#1 [url]

Oct 9 06 9:31 AM

I will agree that most helicopters are loud. I have to wear a headset to protect my hearing whenever I am on most of them. But I also wear a headset on the Piper Cherokee my wife flies as it is loud, also.

However, not all helicopters are loud. Some are almost silent. You only know they are above you when you feel the wind from them. There are more blades and they are longer and designed to not transvers the speed of sound causing the small sonic boom that you hear.

Too bad those cost so much more than the loud ones.

JB, I was awakened a few nights ago at 3 am by one of those really loud ones landing about a 1/4 mile from my home. The thing hoovered over my house for a few minutes while the police set up a landing zone. They were picking up an accident victim. About 15 minutes later, it went airborne and headed to a trauma center. Even though our local hospital is only a couple of miles from the accident scene, the individual had to be flown to a trauma-1 center to save their life. It took me awhile to get back to sleep.

I would hate to live in "helicopter alley" like you do. I'd probably move to a quieter place.

Oh yeah. I hate the cars that have those really loud and deep boom systems. Some of them actually rattle my chest. I wonder what it does to the kid's (who is driving it) ears.