today we're going to go and find a lot
of circles around this statue of liberty
and to get there we're going straight
down the hudson river alongside the
skyscrapers of new york below the
skyline and past four major airports
without checking in with air traffic
control and no fighter jets are going to
stumble to
is completely legal and approved by the
u.s aviation authorities i say we are
doing that actually i'm just the
tourists put the cameras my pilot john
here is extremely qualified and has been
doing this for years we're headed to the
hudson river special flight rules area
and it's one of the most surprising
quotes of aviation launch i've ever
heard of almost unrestricted airspace
right next to manhattan you do need to
be a qualified pilot you do need to
follow a few basic rules and you have to
be certain that you're going to stay in
that area but if you can do it then the
views of your passengers are going to be
unlike anything else uh germany's about
to be extremely busy uh so i'm going to
shut up uh but the third took off i have
to get out how this works
the interesting thing about the sfra is
you can pretty much do whatever you want
to a certain degree
all of the united states there's a lot
of airports that don't have tower
controlled so you self-announce so this
area is a self-announced area and one of
the busiest airspaces of the world and
there's different reporting points
through the sfra what you're basically
going to do is talk and you'll hear
other aircraft that are doing the same
thing anybody who is in that special
flight rules area will be able to hear
us
and i'll just make the first
announcement here so it's that's river
traffic cessna beam the alpine tower
southbound jersey shore 1100 feet hudson
river and no one's going to acknowledge
it
that's not going to air traffic control
it's just in the broadcast because we
are transitioning the airspace we're
going to stay at 1100 feet this is a
visual flight you're not flying
instruments with this at all if the
weather is no good you're not doing this
flight
this river traffic cessna over the gw
bridge 1100 feet jersey side southbound
hudson river
above the sfra is totally controlled
airspace and that airspace can be
controlled by either teterboro laguardia
newark or kennedy so you can see um long
island long island sound and laguardia
sitting out there yep and then this is
all manhattan you can see central park
we'll see this a little bit further yeah
another point yep
so he's in the bravo
right so he's in the controller
airspace right yep exactly
right below the tops of the skyscrapers
that's yeah i mean including the new
ridiculous stupid benson skyscrapers
yeah
wow i need to think like i'm
concentrating on the cameraman's shots
but can you see my eyes off that because
wow
i typically don't do the special flight
rules area for photo missions the
viewpoint at a higher altitude is
typically better for aerial photography
and that's what we kind of specialize in
if you lose an engine you have to really
think a lot quicker when you're this low
well you get you get nice views here but
um
you're almost blocked by the buildings
to see the entire thing right you know
but the beans down each
concrete canyon
is fantastic yeah
so that's why it's like a two main road
here so you want to make sure you're
good there
did i get that on camera i have no idea
there we go there he goes
and then the financial district did you
include the story about halfway up that
door yeah yeah right
you have to report with every reporting
point and it's a bit of a negotiation so
sometimes if there's a helicopter in the
way we might talk to the helicopter
directly and say hey we're coming
through and they say yeah we got you in
sight that's a river traffic session by
the clock southbound jersey side we're
going to make a left turn around the
statue of liberty hudson river
is behind the statue
okay gotcha
let's assess the hazard
if you wanted to turn around the statue
of liberty it's left turns around the
statue of liberty at eleven hundred feet
so here's the left we're gonna carry
that in
that's the river traffic this is
circling the statue liberty left turns
that's the river
this is actually the closest i've ever
been to the stretch of liberty
from before i just i just took the stuff
now in furry
that's
really something special that is
except it's not i guess it's just a
thing you can do yeah something you
could do yeah with the qualifications
you
you can try here
if you're going to do this flight it's
really important to do it with somebody
who's already done it
especially for new pilots it's best to
take an instructor who's done this
before now of course you can't reach the
boundaries of the area that'll be the
sort of thing to get your pilot's
license suspended very very quickly od
city itself is highly controlled
airspace by the pilots handling just
barge in there
unless they are qualified confident and
made with their traffic control in their
class
mario power system five zero six year
probably currently one thousand
northbound hudson river mission empire
state building it's like everything else
in aviation it's not necessarily hard
it's just not forgiving
so the key is
know what you're doing before you do it
and don't do anything that is off the
script
on station right turns all right
that's what i said
wow
so this is how we do photo bishop so you
could get really good work there that is
unbelievable thank you so much
you