National Air Support

[mickjoebill]

Britsh Transport Police have contributed very little towards the development of UK Police Air Support and apart from hiring in machines on a fairly regular basis have little experience compared to most other units.

How many hours per annum do they fly?
Why couldn't Police Air Support do the job/s? avaialability? expense?


Mickjoebill

[PANews]

BTP tended to use the 'free' Jarvis helicopter but lost that option when Jarvis [a rail repair contractor] went bust.

There were other contracts - notably with Veritair - but I suspect there was little real substance to either set up. The Jarvis machine had a primary engineering role so it would be spare seat if at all most times and the only high profile use was scare tactics. These were usually flown at end of term time trying to keep the children off the lines.

Number of hours? I have yet to see a document that even suggested what that might have been.

[Coconutty]

the only high profile use was scare tactics. These were usually flown at end of term time trying to keep the children off the lines. ....

...they were ( are ? ) also used when there was an identified reason for doing so.

One such example was back in 2005 when parts of the Midlands Rail Network were being targeted by someone with a gripe against Network Rail, who was going round setting fire / destroying electrical signalling / switch boxes, causing hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage, and costing Network Rail in excess of £4 million with severe disruption to the rail network.

Former railway worker turned vandal jailed for 10 years | Mail Online

A considerable amount of Night time patrols were carried out by BTP using a twin Squirrel, that could easily have been accomplished by the local force Air Support Units.

[J.A.F.O.]

Is there not a good argument for merging this with the other Police Air Support thread that's running?

Mods, any chance? It's the same thing, now.