Airports, Heliports and FBOs » Heliports

A new scale of landing charges introduced at the beginning of April for users of London Heliport is aimed at containing demand for the riverside facility, which has an annual limit of 12,000 movements–effectively 6,000 landings–as well as helping its new owner recoup a “considerable” investment in the site.

Progress is being made toward the goal of rotorcraft taking their place in the national transportation infrastructure, according to presenters at January’s American Helicopter Society (AHS) infrastructure convention in Carmel, Calif. The most significant announcement was a congressional requirement in the 2004 federal appropriations bill for the FAA to prepare a document–a technology road map–to define how the U.S.

Lockheed Martin and Kaman Aerospace , a subsidiary of Kaman of Bloomfield, Conn., have teamed to market advanced manned and unmanned helicopters worldwide for government applications. The companies intend to develop an unmanned version of the K-Max, already FAA approved for manned operation. The K-Max, with counter-rotating and intermeshing rotors that eliminate the need for a tail rotor, has accumulated more than 200,000 flight hours.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is drafting new rules for heliport layout and construction in a revised Annex 14. The new rules propose changes to the size of the final approach and takeoff (FATO) area, visual cues and surrounding airspace. ICAO expects the rules to be in place next year.