Landings
Almost every helicopter ride Los Angeles operators sell takes off and lands at the same airfield, and everything in between happens through glass. Two listings here break that: one sets down on a ridge in the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu, the other on a helipad on top of a Downtown tower.
Quick answer
Two of the fourteen listings land away from the airfield. The Malibu mountaintop flight is $649 for ninety minutes and is rated 5.0 from 30 reviews. The Downtown rooftop landing flight is $1,198 for an hour and a half and has no reviews yet. A landing needs a permitted site, which is why only two flights out of fourteen have one.
The Malibu mountaintop
A permitted ridge above the Pacific, and blades stopped.
The flight runs out over the coast, up past Santa Monica and Malibu, and puts down on a ridge in the Santa Monica Mountains — a range that runs right to the water and is the reason the Pacific Coast Highway has cliffs on one side and surf on the other. You get out. You stand on a hilltop with the ocean below and the basin behind, and the helicopter sits there with its blades stopped.
The reason this is rare is permission. A landing site has to be surveyed, approved and available, and most of the Santa Monica Mountains is parkland or private property where nobody is landing anything. That is why there are two of these listings instead of ten.
At 5.0 from 30 reviews it is also the best-rated landing flight on this page. Thirty reviews is a modest sample, but they all say the same thing, and it is the only flight here where an evidenced landing is part of what you buy.
What a landing adds
The landing is not a longer flight. It is a different kind of outing.
Rotors stopped, headsets off, and the first quiet since you arrived at the airfield. On a ridge above Malibu it is startling.
Every other flight gives you photographs from a helicopter. This gives you one of it, on a hilltop, with the Pacific behind.
There is no road to the ridge. That is the whole appeal and it is the same argument as the Hollywood Sign, turned the other way round.
Twenty to thirty minutes of standing still, which is long enough for the place to register rather than pass.
For people who find a sightseeing flight too passive, the landing is what makes the day feel like it happened.
Book direct
The mountaintop, the rooftop, and two versions of the same helicopter ride Los Angeles that fly that coast without stopping.
★ 5.0 · 30 reviews
★ 4.3 · 56 reviews
★ 4.9 · 60 reviews
The Downtown rooftop
A genuine rooftop, and no reviews to tell you how it runs.
Downtown Los Angeles has more certified rooftop helipads than almost any skyline in the world, because from 1974 the city fire code required one on every tall building. The rule was relaxed in 2014, but the pads are still up there, and a small number are available for commercial landings.
The $1,198 listing uses one. It is an hour and a half, it is private, and it is the most expensive flight on this page by $549. It also has no reviews at all, which matters more here than on an ordinary sightseeing flight: with a landing, the questions that reviews normally answer — how long you actually get on the roof, what wind speed cancels it, whether the flight still runs without the landing — have no answers yet.
If the landing is the reason you are paying, ask the operator those three questions in writing before you book. If you want an evidenced landing, the Malibu ridge at $649 is the one with reviews.
Only two of fourteen flights land anywhere. A landing needs a permitted site, and permission is the scarce part.
Private flights→Common questions
Two. The Malibu mountaintop flight at $649, rated 5.0 from 30 reviews, and the Downtown rooftop landing flight at $1,198, which has no reviews yet.
No. Mount Lee is closed, fenced and monitored, and there is no landing site there. A helicopter ride Los Angeles operators route past the Sign flies across the front of it and does not stop.
Twenty to thirty minutes is typical on the Malibu flight. Confirm it on the listing, because the ninety minutes quoted is the whole outing, not the flying.
The pilot decides in the air. Most operators will fly the route and refund the landing portion or rebook you. Ask what the policy is before you pay.
If you want to stand somewhere you could not drive to, yes. If you want to see the city, no — the $199 twenty-minute flight covers more landmarks for a third of the price.
Not on a tour. The landing site is a ridge in the Santa Monica Mountains, not the sand. Beach landings are not permitted.
Why landings are rare here
The scarce thing is permission, and it is what the fare is for.
Nothing about the helicopter limits where it can put down. What limits it is that a landing site has to be surveyed, approved, insured and available, and almost none of the ground under a helicopter ride Los Angeles route qualifies. Griffith Park is parkland. The Santa Monica Mountains are mostly protected or privately owned. The beaches are public and off limits. Downtown rooftops are certified but privately controlled.
So out of fourteen listings there are two, and both of them are expensive for exactly that reason: you are paying for a permission rather than for flying time. A helicopter ride Los Angeles with a landing costs three to six times a sightseeing flight of the same length, and the extra money buys twenty minutes of standing on the ground.
Questions to ask before booking a landing flight
Reviews normally answer these. On the rooftop listing there are none, so ask.
Twenty to thirty minutes is typical. It is not always stated.
Wind at the site, usually. Ask what the threshold is.
Does the helicopter ride Los Angeles still fly, and is the landing portion refunded?
The Malibu ridge flight is shared; the Downtown rooftop is private.
On a shared helicopter ride Los Angeles landing you are standing on a hilltop with the rest of your rotation, which changes the photographs.
Go deeper
From $159 for ten minutes, and what the hour buys.
The SignNo road, no public access. Why the air is the only front-on view.
The verdictFourteen listings, and the four worth your money.
At nightTwo listings, and a completely different city underneath.
DowntownThe towers, the stadiums and the basin they stand on.
PrivateFrom $640 for the aircraft, and when it works.
Hollywood & Beverly Hills Celebrity Helicopter Tour
★ 4.9 · 646 reviews · Free cancellation 24 h