Dear Forty. You stated in your post that you were a civilian,sorry if I misread it.If you can access all Police units in your Force area to see who is available and is near the incident you are attending by looking out of the window then it seems a little remiss of your Force to spend all of that money on computer systems. I think the Defence Minister might like a word to save money on their systems also.
Realpie, I am not nailing anything to my mast.I am the voice of reasoned debate.No more and no less.
Anonetc. Yes you are a civilian and this thread is about employing civilians as air observers. There was never any mention that the civilian should not have had any experience in the same or a similar role in a former life.
It all boils down to picking the best man/woman for the job and if that person is ex Police or Armed Forces then so be it.
As a serious aside there are many ex service personnel being invalided out of the Services on a pittance of a pension and very few prospects of a worthwhile and interesting job who would jump at the chance of being an air observer but at the the end of the day it must be the best person for the job.
Back to reality, I still think that Police Officers are better employed policing.