The NYC Helicopter Experience

Helicopter flights from 11 New York and New Jersey airports and heliports, replayed over New York City, Long Island and the New Jersey side, with the modeled noise on the ground. Click any spot on the map to hear what it sounded like there.

Regional NYC: helicopter traffic from 11 airports, with sound

Modeled, not measured. Every helicopter flight that took off from or landed at HHI Kearny (65NJ), Downtown Manhattan (JRB), West 30th Street (JRA), East 34th Street (6N5), Linden (LDJ), Essex County (CDW), Newark Liberty (EWR), East Hampton (HTO/JPX), the NYPD heliport at Floyd Bennett Field (NY22) or Teterboro (TEB), replayed over all of Long Island, New York City and the New Jersey side, including the water off both Long Island coasts. Residents are 2020 Census blocks in New York City, New Jersey, Long Island (Nassau and Suffolk) and the rest of New York State inside the map box; Connecticut is not counted.
12:00 am1 minute every 2 seconds
tour operatorspublic serviceother operatorsrings: how far 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 dBA reaches the ground60+70+80+ dBA lights a block, then fadesairport

Replay and noise-map design: created by Allen Shaibani (publicworks.nyc) as Chopper Noise, whose published method and per-type loudness table this tab uses (original code BSD 3-Clause licensed). This version was written independently for this dashboard from the original's documented behavior; any mistakes in it are not the original's.

How this is calculated, sources and limits

Helicopters are aircraft the operations data classes as rotorcraft. A flight is a run of airborne pings (every 5 seconds, replayed from a 10-second sample) that has a takeoff or landing at one of the airports above in the operations data. The level at a block is L(r) = L150 − 20 log10(r / 150) − 2 (r − 150) / 1000 dBA, r being the straight-line distance in metres (never under 30) and L150 the aircraft type's peak level at 150 m; height is pressure altitude corrected with the hourly Newark altimeter setting. Rings show how far each helicopter's level reaches the ground. A block lights when 60+ dBA reaches it and fades to a third in 60 seconds of the day.

Groups: tour operators are FlyNYON, Zip Aviation, New York Helicopters and HeliNY; public service is police, military and government owners; every other operator is "other". These rest on operator and owner names and are a first cut.

  • Levels are modeled outdoor peaks. No measured flyover has checked them. Buildings and the direction the helicopter faces are ignored.
  • Flights are only followed where radio receivers pick them up; coverage over open water off the coasts is thinner than over land, so some offshore stretches may be missing.
  • Only flights with a recorded takeoff or landing at the 11 airport codes are shown, and only while inside the map box. Other helicopter traffic is not included.
  • Residents are counted where they live, not where they were. "Heard" means the modeled level reached the block.

Sources: aircraft positions and takeoffs/landings from ADS-B data (ADS-B Exchange); loudness per aircraft type from the UK Civil Aviation Authority helicopter noise database via Chopper Noise by Allen Shaibani; residents from the 2020 Census redistricting data; altimeter from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet (station EWR); airport locations from OurAirports.