Hi homonculus,
massive costs - is how you see it or everbody with a normal income.
If you change the approach of looking at the costs - and start thinking about how many personal and transportation you need, to fullfill the task, i.e. a search, wou will see, that you actual can save money by using a helicopter.
The british proved it in some of the moors - droped a couple of dummies and set out a force to find them. It took them days (and you might now, how unpleasent it can be to survive cold nights...) and they even didnīt find every dummy.
Then they sent out a helicopter, which found all of the dummies in a few hours....
And abou the special forces, they are an equivelent of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics), comeing in, when the normal police canīt handle the situation.
Hostages, organized crime stuff like that. We have a couple of bases - sure you can set up more, if you find the personal capable and willing - but that isnīt cheap either - so why not deploy them with the helicopters already there?
@hueyracer,
yeah, there are bear paws - but thatīs hardly working with retractable gear - and on fixed gear adds extra drag through every flight.
Our decission was made ;-)