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Heliport electronic notifications

bamf

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Joined
Jan 12, 2017
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In doing my research with who all I need to notify pre-flight in my current location, I see that I have 24 heliports within 5 miles of where I will normally fly. I'm in Houston, and the Houston Airport System (HAS) has fully adopted the Airmap Digital Notification and Awareness System (D-NAS) which is fantastic. Unfortunately, none of the heliports fall under the purview of HAS. So I began the lengthy task of getting phone numbers and addresses to begin sending out notification letters (and calls) to all these heliports.

Now a few things I've noticed about the heliports (which most of you likely know already). First, they are almost universally unattended in terms of having a tower. The ones that do are the hospitals, but most of the others seem to be unattended. Second, and much more interesting to me, is that they are all have one thing in common (at least in my area) - they all use the Montgomery County Flight Service Station (FSS). Now according the the FAA (link) the FSS has a mission to:
  • Use technological advances to deliver efficient and affordable flight services
  • Use NextGen initiatives and vendor alternatives to streamline services
So with that being said, how can we push the FAA to mandate that FSS use D-NAS to notify both airports and heliports of our flights? In reading the things that FSS does, it looks like they take flight plans for all flights (fixed wing and helicopters), so wouldn't our flight data be useful to them? Since all they require is notification in most cases, it seems that D-NAS going to the FSS would solve a great deal of the issues we have related to notification, and would have the added benefit of notifying someone that sUAS are operating in a given area (even for heliports that don't maintain an attended tower).
 
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