Do tower-controlled helipads have a standard naming convention?

Question

Just wondering if anyone knows, or if it just depends on the airport.

Edit: This question is different than How does the FAA determine which format of location identifier to assign to an airport?.

My question is how the tower names helipads under its control at an airport, not how the FAA assigns an identifier to an airport as a whole. Runways use the runway heading. How are helipads named?

Do you have an example? Usually helipads fall under "parking" and the pilot would just tell the tower what ramp they wanted to go to. After that whoever controls the ramp (like an FBO or other operator) would direct the helicopter to a specific pad. — Ron Beyer, Oct 07 '19 at 12:29
Stand-alone helipads are naked just like any other airport. So I’m VTC as dupe of How does the FAA determine which format of location identifier to assign to an airport? — TomMcW, Oct 07 '19 at 20:27
Possible duplicate of How does the FAA determine which format of location identifier to assign to an airport? — TomMcW, Oct 07 '19 at 20:29
@RonBeyer AFAIK, at LAX, the helipads at the south ramp are called "South Pads". Those are controlled by the tower. My question is about those ones. I think the helipads you're talking about are behind the non-movement area boundary (and thus are not controlled by the tower). — slantalpha, Oct 08 '19 at 01:15

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 23 '20 at 04:27

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Normally helipads are allocated names depending on what taxiways they are adjacent to. For example, Helipad Alpha would be off or near taxiway Alpha. Helipad Charlie would be off of Taxiway Charlie. Results may differ depending on the airport/heliport layout, but this is how the normal naming system works.

answered Mar 23 '20 at 04:27

Dan Prat

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Do you have a source for this? Or could you add an example? – Bianfable Mar 23 '20 at 07:56
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Looking in to this further it looks like the FAA differs slightly from the ICAO standard. Helipad's are simply named H1, H2, H3, etc based on the number of helipads located at an airport.
https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/150_5390_2c.pdf
– Dan Prat Mar 24 '20 at 16:00

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 27 '21 at 07:10

If an aerodrome has more than one helipad, they are just named "somehow".

In Bückeburg (Germany) we have one "helipad" and one "VIP Helipad" or sometimes named just "VIP spot". On radio comms they are named the same.

"HeliXXX cleared to land Helipad", or "HeliXXX cleared to land VIP Spot".

A police school in germany named its helipads Helipad 1, Helipad 2, Helipad 3 ...

Do tower-controlled helipads have a standard naming convention?

2 Answers2