So you are wondering: I’ve seen all the helicopter tours options, but what is the Best Los Angeles Helicopter Tour for me?

There are a lot of options of Helicopter Tours in LA. Most of them have very similar prices and offer similar routes. So how to choose the Best Los Angeles Helicopter Tour company? Lite Flight Helicopters! But why?

Safety First

Your life is important! So is your familiy’s and friends’. When looking for the best los angeles helicopter tour company, safety should be your main concern and the main concern for that company. That’s why we work so hard to ensure your Helicopter Tour is going to be safe, every time. We don’t cut corners on maintenance or pilot’s training. If anything is out of the ordinary, we prefer to loose the customer and ground the aircraft until we know 100% it’s safe to fly. We don’t fly in bad weather conditions for the same reason. That’s how we do:

• Pilot’s experience

  Lite Flight Helicopters will not release a flight if there is not a pilot with at least 1000h of experience on board. There are companies out there operating with pilots just out school with 150h. Stay away!

• Pilot’s training

  Lite Flight Helicopters pilot’s do recurrent training every 3 months. The training always involves advanced emergency operations on top of normal operations and regular emergency operations. Most companies operating under part 91 traing their pilots for 1 hour every 2 years and companies operating under part 135, 1 hour every year. So we train our pilots ay least 3 times more than other companies.

• Maintenance

  Lite Flight Helicopters complies with every requirement and even suggestion from the FAA and the manufacturers. We do maintenance inspections every 50h. Our pilots are required to be show 2 hours before the first flight of the day to inspect and prepare the helicopter. Every-single-day. If any discrepancies are found we ground the helicopter until it’s inspected and released by the maintenance personnel.

• Weather requirement

  Lite Flight Helicopters will not release helicopters for flights if the visibility is not over 3 statue miles and/or we can’t stay at least 500ft below the clouds and at the same time 750ft over obstacles on the ground.

• Safety Altitudes

  Our pilots are required to fly at least 500ft over non-populated areas and 750ft over populated areas. The reason for that is, in case of an emergency, a safe spot can be found for a safe landing.

• Smooth Ride

  Making sure the ride is smooth is not only better for the customers, but also safer for the aircraft. That’s why in your flight, our pilots will not bank the helicopter more than 30 degrees.

• Ownership

  Lite Flight Helicopters own the aircrafts, so we take care of them. Most companies rent or lease their aircrafts, so if something happens, they just lease another one. On top of that, it makes it harder to trace accidents back to them, since the reports from the investigations will be on the name of the companies that own the aircraft. Ask the tail number of the aircraft you will be flying. Google it and make sure it’s registered to the same company you are booking with. If it’s not… Red Flag… Steer away!

• Waivers

  What? Why would you have to sign your life away? Do you sign waivers when you use an airline? Or a taxi? a Bus? No! You shouldn’t take responsibility for something that is NOT your responsibility. The company and the pilot should keep you safe. That’s why you are paying them. Before you book, ask if a waiver is required. If it is… RUN!

Following these rules proved we can bring our customers back and safe every time. Because of that we never had an accident or incident operating since 2010. There is a lot of companies saying that, but not always it’s true. Before your choose your company, make a google search like: NTSB operated + “name of the company”. You will be surprised. If you want to book the Best Los Angeles Helicopter Tour with a safe company, don’t look any further: Book with Lite Flight Helicopters now!

Best Routes

Compare, compare, compare. Make sure you will fly over the sights that are important for you. Most of the Best Los Angeles Helicopter Tour companies have similar routes, tailored to see the best sights of LA in that specific time frame, but every company is different and one might show something more towards the south and the other something more towards the North and that little difference might make you see or loose something you wanted to see. Make sure the main sights are very well listed so you can make a choice based on your personal taste.

Limitations

The reason we believe Lite Flight Helicopters have the best routes is because we are located in the San Fernando Valley. FAA regulates tours. They need to be done within 25 statute miles from departure place. 25 sm from Van Nuys airport (where Lite Flight Helicopters is located), means we are exactly centrally localized to show all the nice spots around LA that companies located in the south bay area can’t (at least not legally). That includes areas like Calabasas, Paradise Cove, Zuma Beach, Malibu beach, Universal and Warner Brother’s Studios, Celebrities homes over Beverly Park and depending on the departure point, even the Hollywood Sign.

Make your money worth

Pay special attention to the farther points, where the helicopter change directions on your tour. To give you an example, let’s use our Signature Red Carpet Tour. It takes off from Van Nuys, fly to the Malibu Pier (that’s SW). From Malibu it flies down the coast to Santa Monica Pier (E, SE). From the pier, NE to Hollywood, SE to Downtown LA, NW to the Hollywood Sign, W to Universal and Warner Bros and than NW again back to the airport. Now mark every time we change directions on a map, connect the marks with a line and paint the interior, you will have exactly the area covered in your tour.  Do that with every company and you will see some companies cover a larger area than others. That’s because companies that lease and rent aircrafts, usually pay the time on the battery while companies that own their aircraft, pay the time on a “maintenance hobbs”, which allow them to fly a little longer for the same cost. With out tips in mind, feel free to check our routes with our competitors and choose the LA Helicopter Tour that works best for your needs.

Reviews / Customer Service

What other guests are saying about their experiences with that company? Make a deep research. Bad companies tend to annoy customers. After you narrowed down the companies using our tips above, check their reviews. Just because the company is safe and have good routes doesn’t mean they know how to treat their customers. We suggest you to use TripAdvisor, Yelp, Facebook and Google to make sure reviews are consistent around the web. If you want to go the extra mile, find out hashtags used by the companies’ customers and reach out to them. Ask them about their experience with that specific company. That’s a safe away to know the review is real, you can ask specific questions and maybe even make new friends!

Price

Helicopter Tours are expensive because operating Helicopters is expensive. Maintenance, Insurance, Pilots, Hangar, Marketing… it goes on and on. So the Best Los Angeles Helicopter Tour needs to fit in your pocket. Lite Flight Helicopters tries to make the Los Angeles Helicopter Tours as affordable as possible while still offering more. After you narrowed down the Best Los Angeles Helicopter Tour companies using our important tips above, it’s now a matter of choosing the best price. Lite Flight Helicopters will try to beat any competitor’s price, as long as they are not cutting corners to bring their prices down, but the reality is: Our customers don’t need to ask us to beat prices, because Lite Flight Helicopters is already one of the lowest. Check our prices and book your flight, because if you are reading this, you already found the Best Los Angeles Helicopter Tour company. Cheers!