Police Air Operators Manual

[cdb]

Couple of questions on the above...

1. 5/3/1 Firearms are not to be discharged from the aircraft. Wouldn't an airborne sniper capability, a la the 14th in NI, be a useful capability?

2. 2/1/1 is well out of date! Not that our local police helo bothers to ask if he can infringe the ATZ.

3. 2/4/1: Pilots are required to know all normal checklists and emergency checklists (immeadiate actions) by heart. When I've flown before I've always seen commercial pilots read the checklists, they've been told not to do them from memory in case they miss something. Is this a helo thing?

4. The manual talks about Perf B aircraft, all the police aircraft I've seen are Perf A twins - are there any B/single engined ones (Islander maybe)? That would seem to be rather restrictive!

Any idea why there's so much seemingly irrelevant info? Surely a police pilot should know when to file a flight plan or how to transmit a mayday!

Cheers!

[What Limits]

Plese wait for one hamster wheel to stop before inviting Rotorheads to start a new one !!

[paco]

All ops manuals are full of irrelevancies - for some reason, they are used as an opportunity for telling people how to operate, stuff which should be in some sort of training or SOPs manual.

Each force should have its own version, I believe - are you looking at a generic one?

Phil

[Helinut]

cdb,

I assume you are talking about the UK PAOM Pt1 CAP 612?

You will have to give me a bit more of a clue to some of your questions, if you want answers. Are your references page numbers or paragraphs?

In general, the PAOM Pt1 is an appallingly structured document full of inconsistency and contradictions. As you say, it also contains stuff that every pilot should know and that tends to go out of date too. It needs a complete re-write which is threatened soon apparently.

In effect it is a document that is jointly agreed between the Home Office and the CAA, but the CAA is the lead.

The question about snipers is outside my expertise but I understand there is considerable doubt as to their accuracy. If it really became necessary, I suspect that a military sniper and aircraft would be used anyway.

Police aircraft have no special clearance or right to enter zones. They gain clearances just the same way as everyone else by making a request to ATC. If you are referring to an incident in an ATZ without an ATC controller, then no one needs a clearance into such airspace. Police aircraft can operate with a higher priority than other aircraft, but they still need a clearance.

Flying single pilot, you pretty much have to remember immediate actions, if you are to do them immediately.

"Perf" does not relate to the aircraft it relates to the performance group that the pilot chooses or has to to adopt. All current UK police aircraft are twin engine and Cat A, but sometimes some of them can operate Perf Gp B by operating at a mass greater than permitted for Perf Gp A. There were some singles in the early days, but largely because they cannot be used at night they have disappeared.

[jayteeto]

Snipers!! Why on earth would we fly with a sniper? In my last life, we tried shooting from the air and even with a well trained 'gorilla' you might (only might) hit something from 500'. We run as a passenger carrying operation not operation deathsquad...........

[BigMike]

A helicopter works very well as a platform for sniping. Just good training, and operators in the back who know what they are doing. Try consistent hits on a 15 inch square target from a 100 ft hover at 100m (Police snipers - special unit)

[jellycopter]

"15 inch square target from a 100 ft hover at 100m"

I hope no-one is firing back at the 45ft x 15ft target at the same distance; I know where my money would be!

J;)

[old heliman]

1. 5/3/1 Firearms are not to be discharged from the aircraft. Wouldn't an airborne sniper capability, a la the 14th in NI, be a useful capability?

The UK complies with ICAO and the Chicago convention. This prohibits civilian aircraft from discharging munitions of war. The carriage and use of a sniper and his firearm would would contravene that and therefore the UK would be acting in breach of an International treaty. Hence no snipers all:)owed. How good they might be at shooting is therefore irrelevant and not even a consideration.

[BigMike]

'munitions of war' ... so you are saying no one is allowed to discharge a firearm from a civilian helicopter? ;)

[jayteeto]

100' hover at 100m!! Even the SAS wouldn't want to be that close, I could hit the target from there. I could just imagine us flying over Liverpool all 'tooled up' for a job. You can winch from a helicopter, you can abseil/fast rope or do all the things the military can do, but there is no reason to. An airborne sniper is just not needed, end of story. If we went into airspace that had any threat whatsoever, the CAA would take our licence away for endangering our passengers.

[FairWeatherFlyer]

I'd expect every OM to include a decent glossary, this was a new one for me, Ghetto Bird (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ghetto+bird).

[Islandcrazy]

Having been involved recently in putting together a PAOM I can relate to some of the confusion around why some of the material is in there. In my humble opinion it is more about being a tool for the controlling authority rather than the police ASU operations. As in......now in Chapter 3 part 4 sub section 2 sub paragraph (whatever) it specifically states that you SHOULD have.... :ouch:.

Happy days.

IC

[PANews]

Ignoring the US scene where they fly public aircraft, use sniper fire to knock out the engines of go fast boats [that have not fired back ... yet] and where they also think its great fun to whizz along and let off automatic fire at the 'target' [and every rabbit in the kingdom I guess] in the sure and certain knowledge that some poor sod will cop one - so not exactly sniper technology.

I am only aware of one instance where a sniper was carried in a UK police aircraft in 'anger.'

That was the Michael Ryan shootings in Thames Valley area in 1987 before the PAOC came in. A sniper was carried in the rerar seat of the AS350 hovering close to the school where Ryan was holed up. The only shooting was Ryan killing himself.

[LZCUTTER]

as a trained sniper and instructor and also a helicopter pilot I would laugh at anyone trying to make a shot from a helicopeter in a civilian enviroment! ONE SHOT= ONE KILL !:suspect:

we used to have a saying that the most dangerous thing is a officer with a map, or a policeman with a gun !

