East Hampton Helicopter Noise

In the article published by the East Hampton Press on August 11th (PDF of article can be found on the right side of this page.) Richard MacDonald was quoted, “I swear I can see the whites of the pilots’ eyes.” Richard lives behind my house and he was not exaggerating when he made that statement. We can see the pilot had his sunglasses on, otherwise we would have seen the whites of his eyes. This is another of many examples of helicopters flying roof top level harassing the folks on the ground.

This helicopter, tail number N314RG was captured on video flying over my house on Labor Day, September 6, 2010 at 6:09pm. According to the FAA Registry this is a Sikorsky S-92A owned by Rencopter 314 LLC, 1 Rockefeller Plz. Fl. 29, New York, NY 10020-2021. This is the same address as Renco Group, the investment company controlled by Ira Rennert.

In the “Videos” section of this website there is a compilation of video clips of helicopter flying over my house on Labor Day. This helicopter can be seen in the video several times as Mr. Rennert ferries people to and from his home in Sagaponack. Why is he flying over my house and us poor folks north of the highway? Why doesn’t he take the southern route, fly over his house, up Georgica Pond and over Ron Perelman’s house? Does Ira Rennert not like the sound of his own helicopter? Would he rather torture and torment us poor folks north of the highway? His house is in Southampton Town so why are our East Hampton Town officials permitting the residents and taxpayers of East Hampton to be tormented by folks from Southampton? The folks living north of the highway are working folks, so why is Ira Rennert tormenting us on our only holiday, Labor Day? How rude and inconsiderate can this man be? All this to save one hour in travel time. How crazy is that?

The Sikorsky S-92A also known as “Helibus” seats 19 passengers and costs over $32Million. I am wondering if the cost and operations of this helicopter is a corporate expense. I am wondering if the IRS knows about this.

The shocking part of the FAA report is the Airworthiness Classification is listed as “Experimental” and the Airworthiness Category is listed as “Research and Development to show compliance with FAR”. Are you kidding me? An experimental, R&D helicopter is flying this low to residential homes and nobody considers this unsafe or outright dangerous? How are they showing compliance to FAR (Federal Aviation Regulations) by flying dangerously close to residential homes. I can attest that this helicopter is so huge and noisy that the vibrations are literally shaking my house under my feet like an earthquake.