COWBOYS OF THE AIR TRAFFIC REPORTERS ARE A SPECIAL BREED OF HELICOPTER PILOTS WHO DO THE DANGEROUS WORK OF DARTING ABOVE L.A. FREEWAYS TO HELP MOTORISTS GET WHERE THEY'RE GOING.

Byline: Sandy Mazza

Staff Writer

From his perch 1,500 feet above the ground, Chuck Street hovers over clogged Los Angeles freeways and has one-way conversations with the people far below.

Darting from one snarl to another across the 40-mile wide Los Angeles basin, he uses words like "sluggish," "lurching" and "slithering" to describe to motorists what they already know: Traffic, as usual, is miserable.

But with his eagle-eye view from a traffic helicopter, Street can see things they can't: He can help them negotiate past crashes, offer alternative routes and let them know if they should get off at the next exit or stick it out.

In the Los Angeles area, with its hundreds of miles of freeways and millions of daily commuters, traffic reporters are on the front line in helping drivers get safely where they need to go.

Drivers know little about them, but behind the detached voices are a close-knit group who fly with cowboy bravado and treat the vast skies as an open frontier.

Leading the way in the early days of the late 1950s were pioneers like Max Schumacher.

Better known as Captain Max, he broadcast on KMPC's Operation AirWatch. But traffic was only the starting point for the Korean War veteran.

He covered fires, stolen cars, suicides and homicides for the radio station. Once, he used his propeller's air blast to save children adrift on a raft in the San Gabriel River.

He was a mentor for longtime KFI 640's traffic man Mike Nolan.

"Meeting him was like meeting John Wayne," Nolan said. "He was a very nice guy, very outgoing. Just a love-life kind of guy."

Flying is dangerous work and Schumacher was one of the first to die on the job -- his helicopter collided with a police helicopter over Dodger Stadium in 1966.

Other casualties included Francis Gary Powers, who survived being shot down over the Soviet Union in a U-2 spy plane, but was killed in 1977 when his KNBC helicopter ran out of fuel and crashed near the Burbank Airport.

And traffic reporter Bruce Wayne died near Fullerton Municipal Airport on his way to a story in 1986. His real name was Bruce Talford and he joined KFI in 1970.

"I thought Bruce Wayne had a terrific on-air personality," Street said. "He played up the pilot persona, he was a hell of a good reporter -- very smooth, you understood everything he said."

Street emulated Wayne's flair with words. After reading a Louis L'Amour novel about the Cherokee tribe's forced relocation in 1838, he began using the phrase "trail of tears" in his reports about heavy traffic.

"I have spiral notebooks with phrases and words, and when I need a new word, I flip through the notebook," Street said.

The ability of airborne reporters to communicate in an interesting way is key for listeners, said Dick Hart, president of National Helicopter Service.

"They've become personalities more so than they used to be," Hart said. "There are many people that turn on a particular channel in order to hear that reporter."

Hart's father was part of a team that built the first helicopter to carry a television video camera for KTLA in 1958.

The first "telecopter" was fashioned by stuffing a large studio camera onto a helicopter seat, and hovering with an 80-foot-long electrical cord connected to a plug on the ground.

Even after KTLA built a helicopter that could transmit video from the air with an electromagnetic signal, it took decades for television stations to get interested in showing traffic and news events from the air.

"After the KTLA one was built, my dad went all over the world to sell it," Hart said. "Everyone said, 'Why do we need that?' Now, you have to have them. In the late '80s, the stations recognized the need. Now, it's the most expensive thing most TV stations have, and it generates the most viewer loyalty. Viewers expect there to be a picture of something happening live."

Certain news events propelled the popularity of live television coverage, most notably the slow police chase of O.J. Simpson riding in a white Ford Bronco on June 17, 1994.

Another iconic moment came when a group of men pulled Reginald Denny out of his truck and severely beat him at the start of the Los Angeles riots in 1992.

Capturing it on film was pilot Bob Tur, a man known for his heroics as much for his news-gathering skills.

In 1988, he flew his helicopter through fierce winds to airlift 50 stranded guests at the Portofino hotel in Redondo Beach during a severe storm that left the hotel's ocean-front property surrounded by raging seas.

Television stations spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to use high-definition equipment, which gives a clearer picture than traditional equipment.

But, some radio stations have already stopped using airborne reporters.

Last year, AirWatch, which provides traffic reports for KFI, laid off a number of traffic reporters, including Nolan, and canceled its airborne operations. Nolan now works as a ground-based reporter.

The changes shocked the local community of traffic reporters.

"It's a cost-saving measure, but management doesn't realize what they're losing," said Chuck Rowe, who was a traffic reporter for KNX from 1996 to 2007.

He said reporters on the scene are irreplaceable because, "You've got a set of eyes looking right at it."

Unlike AirWatch, Metro Networks -- a company that supplies traffic, news, weather and sports programming to the broadcast industry -- still relies heavily on airborne reporters.

"There are 500 miles of freeways we're covering," said Metro Networks Director of Operations Terry Edwards. "The only way you're going to get from point A to B to C is to fly over it."

While many things have changed since Captain Max flew, including a radio frequency that allows pilots to talk to each other, airborne reporters still face danger when they leave the ground.

In the aftermath of an incident in July, when four pilots were killed in a news helicopter crash in Phoenix, the Federal Aviation Administration met with reporters to discuss ways to make the skies safer so there isn't a repeat of the Phoenix crash.

Officials decided that pilots were doing the best they could.

"When you look at the historical record, how many hundreds of thousands of flights occurred without incident, that tells you that the system is very safe," said FAA spokesman Ian Gregor."

With changes in technology, and the prospect of remote-controlled drones monitoring traffic, the future of airborne reporters looks bleak.

But, Street and some others believe the human touch they bring will endure.

"I think there will always be some airborne people because it adds sizzle to the presentation," Street said.

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CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Helicopter pilot and traffic reporter Chuck Street updates motorists on the conditions of Los Angeles freeways for KIIS-FM.

Brad Graverson/Staff Photographer

(2) Max Schumacher was a pioneer of L.A. traffic reporting in the late 1950s. Known as Captain Max, he also covered such breaking news as fires and homicides.

(3) The first "telecopter" was developed by KTLA in 1958. It hovered with a studio camera that was connected to a plug on the ground by an 80-foot cord.