I see / hear a lot of media reference to the Police helo 'electing' not to fly.
Is this a fact that was officially & publicly acknowledged anywhere?
It seems to me that the 'media' seems to making this some sort of benchmark, as if METPOL helo's are some form of air gods and if they don't fly no one else should.
My general but limited knowledge of police helo work is generally in response to operational needs i.e. chasing the bad guys, and if vis is low and operating in a more 'random' fashion across built up areas as opposed to flying heli routes would make their decision making process very different from normal commercial ops wouldn't it?
And if the vis is low it renders the helo as an aerial observation platform rather useless as even the FLIR suffers from reduced vis doesn't it?