The CAA have always considered those police units who have a formal arangement with their ambulance service (ie full time paramedics, funding etc) as conducting HEMS ops under their PAOC.
The legal position was clarified 1998 when we received an exemption from the requirement to hold an AOC for HEMS and since the introduction of the JAROPS compliant HEMS Appendix to the PAOM we have operated under a PAOC HEMS approval.
The FLIR is used to select and recce ad hoc landing sites as the nightsun just isn't enough when you're putting down in a black hole.
