Fully accept your comments Bryn. But the truth is that it could have been so much better! The concept of a National Police Air Wing was exactly the way to go. The ability to standardise training, engineering support , manpower and the fleet could have saved a great deal of money, the fleet size was about right as it was, but would have been made more effective by some re locations to give better coverage. BUT operationally it needed to be delivered on a Regional Control basis not solely from West Yorkshire. The reduction in fleet numbers catastrophic - The remaining aircraft had too far to fly to reach most incidents and as a result were not effective in their primary task of the prevention and detection of crime and the prosecution of offenders against the peace!
So bad did it become that control rooms stopped asking for the useless response. Yet prior to NPAS many an officer in trouble could expect top cover in a very short time. By 2008 the UK had one of the best air support capability of any Police Service in the developed world.
The way NPAS was rolled out destroyed all that in quite a short time!
TF