That was truly a few weeks ago .... December 1988!
The aircraft involved was AS355F G-BOOV and this one time leading edge UK police helicopter has just retired from police service in favour of an EC135T G-XMII. If you want 'her' she is now at Oxford with her future a matter of conjecture ... 10,000 hours of mainly police use and a firebombing later ... she is reported to be fairly 'tired'.
BOOV was exhibited at the 1988 Farnborough Show and invited to operate a trial with the Merseyside and Greater Manchester police who were having gang trouble on the roads between the two cities. The short of it is that the experiment was very successful and as a result one gang attacked BOOV on the apron at Liverpool [Speke] - now of course Liverpool John Lennon - with an axe and a fire bomb. Scars that were carried for many years afterwards.
Anyway the operation did not halt and BOOV was back chasing the 'baddies' again in a matter of hours.
Both Merseyside and GMP bought AS355Fs .... with the former choosing to go for that original aircraft. They never changed the standard registration for something snappy and apropriate [the GMP version was G-GMPA] and it would be nice to think that they would have transferred the letter to the new aircraft if they could ..... aaaaah!
The previous post was written at the same time as this so there has been some overlap.
Just to add that my understanding of the move from the airport was that pressures on the growth of the airport disuaded Merseyside from going ahead with their original plans to build there. It would have been difficult to operate as the traffic grew.
Last edited by PANews; 25th Sep 2002 at 20:15.