which is where the cheap Midtown flights usually go to). Apparently, so few tourists were prepared to head down to the Downtown heliport that they were running this more popular route from the Midtown heliport instead – I wish I'd known that before heading down there!

Before the flight, we watched a spectacularly brief, but adequate and informative, video explaining the basic safety procedures in the helicopter – basically just how to do up and undo the seatbelts.

The flight lasted under eight minutes, from take-off to touch-down, and cost a little under £24 (the flights were a little cheaper back then). The helicopter took off from the Midtown heliport, swept down the Hudson, rounded the Statue of Liberty, and came straight back. The noise of the swirling helicopter blades was incredibly loud, sufficiently so that conversation would have been pretty difficult, if I had flown with a friend.

CONCLUSIONS

My experience of the helicopter flight was that it was incredibly brief, and only reasonably exciting, especially given the prohibitively steep price tag. Yes, I did get to see the island of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty from the air, but to be honest, it looks only a little more exciting from the air than it does from the New Jersey coast, which costs just $1 to get to on the PATH subway system! Possibly the most exciting thing about it was filming the whole thing on a camcorder that I borrowed from a friend, so I had something vaguely interesting on film to show my parents when I got home.

The other interesting side effe
ct of taking the helicopter ride was that I've pretty much got the Statue of Liberty out of my system now. When I returned to New York City in December 2000, I didn't even bother to go and look at it, concentrating instead on getting some serious post-Christmas shopping done!

The Liberty Helicopters website is somewhat predictably to be found at http://www.libertyhelicopters.com

Summary: