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             HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM            253
time to extend the development. That would certainly be true, would it not, because of the better equipment that is coming on?
  Mr. Loening. Yes. The improvements are just the going up of the last few feet of the hill. To close it off now is like having a roadbuilding program and closing a road that leads to an undeveloped and as yet unpopulated area, because you don't think anyone is going to use it.
  Senator Monroney. We have nurtured it along from childhood through its adolescence and up to its maturity, and to cut it off now would be to waster all the development costs and all the learning curves, and all the experience, and all the trial and error that has gone into not only the making of helicopter airlines, but finding out how to operate them safely.
  Mr. Loening. I am unable to reconcile the President's budget department action in this case with, on the other hand, the very fine actions with regard to aviation that the President and his administration have taken, like, for example, the SST development, which is very important, and, for example, the fine responses to developments in the military, and the encouraging way that the President himself uses helicopters, which is very impressive.
  In addition to that, my own connection, his encouraging attitude with regard to the National Air Museum, of which I am his appointee to the advisory board.
  Senator Monroney. It is particularly strange that the President, having more breakthroughs in bringing the heliport to the very door of the White House----
  Mr. Leoning. I am sorry I have to mention this, because I have great admiration for the President, and I am only sorry that being retired and probably considered somewhat out-of-date, I wasn't asked about this helicopter subsidy death.
  Senator Monroney. I think if you had been, the President would have gotten better advice than he did get.
  Mr. Loening. I don't know where he got it, or what.
  Senator Monroney. I imagine in the rush of getting the budget out, the Budget Bureau might have acted on its own and didn't have the full action of the President.
  Mr. Loening. That, I do not know. I am retired, so I don't investigate.
  Senator Monroney. I know, personally, how much the President enjoys flying by helicopter, how safe he feels it can be, and how completely the entire family, the entire Presidential family, trusts the helicopters.
  Mr. Loening. I have a heliport on my estate in Key Biscayne, Fla., and I use it all the time, as I do a car. In my opinion, I am much safer going up to Palm Beach in a helicopter than I am in driving on U.S. No. 1.
  Senator Monroney. We have a small helicopter firm in Oklahoma that makes one that sells for about $20,000 for a two-place, and for five-place, a little under $50,000.
  Mr. Brandtly--he has put in a lot of time and effort. It is a tragedy that none of the agencies of Government whatsoever, including the FAA, CAB, Army, Navy, or Marine Corps, have given them even so much as a whisper of an offer. They have made their sales strictly to the private sector, and to the cities and communities, and