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HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM 123

The amount totally eclipses anything that has been spent in all of the years that has been spent in all of the years that helicopter subsidy has been paid.

Point No. 3: If one were to agree that these helicopter services did not have national significance, it could only be on the basis that such a view is too narrow. Their significance is not national, but rather international. The Bureau of the Budget could only be looking at the problem with dollar sign shaped blinders to come up with its proposed solution.

Look, for example, at the benefits already being achieved by helicopter operations in Pakistan, and the North Sea oil exploration now being undertaken. Both are outgrowths of the development work done by the three U.S. helicopter operators. And the successes achieved by the United States in this area of development will have a large bearing on its participation in the helicopter, STOL and VTOL export markets of the future.

Point No. 4: The U.S. helicopter operators have been let down in one important area and the Civil Aeronautics Board can be held to blame for this. The U.S. Congress, which is asked to approve the subsidy moneys for these helicopter services, has been cheated. The CAB had a perfect opportunity to give Congress the direct benefit of helicopter convenience with the opening of Dulles International Airport and completely missed the boat. As a result, the "far out" Dulles has starved for air services, Congressmen have become bitter about it, Washington National has become the beehive of obsolete aircraft activity and the public traveling to the capital of the world is forced to remain in the dark piston era of air transportation.

The helicopter is the key to making Dulles the airport that it should be, if only the Congress would make the CAB and FAA get busy and do something about it.

Point No. 5: One of the helicopter airlines has been given far too much recognition in the present Budget Bureau campaign to end subsidy and that has been the industry's newest, SFO Helicopter Airlines. It is important that its position be placed in proper perspective.

With all due respect to the great promotional and operating job done by SFO Helicopters in the bay area, that accomplishment could not have been even remotely possible had it not been for the development effort by the three real pioneers in this field: Clarence Belinn in Los Angeles, Wes Moore in Chicago, and Bob Cummings in New York. It has been a far easier task for Mr. Bagan to pick up the best of what they have achieved over a dozen years and put it to work––aircraft, operating techniques, insurance benefits, etc.––and it does not justify the "demand" to be put on an equal subsidy footing with them. In brief, the views from SFO should be dismissed as irrelevant in judging the issue of subsidy from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. These three pioneers went into operation to develop helicopter air transportation for the benefit of the United States and the world. SFO undertook its service to make a profit without the need for subsidy.

The three pioneers now are on the brink of moving into an era of profitable operation. There is an even greater public need for their success now than when the experiment was begun. To push them off the cliff prematurely, possibly into bankruptcy, would be a national disgrace. We urge the U.S. Congress to prevent such an ill-advised act for the future benefit of both United States and world air transportation.

COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO,
OFFICE OF BOARD OF TRADE,
San Bernardino, Calif., March 1, 1965.

Senator A.S. MIKE MONRONEY,
Chairman, Aviation Subcommittee of Commerce, New Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR MONRONEY: The San Bernardino County Board of Trade wishes me to write in reference to the hearings being held by the Aviation Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce on the subject of whether the Government should continue, expand or limit the federally supported helicopter air service program. The county of San Bernardino strongly supports the policy of the Civil Aeronautics Board in its show cause order of February 16, 1965, docket 15683, wherein the CAB proposes the permanency of Los Angeles Airways' helicopter service. The county of San Bernardino not only is in favor of the continuance of helicopter service, but is emphatically in favor of increased service as well as expansion of communities served. It is the considered feeling