When to go
Los Angeles has the reputation of a place where the weather never changes, and for the purpose of flying over it that reputation is wrong in two specific ways. One is a low cloud that sits on the coast most mornings in early summer. The other is that the clearest air of the year happens in winter.
Quick answer
November to April is the best season for a helicopter ride Los Angeles visitors want photographs from, and mid-morning or the hour before sunset are the best times of day. Winter air after rain is the clearest the basin gets, and the San Gabriel Mountains often have snow on them behind the city. May and June bring the marine layer, which sits over the coast until late morning and is the main cause of a moved departure.
The year, month by month
Fares barely move across the year in Los Angeles. Visibility and sunset time move a great deal, and those are what you are actually choosing between.
Nov–Feb
Winter storms scrub the basin and the day after rain gives visibility from the ocean to the mountains. Snow on the San Gabriels behind the skyline. Sunset before 5:30 pm, so a golden-hour flight still leaves you an evening.
Mar–Apr
The hills are green rather than brown for a few weeks and the air is still clean. Long, mild evenings. The most comfortable months to be in Los Angeles at all.
May–Jun
A low cloud deck forms over the ocean overnight and pushes inland. It usually burns off by late morning, but coastal routes are the ones that get moved and Santa Monica can be under grey when Hollywood is in sun.
Jul–Oct
Summer haze sits over the basin through the afternoons. Then the first Santa Ana winds in September and October push the air out to sea and give some of the clearest days of the year — and the busiest fire season, which can put smoke in the frame instead.
The marine layer
A shallow ocean cloud, worst in June, gone by late morning.
Cold water offshore cools the air above it, a shallow deck of cloud forms over the ocean overnight, and the sea breeze pushes it inland across the coastal plain. Locals call the worst of it June Gloom, and it is at its most persistent in late May and June.
It is shallow — typically a thousand to two thousand feet thick. That has two consequences for a helicopter ride Los Angeles operators fly in the morning. Under it, the coast is grey and flat. Above it, you are looking at the tops of clouds instead of the city. Neither is what you booked.
It also burns off. By late morning on most days the deck retreats to the shoreline and the basin is clear. If you are flying in May or June, take a slot at ten or eleven rather than eight, and prefer an inland route over a coastal one.
The best time of day, in order
Light and air quality change more across a Los Angeles day than across a whole month, and a helicopter ride Los Angeles is sold in one-hour slots all day long.
The best light of the day and the smallest inventory any operator has. Long shadows across the basin, the towers lit from the side, the ocean gold. Book it three weeks out.
The marine layer has lifted, the air has not yet hazed, and the sun is high enough to light the north-facing side of the hills. The most reliable window in the year.
For a night flight only. Forty-five minutes when the sky still holds blue and the street lights are already on.
Beautiful inland and often grey on the coast between May and July. Fine for a Hollywood Sign route out of Burbank.
The worst of the day. Haze at its thickest, light flat and overhead, and thermals off the hot basin making the ride lumpy.
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The clearest view of Los Angeles from the air is the day after winter rain, with snow on the San Gabriels.
Getting the photograph→Common questions
November to April. Winter rain clears the basin, visibility runs from the ocean to the mountains, and the San Gabriels often have snow on them behind the skyline.
A shallow deck of cloud that forms over the ocean and pushes inland, worst in late May and June. It rarely cancels flights but it moves coastal ones and it usually burns off by late morning.
The hour before sunset for light, mid-morning for reliability. One to three in the afternoon is the worst: hazy, flat and bumpy.
About 35 days a year, almost all of them between November and March. Flights are cancelled on the day and refunded or rebooked, and the day after is often the best flying of the year.
Not bad, just hazier. Afternoons in July and August sit under a warm brown layer that flattens the distance. Fly in the morning and it is fine.
September and October are the highest-risk months. Operators do not fly into smoke and will cancel. It is an argument for booking a flight early in your trip rather than on the last day.
Booking around the weather
Fly early in the trip, and late in the morning in June.
Book early in your trip, not on the last day. Between November and March a helicopter ride Los Angeles booking is cancelled for rain a handful of times a year, and in September and October for smoke. If the flight is on your final afternoon there is no second chance; if it is on day two there always is.
Take a morning slot in May and June. The marine layer is a morning problem and a coastal one. A helicopter ride Los Angeles flight leaving Burbank at ten for the Hollywood Sign is almost never affected; the same flight leaving at eight for Santa Monica often is.
What actually cancels a flight
Los Angeles cancels fewer sightseeing flights than almost any city in America. These are the reasons it does.
Santa Ana conditions can be beautiful on the ground and unflyable above the passes. This is the most common reason a helicopter ride Los Angeles operator stands a rotation down.
A low marine layer or winter rain. The rule is the operator’s call, not yours, and it is made on the morning.
Wildfire season, September and October. Nobody flies sightseeing into smoke.
Rare and rescheduled, usually onto the next slot the same day.
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