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| Above, the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
Helicopter and fixed wing air tours of national parks have always been a touchy subject with people.
I have flown in air tours twice, the first being in 1984 over Grand Canyon National Park in a DeHavilland Twin Otter and in 2016 over Hawaii Volcanoes National Park by helicopter.
In Wyoming, Wind River Air, an air tour company, violated its agreement with the Jackson Hole Airport Board by not sticking to the agreed-upon flight paths over Grand Teton National Park. It was rebuked, but still was granted a permit to continue operations.
According to the Jackson Hole News & Guide:
Jackson Hole Airport Board President John Eastman showed Tony Chambers a map of where he said he’d fly his helicopter alongside overlain lines that displayed where he actually flew.
Clear as can be, the web of promised and actual flight tracks differed dramatically, with lines from a GPS device mounted onto Chamber’s red Robinson R-44 helicopter painted all over eastern skies of Grand Teton National Park.
Eastman wasn’t happy about it.
The haranguing took place at a Jackson Hole Airport meeting where board members later voted 4-to-1 to give Chambers another one-year permit to continue his scenic flights while basing out of the commercial airport in southern Teton park. Bob McLaurin voted against the permit renewal in an exceedingly rare split vote about an airport board affair.
To read more, go here.
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