About this site

Why it looks like a tour company

People planning a New York helicopter tour search for tours. This site meets them there, then shows them the part of the trip the brochures leave out: the neighborhoods under the routes, flight after flight, all day. Nothing is for sale, nothing can be booked, and no one will contact you.

What the numbers are

• From Thursday, April 30, 2026 to Sunday, September 6, 2026, on an average flying day about 297 helicopter flights used the 11 heliports and airports around New York City, at least 125 of them sightseeing tours.
• The busiest day was Monday, July 20, 2026, with 527 helicopter flights.
• About 25 helicopters a day fly directly over Hoboken, New Jersey, and 139 a day are as loud as a conversation (60 dBA or more) somewhere in the city.
• The neighborhoods with the most loud helicopter flybys are Battery Park City (150 a day), Hoboken (139) and Hell's Kitchen (130).
• Nearly every flight over Hoboken also crosses Jersey City Heights, which averages 42 helicopters overhead a day.

Flights come from ADS-B positions broadcast by every aircraft and collected by ADS-B Exchange; noise on the ground is modeled with the published method of Chopper Noise by Allen Shaibani. Averages are per flying day: 116 days from Thursday, April 30, 2026 to Sunday, September 6, 2026, leaving out 11 days when bad weather grounded most tours and 2 days with incomplete data. Levels are estimates, not measurements.

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