Surely it is a case of looking at funding and prioritising.
Most of the time the helicopter is superficial.
Let me take your example....
The child of a tax payer, living in a village to the south of Norwich, goes missing across fields..........errrr, might get 1 in about 40 minutes if it's not already on task.
Perhaps you should try living in Perth for a while.
In Western Australia which is about the size of western Europe that would be an excellent response time for the RFDS.
The majority of Mispers,as the UK police call them, are not missing.
The examples I cited above demonstrate the waste of public money that could be assigned elsewhere.
Norwich is not New York.
When you have ambulances waiting hours outside A and E units the question is not how but why spend money on police air support that is rarely justified.
The same goes for the so called Crime Commissioners in the UK. A total and absolute waste of money.
I spent many years in the UK reading local newspaper stories where old folk were rationed to 15 minutes care worker time a day usually low paid workers on the minimum wage.
Turn the next page and there is a senior police officer posing with his air support toy on a school playing field.
The centre of London is so well covered by cameras I wonder why the there is a need for the constant hovering helicopter that appears to have become the norm?
As a pilot I appreciate that the pilots don't want cuts but no one ever does as the so called arts brigade demonstrate when they have to lose a million or two.