F-ing News Helicopter!!!

“ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

There was a house fire this morning about 6 blocks from us, so one of the news stations sent over their helicopter. The damn thing hovered RIGHT OVER our house for over a half hour at 6:15 AM!!!!! I had to close all of our windows because we couldn't even hear each other talk. I tried to call the station to complain, but of course they had some stupid voice mail system that didn't work. It took me a while to figure out which station it was because all I could see was the bottom of the damn thing. I flipped channels around until I saw them showing footage of the fire. Why this was so damn important that they had to stick around for as long as they did is beyond me. I considered making a sign (e.g., "Get the F--- out of here!!!") and going over to the fire and holding it up for them to film. And this was all before I even had any coffee - NOW I'M REALLY TICKED OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Hah! I sent in a complaint through the station's web site. You always wonder if anyone reads those things. I just got an email from them:

"I am on Maternity Leave. Please contact Mariel Myers or Fritz Lichty with morning & noon show questions and/or scheduling concerns. Thank You"


Good thing I wasn't contacting them to report a gigantic earthquake or something!!”

“Good luck with your complaint. News outfits usually have a, well...screw you attitude, its for the news!

We had a news chopper land at our search base once. The site was extremely small so while they were there no one else could land. I was trying to explain that they would have to leave, but the guy kept saying he had the legal right to be there if he wanted. I told him I had the legal right to confiscate his ship.


They left.”

“Somebody called me up about a news copter hovering over their house one day. I said, "We don't have a bicycle, much less a helicopter. Why don't you call the station?"

The guy said he called the station and was told they have a right to do that, so he wondered if I could do something. I said I didn't have an RPG and suggested he call the FAA. He did, then called back and said he was told the copter had a right to do it.

Guys in Baghdad have more recourse than citizens in American cities!”

“you should always try to turn a negative into a positive...you should've mooned them...or better yet drag your wife out and pretend to have a domestic dispute in your front yard”

“Or maybe a sign about Barry Bonds being on steroids - there's kind of a hysteria about that right now!”

“Is Barry on steroids? Jeez, I've heard nothing about this.”

“I can see the right to traverse the airspace above your house, but I don't think its right for them to hover over your house. Prolonged hovering IS trespassing. This should be covered under nuisance laws such as noise limits, or damage to property due to their rotors blowing over objects in the yard if they were low enough.”

“They're hard to find WK. As I suggested, Baghdadand Al Qaeda have cornered the market for now.”

“Watch out WK you're being watched. That could be mistaken as terrorism, want to spend the rest of your days at Guantanimo?”

“We have hovering polic copters, not news copters. I've been hit with a floodlight on several occasions. I usually just wave.”

“Take PICTURES any time you have a problem. NOTHING scares officials more then pictures or video tape. If need be, they speak VOLUMES in court & you tend to get more response when you have PICTURES.

Call the FAA any way. You'll get a different person & different response. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. Send (reasonable)letters to ALL levels of gov. They HAVE to respond to you & send letters to the offending station or non-responsive agency.

You'll get a blah-blah response but I bet it doesn't happen again or they'll be more solicitous if it does.

I'd send the station a bill for damages to your house & yard.
last edited: 5/12/06 6:17:06 PM”

“Hey BM, I saw the footage this morning on channel 2 (KTVU?). It was a slow news day I guess.

Oh, I saw someone peeping your windows. Thought you should know.”

“call the competing news stations "troubleshooter guy", they all have that guy that takes a cause and creates an awareness for it.”

“Thats like asking McGuire to rat out Barry Bonds and his steroid usage”

“Bow and arrows and a slingshot do wonders if they're not too high up. :o)”

“A single .50 caliber round from an evil black rifle will explode it into a million pieces! Right, y2?”

“Walk out with a hunk of pipe over your shoulder, I doubt they'd stay around long enough to check it out too closely. You might get vist from the boys and girls in blue tho.

I don't think the free fly zone extends below 500 feet.”

“For the next time get a bunch of Estes rocket and start launching them near the copter.”

“So Mutt, you couldn't hit someone in a hovvering chopper from 150ft away. You always give the impression you were such a great shot. Maybe you need new glasses.”

“Shawn, I guess it depends where you are, but I read that FAA rules don't have a set altitude or elevation above ground level distance for choppers. The rule is whatever the pilot feels is safe, is acceptable.”

“Shawn, I guess it depends where you are, but I read that FAA rules don't have a set altitude or elevation above ground level distance for choppers. The rule is whatever the pilot feels is safe, is acceptable.”

“Stop whining. "There was a house fire this morning about 6 blocks from us, so one of the news stations sent over their helicopter. The damn thing hovered RIGHT OVER our house for over a half hour at 6:15 AM!!!!! I had to close all of our windows because we couldn't even hear each other talk"

Big deal, a helicopter was over your house this A.M. If it wasn't, you and 6 million people calling the station to complain about the poor news coverage... "someone in my neighborhood just "XXX-YYY-ZZZ" and you didn't cover it! You're (Pick one) A. Racist B. Sexist C. Don't care about us (white, hispanic, black, etc etc etc people)

If you don't like all the attention that living in a densely populated area brings with it, then you need to move to a "less" densly populated area.

Sorry if this response bugs you, but there is just no big issue with your complaint, except that you don't understand what living in a densly populated area means.”

“Marty, I'm looking more & more at Placerville as the ideal place to live... close enought that I can get to the airport (Sac airport) reasonably, can get to SF in <2hrs, etc.

I'm not sure what you do professionally or what flexability you may have, but there sure are a bunch of folks moving this way (East) from the Bay Area! I'm moving EVEN FURTHER East because of them.

Signs of the times. sigh.”

“bowlderman, I would recommend buying some military smoke grenades. they are non-explosive and legal, they also will make a cloud that is roughly 50,ooo cu ft.”

“I get a helicoptor flying (high) overhead about once a year. I'd go crazy with city traffic, noise, sirens, loud music, crowds & news coptors.

I see 3 cars on my 18 mile drive to work thru the mountains. Often no cars.

Give me darkness, silence & solitude.”

“When I lived in central Vermont our house was up the north side of a gap at 1,300 feet with Kelsey Mountain topping out at 1,800 behind us.

Yeah, OK, this is the east!

It turns out that the New Hampshire contingent(Combat Support Company) of 3/172 Inf(mtn), of which I had been a member of Co. A, would fly through our little gap on their way to Ethan Allen Firing Range in Jericho(just west of Mt Mansfield) in UH-1's......Huey's.

They were following the rivers and valleys and eventually the interstate.

It was way cool to me as they flew low through our little gap just a little higher and little more than a stone's throw from my front porch.

At the time I was no longer in the battalion and hadn't seen this before since I would have already been in Jericho with Co. A during previous flights.

My boys and I jumped up and down waving like a bunch of................boys!”

“Hiking or canoeing in the Adirondacks would give you low flying jets. I never seemed to have my camera ready when one came whipping around the corner at eye level & gone in an instant. It's kinda neat.”