UK Police Helicopters

[Gypsy_Air]

Does anyone here happen to know why the UK Police helicopters have 99 in their callsigns?
Sorry if this has an obvious answer that I don't know!

[switch_on_lofty]

Is it in some way related to the emergency number "999" perhaps? Or maybe
it's the name of the crews' favourite ice-cream. :-)

[ShyTorque]

I thought there was only one "99". The one I flew had / still has a different number.

[aeromys]

I've always assumed it was purely to make the call-sign more easily recognisable from all the other vehicle call-signs, 99 usually being at the end of the radio fleetmap (although some use 100 instead)?

[pohm1]

ISTR Lancs was/is Oscar November 21.

P1

[Whirlygig]

Not all are '99' but a fair few are (http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/waf/uk/police/ukaf-police-home.htm)! It does roll off the tongue better than, say, "77"!

Cheers

Whirls

[O27PMR]

97 is also used, not sure of any significance though...

UK Emergency Aviation - Police Helicopter A-M (http://www.ukemergencyaviation.co.uk/policehelicopteram.htm) A quick Google has just revealed the following info. Looks like there are actually quite a few different callsigns used among the Police ASU's and Air Ambulances

PR

[Fortyodd2]

I could be suffering from dodgy memory but I seem to recall that the Met's "India 99" came about because "I" is the 9th letter of the alphabet - hence "999".
Our own "Oscar Hotel 88" came from "Ops division, Helicopter and 88 because 99 was already in use by somebody else.

Yes, it is very quiet in the office today!

[ANW]

(From a hazy memory) ..... In the early days, when there was only a handful of widely spaced Police ASU's around the country, the call-sign was 'India 99' = 999 where 'India' is the ninth letter of the alphabet. Over the years, as more Units became operational, different call-signs had to evolve by necessity. These call signs are now used for police comms air/ground contact purposes only.

When first formed the 'India 99' c/s, as used by the GMP, was used for both ATC and internal police comms, ( could also be India 97, 98 and 99 for the Met. which operated more helis). This changed some years later when, with the growth of Police Air Support Units across the UK, the Home Office decided to issue each Force area with its own number.

The ICAO designator for Police ASU in the UK is 'UKP xx'. ATC c/s 'Police xx". There is a list of ASU allocated numbers on the net somewhere.

The GMP ASU's aircraft have individual Force allocated ATC c/s. This takes the form of, 'Police 15(1), 15(2), 15(3)'. Where 15 is the Force (15 = GMP in this example) and (1) the individual a/c. If the Unit has one aircraft, then the ATC c/s should just be 'Police 24' (= Merseyside) or 'Police 22' (= Lancashire).

[Helinut]

I believe the number part of the ATC callsign relates to the number of the lead police force in the consortium. If you add them all up there are 43 or so. Someone has given each force a number in the series and that is the number used.

A VERY quiet day in the office :bored:

[Gypsy_Air]

Hmm, a variety of answers there.
Thanks everyone!

[Bladecrack]

I believe the number part of the ATC callsign relates to the number of the lead police force in the consortium. If you add them all up there are 43 or so. Someone has given each force a number in the series and that is the number used.

mmm... Interesting, as the PSNI helicopter callsign is Police 44, not sure what the Islander uses.

[Droopy]

ANW, your answer was perfect apart from Lancs being Police 21 not 22. Their police c/s used to be ON21 [LANCON being shortened to ON] but there were too many other 21 callsigns knocking around on the computer so they went down the 99 route.

must
get
out
more

[Coconutty]

I happen to know that the Call sign for Central Counties Air Operations Unit is "AIR ONE" ( Not difficult to work out why ), while West Midlands Police have "ALPHA OSCAR ONE" - which originally stood for "Air Operations One" ( If they ever buy a second aircraft it would probably have the call sign "ALPHA OSCAR TWO", while at East Midlands Air Support their call sign is a much less obvious "HOTEL X-RAY FIVE FIVE" ( Doesn't exactly trip off the tongue either :hmm: )

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d129/coconut11/Coconutty.jpg

[md 600 driver]

isnt west yorkshire police 42

i always thought that was because they are near to to junc 42 on the m1 shows how wrong you can be

[PANews]

You have the ATC call sign and the force sign. A decade ago there was some cross-over but that is frowned on. For a long time Manchester used India 99 for both police and ATC radios but then someone found out and it was stopped, by the CAA if I recall correctly.

India 99 was born in London and generally copied by a number of the early air support units because it suited them. Over the years other operators found they could not follow suit because either the sequence was in use or they plain did not want to.

In 1970 when the Metropolitan Police started flying India was a spare sequence because there was no 'I' Division. A number of odd formations used the letter although it has now become associated pretty much with aviation [including Heathrow Airport Division, that was not part of the Met Police then]. The I99 triple 9 link may have come about by planning as referred to above but I seriously doubt it.

The 99 came from a special series of 'odd' operations including certain London area security formations with radios that called into the 'Yard every morning and they had a variety of prefixes and numbers in the late 90's. I am not sure whether they are still 'secretive' or still doing it but even 40 years on its no point blowing the cover unnecessarily!

So when helicopters came along I99 just fitted in with the way things were - I doubt anyone ever planned it simply because no-one planned police aviation it just happened. NOW they plan it but then it was just an experimental tool that caught on and stayed around and the radio sequence was available and stayed around too. That is why if they put up 3 aircraft up from Lippitts Hill they operate as India 99, India 98, or India 97 etc etc... [that sort of underlines what I was saying about the triple 99 theory].