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HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM            165

Explanation:

Procurement savings ------- $53,000,000
Operational savings -------  57,000,000

Note.—No credit is taken for the factor of fixed additional operational costs of the 40 (10 percent) additional units which would have been needed in the absence of the effects of "commonality" as shown in the text of this testimony.

APPENDIX D

Mr. BELINN. With your permission, I will highlight some of the items in my written statement, and then, perhaps, leaf through and dwell a little more at length on the items contained in the heligram, particularly with reference to some of our military accomplishments.

We, of course, consider ourselves, as the Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board referred to us during the day, as a short-haul feeder carrier, using helicopters instead of fixed-wing airplanes.

We serve over 7 million people in most of southern California from 1 major terminal. This has a beneficial effect on the efficiency, we believe, of the Nation's trunk system, but particularly that of the Los Angeles International Airport.

You have had placed before you, I believe, maps of our system which outline to some extent the configuration which is dictated by the unique topography of southern California. Congressman Dyal has made reference to the areas in general that we serve, the large four major counties in southern California which, together, are larger than the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.

The average passenger is carried in excess of 40 miles as compared to 20, 18 in New York and San Francisco. I should emphasize that a great majority of these passengers travel upwards of 65 miles. 

The unique aspects of the helicopter in the Los Angeles system is that we are bounded on one side by the Pacific Ocean, on the other side by the southern Sierra range of the Rocky Mountains. So that for through liners of the transport category to let down from the East into any place short of Los Angeles terminal is a very difficult proposition.
 
We on the north, of course, have the San Francisco and Ventura County areas. In effect, we have a very vast basin which does not lend itself to multiplicity of satellite airports.

Unfortunately we have found and have in operation one of the world's finest international airports which serves as the hub and is the point of conversion for our service. We have had some emphasis on this problem of the three city areas receiving subsidized helicopter service.

The facts are that this service is beneficial to the commerce, the people who travel between and live in many, many other cities throughout the United States and throughout the world. I propose to refer to that at a later point in my testimony. 

One thing I should highlight is that there are three basic identifiable markets in our system. Aside from mail and express referred to by Congressman Dyal, primarily, our traffic consists of the modern, sophisticated technologist whose time averages somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 per hour.