AwesomeFlight.com Blog

As taken from: http://m.lohud.com/detail.jsp?key=96335&rc=ln-rk&full=1

By Ken Valenti
The Journal News

What a difference a door makes, especially when you’re looking down on the George Washington Bridge, suspended under a spinning rotor.

Or when you’re 1,000 feet above Chinatown, making a pass over the Brooklyn Bridge or sitting eye-to-eye with the top of the Empire State Building.

Then, a door on the small helicopter just might add that sense of security you want.

Don’t worry. If you should decide to hire Keith Vitolo and his 2006 Robinson R-44 Raven II, flying out of Westchester County Airport, he usually keeps the doors on. The space even feels larger then, he said, because the windows bubble out.

But if you’re feeling adventurous, he can take them off. When I flew last week, he removed them for the benefit of the photographer who came with me.

Was I nervous? At first. But I made it back with no problems.

Vitolo runs AwesomeFlight.com, a new business operating out of the airport in White Plains. The business, chartering flights under Davis Aviation, is run by the 33-year-old former banker who gave up the desk life to do what he loves for a living. Vitolo still dresses like he works at a bank, greeting me in a crisp white shirt, orange tie, brown shoes and navy blue suit pants with faint pinstripes. But he was eager to show me the features of his aircraft, giving a detailed safety check before the flight and assuring me of the machine’s safety.

He hopes to serve business people and others who’ve met with some success but can’t quite afford to fly in the larger helicopters.

“It’s a niche that really hasn’t been filled yet,” he said.

His plan is take people to Manhattan, the Hamptons or a host of other places for less - a fraction of what it costs to fly in a big Sikorsky S-76, for which an hour costs $4,000 or more.

Vitolo offers a flight to Manhattan or La Guardia Airport for $750, to the Hamptons for $1,073 to $1,398, depending on where you land.

“You have people who just don’t want to sit in that afternoon traffic on a beautiful sunny day for three or four hours,” he said.

He also offers tours and a day at Martha’s Vineyard, lunch included.

He’s not the first to offer helicopter service at the airport. Ty Kaliski, general manager of Wings Air, which has operated there about eight years, welcomed the new business. Kaliski said competition could be good for all, and that the choice of using his service or Vitolo’s would depend on how “price-sensitive” the client is. He and Vitolo both said they would likely serve different segments of the population. Wings Air counts professional baseball players and other celebs among its clients, though Kaliski declined to name them.

Wings Air uses Eurostar AS-350, a turbine engine helicopter. A trip to Southampton costs $2,445 and to Manhattan, $1,790, in both cases holding up to five people. Kaliski is planning a service that would charge $125 per person for scheduled morning flights to Manhattan.

Vitolo’s copter holds two people with luggage strapped to the fourth seat. Three people can fit if they limit their luggage to a backpack each, he said.

I tried to find out a bit about Zip Aviation, another business with a base at the airport, but had little luck. A woman who answered the phone gave me another number for the owner, a man named Itay, who was annoyed when I called his cell phone Friday. He said he couldn’t talk, but assured me he would get back to me. He didn’t.

The sitting area in Vitolo’s helicopter is a bit more than 4 feet wide, so when I strapped in next to him, my arm was behind his seat.

I’m a wimp and I know it, and it was my first ride in any type of helicopter, which explained why I was a bit apprehensive. What calmed me down was the XM Radio that Vitolo set for 1980s pop tunes at my request. (The first song I heard was “Relax,” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Really.)

Others who have ridden in the aircraft are clearly more daring.

“I have customers who ask me, ‘Can we fly under that bridge?’ ” Vitolo said. “And the answer is, simply, ‘no.’”

Vitolo was obviously concerned with responsible flying. Still, I held tight to the metal strip at the edge of the curved front window as we hung over the green water of the Hudson River, passing the Tappan Zee Bridge, cruising along the jagged but sheer face of the Palisades. Until “A View to a Kill” came on. Always a huge James Bond fan, I suddenly felt ashamed. Would 007 be nervous on a simple helicopter flight? Not even under gunfire from evildoers?

Remarkably, I felt better.

I was really enjoying the flight on the return, as we buzzed up the Long Island Sound shore, passing by New Rochelle and Davids Island, Larchmont Harbor, then Mamaroneck Harbor before turning inland. When the copter touched down, the song playing on the radio - I’m not making this up - was Eddie Money’s “I Wanna Go Back.”

By that time, I did.

“Going Places” runs Mondays. Send your ideas and comments to Ken Valenti at klvalent@lohud.com or 914-696-8255.

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