Law Enforcement Ops - finding your way

[VH-XXX]

Gents and Ladies,

After some info on what gets used in Law Enforcement, such as in a Police chopper. Specifically if anyone is from VicPol even better.

What type of maps do you use in general? VTC, VNC, WAC
What do you use for flight planning? GNS430, map and paper form?
Do you have a standard set of flight plans, eg Phillip Island to the Alfred?
Do you use Street-Level navigation of any kind? Tom Tom, Garmin vehicle unit for example
Do ground units relay up coordinates to you and if so what do you enter them into to find the location?

I'm interested in the devices used to achieve this and if it can be improved with a single unit somehow....

[CYHeli]

XXX drop into YMEN and speak to them direct. If you are a rated pilot asking questions about how to do the job, how to create a career path etc, they will probably entertain you. If you come across as a red neck terrorist, perhaps not!:ooh:

Seriously though they have some lovely gear that I wont describe here, but they do have the all in one that you ask about that is also linked to the FLIR. They do carry maps, etc and are full IFR.

Each police unit in Australia uses different gear, if your aim is VicPol then stick with them. There is also an ALEA style conference coming up in Sydney.

Happy hunting. And no, I don't work there, although I used to work in an admin role there for a bit and I have been known to wash the Gold Coast police machine.

[Garfs]

Dont know about VicPol specifically (altho I have had a nice look around some of their machines) but from what I remember as a passenger with a UK ASU

I dont remember seein any maps but thats not
To say they didnt carry any. As for street gps units no. The observer did an excellent job and knew every street inside out and was better than any street level gps unit Id ever seen.

I remember ground units just relaying info by street name and the observer would know immediately where to go. During a scramble he also knew every street the bandit vehicle was turning down.

It seemed like The pilot just flew where the observer pointed. This happened when I was still a bobby with 0 flying experience tho so wasnt able to understand fully what the pilot was doing

[spinwing]

Mmm ...

I suspect that now the 'Melways' is available in electronic form they have some form of that available in their aircraft ... they did (?) used to use the Large Format Melways street directory and co-ordinates were supplied by D24 (?) despatch by radio ..... local knowledge also played a part with crews having a very intimate relationship with Melbourne/Victoria.

Other than that ordinance survey maps etc etc and of course the necessary Airservices maps/documents issue as required for IFR flights.

As was suggested try to contact the Airwing (good luck with that) to organise a visit. They are in a secured area of Essendon Airport you just cannot 'rock up' and look! :=

[VH-XXX]

Thanks for that. I suspect the next step will be to pay them a visit (legally!).

[Heliringer]

VicPol were advertising for a line pilot about two weeks ago

[spinwing]

Mmmm ...


.... VicPol were advertising for a line pilot about two weeks ago .....


Think you might have to be 'Ex Green Uniforms' to get a look in there :ugh:

:E

[CYHeli]

Actually one of their more recent recruits was an ex Bristows Capt. No MIL flying at all.

[PO dust devil]

My leg in there was as a blue recruit with a consistent good working reputation for catching crooks. The harder you work the luckier you get.;)

[Flying Bull]

Hi VH-XXX,

I can´t offer any VicPol infos - just to far away....

> What type of maps do you use in general? VTC, VNC, WAC

We have normal ICAO-Maps - which get changed every year without beeing touched many times....
We have also 1:200.000 Street Maps with ATC-Overlay, which are used frequently.
Most times we rely on our HELIMAP, which has different types of maps included.
ICAO, Military 1:250.000, hiking maps and Streetmaps down to housenumbers.

> What do you use for flight planning? GNS430, map and paper form?

What flight planning? Except for planed IFR-trips or planed transports all missons we are called in for are hot - like someone missing, a robery, a chase and so on.
We just jump in, start up, head for the general direction and after receiving further info putting it into our HELIMAP, which gives us the perfect direction and time to go. Have a look onto the fuelgage and now, where you can refuel.

> Do you have a standard set of flight plans, eg Phillip Island to the Alfred?
For night flights, where a flight plan is required here, we had a meeting with ATC and explained the problems of flightplans and urgent missions.
So now ATC keeps a permanent flight plan - we just jump in, lift of and call in then, telling them who we are, where we are and where we want to go - that´s all.

> Do you use Street-Level navigation of any kind? Tom Tom, Garmin vehicle unit for example

Our HELIMAP offers this possibilty - down to house numbers :-)

Do ground units relay up coordinates to you and if so what do you enter them into to find the location?

We prefer Town and street information - but if we get coordinates - i.e. from mobilphones etc., we can input them into our HELIMAP-System.

We have also a device which is called HELICOM, which can transmit our position to a server, so that baseops can see, where we are, where we´re heading etc. and they can sent messages and waypoints to our HELIMAP - all done by short burst messages via the build in iridium phone.

Greetings Flying Bull

eae electronics (http://www.eae.de/en/gesch_av_helimap.html)