I stand corrected on the police operations front I was wearing my blinkers and was thinking purely in HEMS terms [I think I made that mistake before and Sussex dived in then!]
As for ...
I know the A109 had an 'incident'. Is that the only reason it's not been popular with Police / HEMS?
My understanding is that the [public domain] reason for parting company with the HEMS A109 was pure cost. After three years the charity [it went bust once] has still not entirely got its act together and still has no collections strategy in some rich pickings parts of its area [Oxford mentioned].
Upshot is that they decided to get out of a new airframe with its high costs until they do find their feet.
The AA funding has stopped, just £500,000 or so a year now, but additional money had been put aside for the A109 by the AA. In the end though they just could not hack living hand-to-mouth for another term.
On the positive side they have already said they want back into a new generation aircraft as soon as possible.
Did I get anything else wrong? Must watch what I write!
Last edited by PANews; 22nd May 2002 at 23:21.