Frankly, I cant believe the arrogance of the home office and ACPO. To think that they actualy believe that drawing circles on maps and erasing the units that are overlapped by other circles, is in any way sensible, beggars belief.
As far i can tell they are working on 15 min response times as being the "superior" cover proposed.
But as usual this is half a*rsed. They're working on 15 mins FLYING time.. ie already airborne. With the best will in the world, you can add on at least 5 mins onto that for dragging it out the hangar, flashing up and actually getting airborne. Then throw in a headwind to further slow things down. So those unlucky enough to be victims of the "chop" will be lucky to average 20 mins to get an a/c overhead..
Of course thats only if the said a/c is available for deployment, not currently on task, or already at the other side of the 15 min circle to where its needed next..
Sadly the work that will suffur will be the quality air support jobs where having the a/c close by and available makes all the difference.
We get so much work by simply "being there".. that regionalisation is going to kill everything we worked for. Listening into to the cops where your currently flying gets us all the nice little quick jobs we would otherwise miss.
The "intruders on" calls, cop with a suspect running, suspicious car cruising a housing estate, driver out and running from a traffic stop, even chasing down shoplifters running through a retail park.. and of course vehicle pursuits which last for 4 or 5 mins tops.. and these are all jobs where the a/c makes the difference between someone getting arrested or getting away.
What will be left when all this goes away.?
Regionalised a/c will spend ALL their time looking for mispers (that never get found) firearms tasks that plod on for ages and ages while someone decides to knock on a door, looking for drunk drivers that legged it from their car crash, (after ten years ive yet to find one laid out in a field..!!) and public order events which would manage quite easily without the a/c.
I can only imagine the comments the beat boys and girls are going to say, when they are told by dispatch that the helicopter they asked for to come and search for the car thieves that have just legged it from them, is 30 minutes away at best and 2 counties away...!
I know what i would say.!!
Last edited by morris1; 7th Dec 2009 at 17:04.