Originally Posted by
MightyGem
While I'm sure that none of us in Air Support around 2005-2010(when the idea of a National setup was bring planned) could have nailed down the specifics of the current problems with NPAS, we were all pretty sure that it wouldn't work. This was reinforced when we were part of the NWAOG(North West Air Operations Group, the initial NPAS implementation) which included North Wales, Cheshire, Merseyside, GMP and Lancs. At the time, their Air Support budgets were around 0.5% of their total Force budget, which seemed pretty good value for what we used to achieve.
0.5% Sounds like fantastic value for the advantages of an expertly trained aircrew overhead.
Originally Posted by
ShyTorque
It was always obvious to those of us actively involved in police aviation that long term searches (such as some, but not all, ”MISPERS” etc, or pre planned crowd monitoring such as post football matches) were largely a waste of helicopter hours (the latter being my least favourite task of anything we were tasked with) and these days can be far better achieved by a far less expensive drone.
But the best machine for reactive tasks is still, in most cases, a locally based helicopter.
There is nothing more frustrating as an ex police helicopter pilot than to watch these police documentaries where a dangerous pursuit fails and knowing that a helicopter on scene would have made it safer and successful.
Though not involved in the policing side of aviation, I take great interest in it. I also watch different tv series' in which a crew follows a police ground unit and see the same in that a helicopter above enables the pursuing cars to drop off and the criminals take far less risk when given a little breathing room, and the helicopter is even better at tracking them went they inevitably bin/ditch it and scarper into different fields.
The consensus I gather from anyone in the know is that NPAS was flawed from the word go and it doesn't show many signs of getting any better.
To both ShyTorque and MightyGem I can imagine you've both got incredible stories to tell of both how you've flown your aircraft and what happened during the incidents you were responding to during your time in Police Aviation, I could listen for days. Respect to you both.