Air tour guidelines to be drawn up

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawai'i's largest national parks soon will be the first in the nation to begin developing Congressionally mandated plans aimed at preventing adverse effects from air tours.

The Hawai'i national parks are the first of more than 60 national parks across the U.S. scheduled to get such plans to comply with the National Park Air Tour Management Act of 2000.

The act seeks to prevent negative effects from air tours on "natural and cultural resources, visitor experiences and tribal lands.'' The plans, according to the act, may prohibit air operations or establish specific routes, maximum or minimum altitudes or time of day for operations within one-half-mile of a park's boundaries.

Regulations were enacted in November and a rule took effect last week requiring air tour operators flying less than 5,000 feet above national parks to obtain interim operating authority from the FAA while the plans are being created.

Six operators have applied for interim authority at the Maui park, officials said, while eight operators have applied for the Big Island park. Non-commercial general-aviation aircraft won't be affected by the new rules.

Brian Armstrong, FAA air tour program manager, said the Hawai'i parks were given priority because of the high level of air tour activity and because of the existing working relationship between air tour operators and the National Park Service.

At Haleakala, for example, air tour operators have been flying under an interim agreement developed with the park nine years ago. Under the agreement, helicopters are kept outside park boundaries, except in emergencies and over a corridor across Waimoku Falls in the Kipahulu area.

Haleakala National Park Superintendent Don Reeser said the interim agreement seems to be working in minimizing noise inside the crater and other areas of the park.

Armstrong said the FAA is collecting acoustical data at Hawai'i Volcanoes and will use the same equipment to gather noise data at Haleakala starting in late February.

Creating the air-tour plan could take two years or more, requiring several public hearings for environmental documents and FAA rule making, he said.

The Hawai'i Volcanoes plan could take longer because there is no formal flight agreements between the park and tour operators.

Park Superintendent Jim Martin said officials were close to signing an agreement 10 years ago before new FAA safety regulations altered the course of air tours and brought the noise level down.

Martin said the park is developing a soundscape management plan with the aim of trying to preserve opportunities for visitors to hear natural sounds only, perhaps at certain times of the day.

A draft of the plan, which focuses on helicopter and bus use at the park, should be ready by the time the FAA begins its federally required environmental studies, he said.

"When someone hikes out to Napau Crater for camping, there should be periods of time when you can hear the surging of lava, birds chirping and the wind blowing. That's what we would like,'' he said.

Martin also said he'd like to see regulations keeping air tours away from breeding areas of the endangered Hawaiian goose, as well as from other bird areas in the forest near the Mauna Loa Strip Road.

The tricky part of an air tour plan at Hawai'i Volcanoes is what to do when the lava flow stops at Pu'u 'O'o and begins elsewhere. Martin said the FAA may have to allow for back-up air routes because the lava is the main attraction.

"It's a moving target,'' said Dave Chevalier, owner of Maui-based Blue Hawaiian Helicopters. "You never know where the lava is going to go. How do you do a plan that's flexible enough to allow us to do our business?''

Chevalier said that while members of the air tour industry are nervous about the air plans, he's confident federal officials will be reasonable.

A member of the National Parks Overflight Working Group that helped develop the legislation, Chevalier said the Haleakala interim agreement was a model for the act.