An article in Pasadena Weekly last fall recounted complaints of Pasadenans plagued by helicopter noise. Indeed, sometimes I think the only thing more ubiquitous here than helicopters is river rocks. Yet the police only admit to 7 copters in the local fleet. It just seems like more because they're LOUD.Those airborne officers have a job to do, and they've got the stats to prove the copters help them do it. We could get quieter helicopters, but the price tag's pretty hefty.
And even then, there'd still be traffic copters, and the Altadena Mountain Rescue copters (I think those are the orange ones), and the copters that land at the Jet Propulsion Lab from time to time (bringing dignitaries or scientists or whoever gets flown privately to JPL), and the water-dropping copters in fire season, and...
12 comments:
That's why they call 'em COPters.
You are lucky that you weren't living in the Pasadena/Arcadia area back in the late 80s when they were trying to eradicate the fruit fly. A squadron of 4 or 5 helicopoters would make their rounds in the middle of the night spraying fruit fly and human alike with their poison. It felt as though you were in a war zone.
They can be annoying! When I was a kid living near Disneyland, there was a heliport about a mile down from our house at the end of the street and I guess we got used to the sound. I hate when military copters go by, or when police copters hover for a long time at night.
Beautiful photo!
-Kim
Seattle Daily Photo
Anon: I arrived in North Hollywood from Chicago in 1988, just when all that was happening. The Medfly! Bad stuff.
Kim: I forgot the military transports! Those things are huge. We don't see too many, but occasionally one on the way from one base to another crosses our airspace. Glad you like the photo.
Ah i can imagine how noisy they could get, I used to live near an airport a long time back and all the planes drove me crazy, the noise sure would effect the lovely beauty of the area. Great Picture.
Thanks, DR. Okay if I call you DR? I'll come to LahoreDP and ask you that. A neighbor of mine used to live near the police station, where there's a helipad. She says it's not so noisy here, by comparison.
Petrea, this is a fantastic photo! It is too true that the helicopters can be more than a little loud, especially at night.
Your picture is awesome. The helicopter looks like one of those flys in the comments. Just big enough to see.
Thank you, Theresa and Jim. Glad you guys like the shot.
fantastic shot! oh, and I fully agree that they plague the pasadena sky.
"Those airborne officers have a job to do, and they've got the stats to prove the copters help them do it. "
Any secret police, inquisition, or Orwellian oversight committee will claim they have "a job to do" to justify their actions, legitimate or not, and they could also produce statistics to support their claims. That they have a job to do is not the question. The question is whether the use of helicopters as a law-enforcement technique is a just method fit for a people who value their freedoms and disdain living in a police-state. Is it worth giving the police the power to intrusively monitor and intimidate us? I don't think so, especially because I do not think that without police helicopters we cannot combat crime. It is a false dichotomy that we must either support police helicopter programs or endure increasing crime. We could spend the $2.4million for the new chopper and the ballooning cost of chopper fuel on more ground police work in the troubled neighborhoods, or better still reassign those pesky old-town motorcycle cops who lie in an alley eagerly waiting to pounce on J-walkers and minor traffic offenders. Where do we place our priorities with respect to crime? I liked it when police walked in the streets and not hovered above us with penetrating search beams, listening devices, or infrared scanners.
"And even then, there'd still be traffic copters, and the Altadena Mountain Rescue copters... and the copters that land at the Jet Propulsion Lab from time to time... and the water-dropping copters in fire season, and..."
True, but these various copters don't fly over your community day after day, every day for over 15 years. And they don't hover over your community night after night, every night till 2am producing jack-hammer reverberations that rattle your windows and pry you awake at all odd hours of the night.
I figure out it was so annoying because imagine many helicopters flying at the same time over Pasadena I wouldn't bear it.
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