Again slipping off topic, fire fighting.
There are [a very few] equipment options whereby fires can be fought using a water jet from the hover at the side of a building. the Neherlands police trialled [used?] it from an AS350 and I think it was the Far East [Japan?] that demonstrated an As330 with something similar. Hovering at the side of a towering inferno cannot be much fun though.
There are other uses for Fire helicopters though and they include, equipment transfer, personnel tranfer [firemen in and everyone out] as NYPD might have tried with 9/11 but for the roof doors being sealed.
On that figure of £1,200 per hour, no contest, but those tend to be arbitary figures. I have a quoted cost of £859K for the complete unit in 2001-02 and that includes the pilot but not the policemen. I believe they fly around 1,000 hours annually.
Any guesses on what the cops would add to that bill at around £30K each on average? That must be near your figure.
Last edited by PANews; 23rd Aug 2003 at 21:15.