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Heliport

A heliport is a small airport suitable only for use by helicopters. Heliports typically contain one or more helipads and may have limited facilities such as fuel, lighting, a windsock, or even hangars. In larger towns and cities, customs facilities may be available at a heliport. Generally heliports can be situated closer to a town or city centre than an airport, which gives advantages in terms of travel time to many urban destinations, or even to the city's airport, which can be much faster than driving there.

The early advocates of helicopters hoped that heliports would become widespread, but they have become contentious in urban areas due to the unpleasant noise caused by helicopter traffic.

Helipads are common features at hospitals where they serve to facilitate emergency transfer of patients to trauma units or to accept patients from remote areas without local hospitals or facilities capable of providing the level of emergency care required. In urban environments, these heliports are typically located on the roof of the hospital.

Heliports have no orientation and are not numbered in a standard fashion like runways. In some US cities it is standard to paint the maximum allowable weight of a helicopter in thousands of pounds. Thus, a 12 in a circle designates that the maximum landing weight is 12,000lbs.

Heliport lighting normally consists of a circle or square of inset lights around the surface called the TLOF (touchdown & lift-off area) and another around the overall landing area called the FATO (final approach & takeoff area). The later encompasses the TLOF as well and the lights may be elevated or inset. Both sets of lights are now recommended to be green by ICAO and FAA. Yellow (amber) was the former standard and is still preferred in many locations. There is a great deal of variance in color depending on the owner and jurisdiction. These lights were traditionally incandescent but are now increasingly LED with brightness control. The TLOF and FATO lights may be supplemented with surface floodlights. A lighted wind cone is necessary. At ground-based locations, a row lead-in lights in the preferred direction of approach is sometimes used. Visual slope guidance systems (such as HAPI, PAPI, etc) are recommended in both ICAO and FAA documents but are rarely deployed due to the high cost relative to the rest of the lighting system. While airports commonly use 6.6A constant current power, heliport lighting is normally AC powered. Radio control by the pilot via a ground based controller is also common.

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Heliports and Helipads