[Retro Coupe]

cdb,

Reference 1. We would never be allowed to discharge a weapon whilst airborne. The constabulary I work for likes to gather it's resources at an "RV" point 2 miles from the scene of an incident and then talk about it for a couple of hours in the hope that the situation will blow itself out, and then not require a great deal of follow up action.
Reference 3. The vast majority of emergency/cautionary procedures should be done from memory. If you do an OPC (Operator proficiency check) in the UK you would be expected to be able to deal with most emergencies from memory. The aircraft operated by the majority of UK police forces (EC135 or Explorer) are not that complicated so it should be possible.

You mention irrelevant info, would you care to elaborate? I think the CAA (as far as the UK is concerned) have gone down the arse covering route, because they know that even if they spell everthing out letter by letter someone somewhere will suffer a brain fart which leads to yet another occurrence report being filed.

RC.

[TwinHueyMan]

In reference to shooting from the choppers, I think a southern california police outfit (Maybe Riverside Sheriff I think?) trained their pilots to shoot MP5 submachine guns from the aircraft after having a pilot shot while trying to follow a suspect. Saw a video of it, looked pretty nifty... and while I doubt they've shot anyone since, I think it's better to be prepared than left hanging when you need the capability.

I've shot a rifle from a helicopter as a passenger, and in some situations, I think it could be very effective... and as that big tank chase in California in the late 90s shows, police are usually the only immediately available asset when something goes crazy... so those SWAT units better be prepared.

Mike

[Senior Pilot]

A similar discussion here, Australia's AFP are operating Rotary Wing Airframes? (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=326136) with this comment:

We recently conducted helicopter marksman training in Australia for an asian police force.

The shooters were machines. They could reliably hit a watermelon out to 200 meters, from the back of a shaky old jetranger.

I for one wouldn't want to be a bad guy on the recieving end.

[LZCUTTER]

:ugh: i give up !

[Barndweller]

Big Mike

Your quote - "'munitions of war' ... so you are saying no one is allowed to discharge a firearm from a civilian helicopter? "

As stated the law is clear about not using "munitions of war" in civvy aircraft. This basically covers any firearm that is intended to do harm to someone"

The other category that you have is "Sporting weapons" - things like hunting rifles, shotguns etc. I don't think there is anything in ICAO that specifically prohibits use of sporting weapons from a helicopter, however methinks that you would need an exemption / permission from the CAA for such an activity - - maybe deer culling or something like that - i know it goes on all over the world but i'm not sure if anyone does it in UK.

[on21]

ACPO Firearms Manual Section

17 CARRIAGE OF FIREARMS IN AIRCRAFT

17.5 There is to be no firing of weapons or launching of any munitions from the aircraft in the air or on the ground.

17.6 In respect of the safety and operation of the aircraft the pilot in charge has primacy and his instructions in these respects will be binding on all people on the aircraft.

So no self issuing!

[ShyTorque]

As ex-mil (and trained to marksman standard many years ago), I once worked for a "civilian" unit flying helicopters. We had an SOP for a sniper to be carried and practiced for it using two aircraft, including at night using NVGs.

I was never keen on this idea. We had one shooter, with a weapon only capable of single aimed shots. The helis obviously presented a very large and obvious target. The hope was for our sniper to take out any number of bad guys who may well be behind solid cover with automatic weapons, including AK47.... It just depressed me to think about having to do it for real.

[Heliringer]

A Royal Marine Commando shot a boat's engine out in a drugs operation from a Lynx. This received alot of media, so I would be suprised if the Cops don't have that capability, However Police don't have the same level of training as CDO snipers.

[morris1]

A Royal Marine Commando shot a boat's engine out in a drugs operation from a Lynx

so I would be suprised if the Cops don't have that capability

hehe, they absolutley dont..!!

i guess the difference being, the a sniper from 45 will spend several hours a week honing his principles of marksmanship and keeping his skills up.

The police sniper, on the other hand will probably be a sniper only as part of their general firearms duties, which will consist mainly of dishing out producers and fixers, and swanning around other peoples nicks drinking tea from other peoples tea funds during pre-briefs on deployments, and generally making the place look untidy..:}

[iainms]

With all these guys taking potshots from moving or hovering police helicopters, I hope some one is looking after their horses while they are playing !:rolleyes:

[Non-PC Plod]

Sniping from a helicopter over the sea at night, (assuming the baddies do not have any night sights) is a very different prospect from doing it in the orange glow of street lights in terms of the likelihood of anybody pointing a weapon back at you with any chance of getting close.
I wonder if you count the total number of times that a police sniper has ever fired his weapon in anger in the UK, whether you would need more than the fingers of one hand? I am only guessing, but I think this is the sort of capability which would be used so rarely in the civilian policing scenario that it is not worth the effort and expense of training for it.

PS - Sid, I like the sniper kitty, but I am worried that the blue star its leaning against would interfere with its marksmanship principles!;)

[LZCUTTER]

hey silsoesid, the SLR, now that was a rifle! you hit some one with a round from one and they never played the violin again :D!

[Stan Switek]

In the USA there are law enforcement agencies that practice marksmanship from their aircraft on a regular basis. I can recall several pursuits that were brought to a successful conclusion by shots fired from the police helicopter. In one incident in the 80's a law enforcement agency actually shot down a drug runner who was swerving his aircraft at the police helicopter. This was in a very rural area. Present day, it's not unheard of for the US Coast Guard to fire from aircraft upon boats with drugs that fail to heave too.

Sniping for police aircraft is not something you use every day but there is nothing wrong with being prepared.