southwest lad, I've used IR variously with police helis (way up north), Air Ambulance (including a HEMS task from the Pennines to ILS minima at Blackpool) and a particular utility operation in all the circumstances you have described, as well as positioning for/ recovering from training and moving the Chief Exec and team around on the annual brief-and-talk-to-the-workforce rounds. My thinly-disguised gripe was with a particular force - one which despite its large area had among the lowest operational hours per year among UK police helis - and it's, er, sub-optimal approach to operational use of a very valuable force asset.