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Cape Town Helicopter Noise

Cape Town's tourism Helicopter industry seems to be booming if one judges it by the amount helicopters flying around over the Cape Peninsula.  It also seems to be an industry that only considers itself and not the detrimental effect it is having on the general peace and well being of the suburbs of Cape Town. The noise on the ground has become increasingly problematic, especially when there are 40 plus flights a day in summer coming over your house.   The Cape Town suburbs and Table Mountain National Park have generally always been quiet spaces but unfortunately, this is no longer the case thanks to an elitist tourism activity reserved for the wealthy minority. The City of Cape Town (to date) has not been able to provide me with the Environmental Impact Assesment report that I would hope has been done for a high volume activity such as this that causes noise and dumps C02 into the atmosphere. Coastal suburbs like Clovelly, Kalk Bay, St James and Muizenberg are being hugely af
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Heath and hearing

Fred Cohen sums it up perfectly in this excerpt; " Helicopters rank especially high in causing undesirable noise. Eight different studies have found that the annoyance created by a helicopter does not correlate with the decibels it registers. The helicopter’s unique sound, created by blade vortex interaction, causes people to rate its sound level as much as 10 dB’s higher than it actually registers, doubling the noise impact. This would place perceived helicopter noise at around 97 dB, or a whopping 30 dB’s over the generally accepted noise level of residential areas. These findings certainly suggest that helicopter flight should be regulated in response to the exceptional levels of noise they produce.  Despite the findings on helicopter noise and the aesthetic-health issues linked to excessive, annoying noise, local and municipal legislators have no jurisdiction in this field of noise regulation — leaving us to bemoan our fate, visit a BOSE outlet for noise cancelling head
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How Noise effects your health

One only has to drive on Cape Town's roads or watch someone freak out in a queue to see how incredibly stressed out most people are these days.  Tempers are short and people have little patience. The smallest challenge or delay triggers them, resulting in an explosion of emotion that is totally out of proportion to what is happening. Stress is a very big part of everyone's life.  Noise contributes to this significantly - it might even be unconscious and it's only when you go somewhere quiet that you realize just how much you needed the peace.  Your body relaxes and you literally feel like the stress is draining out of you - you are less jumpy, your temper isn't as sort and you actually get a good nights sleep. For you, it might be your neighbors barking dogs or the guy who revs his motorbike engine incessantly.  Others may struggle with the ongoing building sites around Cape Town and the noise this generates.  The really unlucky might have neighbors who love to
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New York City and Noisy tourist Helicopter flips

And I found this point to be particularly pertinent to the Cape Town situation:    Tourists will not stop coming if helicopter tours are ended.   Most tourists (more than 58 million last year) come to New York to enjoy its magnificent public spaces, visit theaters and museums, shop, dine in restaurants, and perhaps get a view from a tall building. New York City almost banned Tourism helicopter activities all together.  Various articles have been published on this matter and the most pertinent point has been around noise pollution and how bad it is for people.   A Plague of Helicopters  New York Times 31 January 2016 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/opinion/sunday/a-plague-of-helicopters-is-ruining-new-york.html City leaders should consider the high price we pay for helicopter tourism, a cost to our environment and to the quality of life in our parks and neighborhoods.  Source: Photo by Frank Köhntopp on Unsplash
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Birds and Helicopter Noise

Interesting Reading  - a study done on the effects of Helicopter noise on the endangered Birds of Dassen Island. One of the best-studied groups of birds for the impact of aircraft is penguins. Some species of penguins are prone to panic responses to helicopters (e.g. Wilson et al. 1991, Cooper et al. 1994, Giese & Riddle 1999), occasionally with catastrophic results (Rounsevell & Binns 1991). Most catastrophic events happen among dense groups of penguins, where even one bird panicking can set off a chain reaction throughout the group.  Source: http://adu.org.za/pdf/Nansikombi_Juliet_2004_MSc_CB_thesis.pdf Image source: Wikipedia - Michael John Nicoll - Nicoll, M. J. (1908) Three Voyages of a Naturalist : Being an Account of Many Little-Known Islands in Three Oceans Visited by the 'Valhalla' R. Y, S., London : Whitherby & Co.
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Archive: Noisy Cape Town Helicopters

Original Article: http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/noisy-helicopters-leave-residents-outraged-264583 Excerpt from an article published on 2006, this is a long ongoing issue in Cape Town. Outraged residents and the Table Mountain National Park have had enough of noisy helicopters which they said were flying "irresponsibly" low over protected areas and Cape Town suburbs. Fiona Kalk, park spokesperson, said: "Under the Protected Areas Act, all aircraft must be 1 500ft above the highest point of the park. In the park that is McClear's Beacon on top of Table Mountain." Although helicopter companies insist they do keep to this regulated height, Kalk said, helicopters in fact do not abide by this regulation. continue reading... 
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Video - LOW FLYING HELICOPTERS OVER CAPE TOWN SUBURBS

A video from a Claremont resident On Friday, 24 th  February 2017, between 08H55 and 09H55, helicopters were flying low over the houses in Claremont. Footage of one of the helicopters shows how low this helicopter was flying against a backdrop of trees and the mountain. Despite numerous complaints to the Waterfront, City of Cape Town (Noise Control) and Operators themselves, helicopters continue to operate with no consideration of his residence below.  
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