Regarding police units; how often do police pilots land their helicopter and get out and do “police stuff”.
Never - or hardly ever - in the UK anyway. The pilots are civilians but the police crew are Tactical Flight Officers, qualified cops who know what the cops on the ground are doing and why, so as to help and guide them. Agreed that a UAV can do the observing equally well so long as it has the horses to carry the necessary equipment - high-power light, steerable camera and so on - but it'd surely need to be able to hover over a crime scene, so I don't see why they're using the
Elbit Hermes 900 in this role, unless orbiting is good enough