NPAS has published its first Annual Report in digital format. It is fairly short and an easy read so I will leave readers to make up their own minds and make personal interpretations on the figures it presents. It is clear that the numbers of contracted flight hours and those actually operated for the individual police forces have diverged significantly to give a negative viewpoint on NPAS and its worth. Most of us expected that result, after all the police air support industry created by the diverse chief constables and police authorities of the past varied from a 24/7/365 gold standard to something many steps below dictated by local financial muscle. The NPAS we have today is for most a dilution of the gold standard but if you contrast it with some of the many dire operational variations across the world it remains at least a silver standard and might easily enhance itself in time. The report is currently
here on the Police Aviation News website pending the launch of the finite NPAS website