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HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM 305 comprised of the metropolises of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, and their satellites. Heliports can be located anywhere and require much less space than the typical supermarket and its parking lot. I wish to make a few comments specifically directed to the Washington-Baltimore area. We have a rather unique situation of having two large metropolitan areas served by three airports. Two are concerned with serving primarily Washington with long-haul service. This is Dulles and Friendship. Washington National Airport provides much of the short-haul transportation for Baltimore. Interconnecting traffic from Dulles Airport and Friendship Airport in most instances is dependent upon local service out of Washington National Airport or else transfer by time-consuming surface means. Washington-Baltimore ranks fourth in total passengers on a national scale. There are a number of other points in the Washington-Baltimore area which have been closely scrutinized in our studies that also, in the best of public interest, require service. After considerable perusal of the data which produces the aforementioned conclusions, it is rather obvious that a scheduled helicopter service is needed in the Washington-Baltimore area. Although subsidy is not available, we are prepared, and intend to provide, helicopter service to meet the public need and convenience. Our projections indicate a loss period for the first 3 years of operation; however, we are prepared to accept this. In consideration of our proposal it should be noted that there are two serious problems confronting existing operators and any would-be operators. 1. Helicopters used today were developed primarily for military applications and through modifications have been adopted for commercial service. Never have operators had available for schedules operations aircraft designed specifically to meet those demands. Discussions with manufacturers' representatives point out the obvious: sufficient markets do not exist which will permit development costs to be absorbed without making the delivered price of the helicopter prohibitive. 2. Little interest has been shown by city planners and government agencies for scheduled helicopter operations. If I may, I would like to say for those cities other than the ones presently enjoying the fruits of helicopter services. As a consequence, much distress has been experienced by the operators because of the lack of suitable heliports convenient to areas of need. Were the operators not confronted with these problems, the question of instituting additional service would be relatively simple to answer. We recommend government underwriting of development, after a design competition, of two classes of helicopters: one of 20-passenger capacity and the other of approximately 40-passenger capacity. It is well within the state of the art to build a machine with low operating costs. This coupled with the expansion of service into other areas is as much or more within the public interest as the construction of a supersonic transport and/or the creation of high-speed railways. Furthermore urban redevelopment plans should include provisions for heliports. The Federal and the local governments should provide matching funds for heliport construction in a manner
