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HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM          251

It is very important. This kind ofhelp, for example, also was contributed in the case of San Francisco Airways, which is carrying on a very good operation - how successful financially, I don't know.

When I was there I saw they were mixed up in the servicing of aircraft and a maintenance hangar. Why the two were done together, I don't know. At any rate, the airplane that they used, the helicopter that they used, was the S-62 at first. That S-62 in previous types had gone through years of bug chasing by Los Angeles Airways, the pioneer. Los Angeles Airways started all this city business: They have contributed immensely to it.

For example, Los Angeles Airways did the first night flying in commercial helicopters.  They have presented their case to you, and, I trust, without any modesty, because they have done a beautiful job. 

I come now to something a little different, and this is where I again differ with the President. There is no reason, incidentally, why the President shouldn't land on the Pan-Am roof. In my opinion, it is safer than he would be at lower altitude over the White House. If he had trouble there, he might crash into a tree or into his office, or into something near there.

On the Pan-Am roof, if he has trouble, he can go into autorotation, because it is high enough.

Instead of reducing subsidies, it seems to me this isn't the time to quit. We have some cities in this country that are badly in need of helicopter lines.  For one thing, right here in the District of Columbia, Friendship, Dulles region, we are badly in need of this service. The San Francisco region also. San Francisco has this one operation. It is not really enough. It ought to be greatly enlarged because going across San Francisco Bay will be a wonderful thing, providing the San Francisco operation will include something like New York Airways' Decca. The chairman mentioned, but I don't think strong enough, something that occurs in San Francisco: the frequent fogs.

I am sure the San Francisco fog conditions would be just as bad or worse than they are in New York, and that this may be one of the reasons why San Francisco Helicopter is taking up, for travel across the bay, the new ground-effect hover machine which, I believe, they have in their plans, because there they would supposedly be independent of weather.

They can be independent of weather today if they will adopt the Decca system. This could be obtained for them by generous subsidies from the Government. The ability to do what New York Airways had to do in developing fog navigation and spend a lot of money on, and, incidentally, a lot of their own money, is one of the reasons why they are hard put today. It cost a lot to develop the Decca short-range instant navigation system now used in New York. Shall we quit on this?

Senator MONRONEY. Could you tell me why, if you know-- I don't know-- the FAA didn't contribute to the development of the Decca system for New York Airways?

Mr. LOENING. No, I don't get into that area because I have nothing whatever to do with management.

Senator MONRONEY. I think this committee is going to want to inquire into that. As important as helicopters are, it seems to me that in our vast air traffic control system, with the tens of millions