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112    HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM

availability of certified aircraft for sale to foreign countries and all scheduled helicopter airlines in operation or in planning in the free world use helicopters designed and manufactured in the U.S.A. This includes helicopter airline operations in Great Britain, Europe, Japan, Pakistan, Greenland and Australia. It has also enhanced the ability of the American helicopter industry to serve the needs of our allies for military helicopters and hundreds of helicopters of American design and/or manufacture are operated by foreign governments. Sales abroad of American helicopters represent an actual and potential favorable gold flow of substantial proportions, estimated at several hundred millions of dollars during the entire period of subsidy.

4. The operation of Los Angeles Airways provides a commuter and feeder service for hundreds of thousands of passengers annually in a service pattern comparable to that of local service carriers. By the use of heliports constructed at a minimum cost in money--and land--Los Angeles Airways has helped make unnecessary the construction and operation of conventional airports which would otherwise have increased the cost of local and Federal governments by millions of dollars.

It seems to me that the CAB minimum basis subsidy program for helicopter operations ought to be adopted as a matter of sound fiscal policy.

Another policy matter is also of prime importance. Congress, since 1938, has delegated to the CAB the duty to determine and fix subsidy for our air carriers, all of whom were so assisted in their early stages. Since 1938 our Government has paid air carriers, on the basis of CAB determinations, over $1 1/4 billion with the result that we have today the most highly developed system in the world. In not one instance has the administration permitted an air carrier to expire by declining to provide a subsidy to support an operation found by the CAB to be required under the basic law.

I most respectfully urge favorable consideration of the CAB proposal for helicopter carriers. I would be very glad to supply such additional information or explanation as you might desire.

With sincere respect,
Very sincerely yours,
THOMAS H. KUCHEL, U.S. Senator.

Senator MONRONEY. We thank you for your courtesy in coming here and also for your fighting stance on the fact that this might not be allowed to go down the drain and lose the progress we have made over the 15 to 17 years of history that we have had it.

Your good city of Los Angeles, which as you point out, has a greater population than almost any of our States of the Union, offers a significant illustration of what helicopter service can and must do to hold down the cost of the aviation in this great complex of exploding population.

For example, to supply the area which you say "many of these areas are larger than Baltimore City," would require perhaps a complex of six or eight airports at the very most, which would increase drastically and dramatically the cost of operation of the scheduled airlines, particularly if the trunkline were they required to fly into San Bernardino, for example, to pick up the people there, and then required to stop at Ontario, and perhaps at Glendale, and perhaps at Lockheed Air Terminal, and so on and around the perimeter to and including Long Beach, Anaheim, Disneyland, your home--I mean Anaheim--

Senator KUCHEL.  Mr. Chairman, when people ask me back here where I live, I say Anaheim, and if there is a blank look on the person's face who asked me the question, then I add "Disneyland" and he understands.

Senator MONRONEY. I see. The same stop for a helicopter. This would increase drastically and dramtically the cost of operation to the trunklines if they had to fly service in where these population centers are, would it not?