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HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM    383

Chapter II

A PERSPECTIVE LOOK AT SCHEDULED COMMERCIAL HELICOPTER OPERATIONS IN RELATION TO U.S. TRANSPORTATION NEEDS

Purpose of Study

The purpose of this study is to define the role of vertical-lift aircraft in the US transportation system of the future and to consider the economic feasibility of the operations of such aircraft. In this evaluation it will be necessary, first, to define the nature of future US transportation needs and then to determine areas where the capabilities of vertical-lift aircraft appear responsive to the public need and where their operations appear to be economically feasible. 

In considering the future role of vertical-lift aircraft it is pertinent to examine past and present operations of the vertical-lift aircraft and to define the position that present helicopter operators occupy in today's transportation system. The nature of present schedule helicopter operations and degree of process (or lack thereof) of the present helicopter carriers during their relatively brief period of operations constitute a partial indication of the kind of progress that might be expected in the future with similar, though improved, aircraft. A portion of this study, then, is devoted to a review and analysis of existing helicopter operations, It is not the purpose, however, to project individually the operating and financial results of the present helicopter carriers. Such forecasts have been the subject of lengthy presentations by carriers and CAB staff in various proceedings before the Board and by carrier and CAB personnel in appearances before committees of the Congress. Neither is the study to be considered as a market analysis for any one specific vertical-lift aircraft type. Rather, the focus of the study is a definition of the general outlook for vertical-lift aircraft as a class in scheduled, common-carrier operations, as viewed from outside both the manufacturing and carrier industries.

General Nature of Future US Transportation Needs

Today the resident population of the United States is approximately 189 million. In 1975, a little over ten years from now, it will be 226 million. The number of people which will be added to the nation's population in that relatively brief period of time is slightly greater than the present combined population of the states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

This growth in population will not be spread evenly throughout the country. Eighty-seven percent of the population growth will occur in states located along the Atlantic Coast from New England to Florida, in areas on the Pacific Coast and in states bordering on the Great Lakes (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin). Population within each of these regions will be urbanized to an even greater than is true today and will be concentrated even more in large metropolitan areas. Furthermore, a continuation of the urban-sprawl type of land-use patterns will expand the boundaries of existing cities and large metropolitan areas and will bring them closer together, thereby forming super-metropolitan complexes in the form of stretched-out urban belts which will link out large cities with one another.

The emerging pattern of these super-metropolitan regions is already evident and by 1975 this development should be well advanced in the Atlantic Coast region (extending from Boston, including parts of Eastern New Hampshire and Southern Maine to the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia), in California from San Diego to Sacramento and in the Great Lakes region where Chicago and Detroit are the major population centers. High growth rates will occur in other parts of the country but it is unlikely that super-metropolitan regions of a size and population density comparable to the three above will develop by 1975. Large cities which are located outside the Boston-Washington area, California and the Great Lakes region and which will show high growth rates including the Texas cities of Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio, the Greater Miami and the Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan areas in Florida, and Denver and Phoenix. When the 1960 Census of Population was taken there were 22 metropolitan areas with a population of a million of more; by 1975 there should be at least 35 metropolitan areas of that size.

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