I do 'worry' when people invent a new identity for themselves to pose a question. But, that aside....
You are quite right. We were always aware that, particularly under Home Secretary Teresa May, ordinary UK police aviation was on he cusp of expiring [good through it was] simply due to the lack of money. And that is why it was generally welcomed as the saviour organisation.
This was a little ahead of the small and capable drone... Love them or hate them the drone has produced another option for air support for smaller police organisations. Even if they are also producing their own problems. Forces are creating organisations in house that take them from being just another tool in the box to being a department of their own. Create a department and it has to have a sergeant, and inspector and maybe a superintendent [mostly just pen pushers] to oversee it and it ends up having a staff that are taken off the streets sitting there waiting for a call [just like air support]. So not perfect.
And that's what happened with NPAS its head grew bigger than the body. It ended up sucking the life out of the mission.
A lot will end up with nothing but they will have their drones and hopefully when the 'big wheel' comes off there will be resources elsewhere that can provide a manned air support mission for the significant emergencies. In the NPAS game plan that is what the fixed wing were supposed to be .... but something has gone wrong there that we do not yet know about that has reduced the projected fleet of 6 to 4 four delivered and now to 2 operated and soon to one...
All we need now is for Ted Rogers to introduce Dusty Bin to keep all the parts of the various forward planning scripts in... (sorry if you are too young to remember Ted)...
Last edited by PANews; 8th Jan 2021 at 13:59.
Reason: typo