The DHLicopter

From the imnotsayin offices here in Williamsburg, we often see the canary-yellow and red DHL chopper blasting over the East River and into the 34th Street Heliport. Not that there's any shortage of helo traffic over the river: there's dozens of takeoffs and landings there daily - mostly corporate and other private choppers, and a fair number of NYPD birds. But the DHL Helicopter (we'll just call it the DHLicopter, k?) is unique with its bright paint job and bold branding: there's no Fedex chopper and certainly no lumbering brown UPS 'copter.

So we dug into it for you, and discovered that the yellow bird is officially DHL's unique "Financial District Helicopter Service", and the international shipping giant has run a dedicated helo route from JFK and Teterboro airports into Manhattan heliports for 25 years. The chopper delivers checks, export documents, and other financial instruments and important trade documents from Europe and Asia directly - and quickly - to world banking headquarters' in the financial district and Midtown. DHL says "by cutting as much as a day off the time in transit for these shipments, financial institutions save millions of dollars each year in otherwise lost interest payments."

Not a bad consumer billboard for DHL either...