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           HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM              81

operators with 1 or 2 machines to larger firms within the association with 10 or more.

The largest company in the group now has 72 helicopters of various types. Altogether these private firms operate about 500 helicopters in widely diversified types of charter and contract work.

A list of the regular membership which is attached as appendix A shows that 75 are U.S. companies, 2 are Canadian, 2 are located in South America, and 1 is based in England.

Association member companies provide a wide variety of unique services to business and industrial forms, government agencies, and the general public. Some of the more prominent types of work include utility line patrolling, land survey work, offshore transportation, forest fire fighting, construction work, aerial application, police work, and numerous emergency and lifesaving missions.

Numerous other uses are described in appendix B. Since 1960, the helicopter operating industry has more than doubled in size by doing these and other jobs more efficiently than they could be accomplished by older methods and also by doing certain jobs that really could not be done effectively in previous years.

This industry, which now includes approximately 1,600 active helicopters in North America, is conservatively estimated to produce $75 million of gross business per year exclusive of the helicopter airlines. 

At its annual convention held in San Diego January 24 through 27, the association voted a formal resolution (attached as app. C) urging the U.S. Government to——
    1. Continue subsidy to the three carriers during the next 5 years in accordance with the schedule recommended by the Civil Aeronautics Board;
    2. Authorize the Civil Aeronautics Board to approve a support program for other major cities wherever opportunities exist for the development of scheduled service at lower supporting costs; and
    3. Establish a Federal policy that would recognize the helicopter airlines as a necessary part of the Nation's transportation system.
In transmitting to you the association's resolution, I would like to emphasize that the bulk of the membership of the association is not engaged in scheduled air transportation. At the same time, many of these companies are desirous of beginning such services as soon as it appears to be economically feasible to do so.

In the meantime, in their role as taxpayers, they fully support the actions recommended by the Government's experts in this field, the CAB, and find it appalling to think that this developmental program, with so much potential value for many sections of the country, might be allowed to die when within sight of the goal we have been waiting and hoping for all these years.

The discarding of a $50 million public investment and substantial private investment in this needed improvement in our transportation system could at best only be described as wasteful.

Those members of the association who desire to expand into scheduled helicopter service when it becomes economically feasible are