One could read from your post that your encouraging your crew to fly unviable jobs and influencing the decision making of those that "should" be making the deployment decisions, and thus have brought down the efficiency of your unit and perhaps been part of the problem that has allowed NPAS to come in and units to be closed. One could read and ask, how many viable jobs have you missed out on when flying on week jobs with little or no chance of success.

I wrote JUST in big letters, in case it got missed.

We need to judge the success of a unit, and in the future, NPAS, not just on how many searches are "attended".
Not how many incidents are "attended"...
But on actual results.
ie. direct ARRESTS
Vehicles LOCATED
Missing persons FOUND

not on how many boxes get ticked.

Overhead the rumblings of a police helicopter and the Wales Air Ambulance can be heard.

To put this 'quiet' control room into context, it costs £1.6 mill to run a 20 hr air support unit.

There's nothing else eating / eaten into the remaining £13.4 million is there

The number of bases used to provide air support is planned to fall from 30 to 22, but they will be based where they can offer air support to the whole country. This will mean that 97% of the population will still be within 20 minutes’ flying time.

It is of note that in responding to the initial draft NPAS National Collaboration Agreement, police authorities raised concerns regarding the lack of up to date local delivery and financial information which will enable police authorities to consider the proposal fully. The concern being that police authorities by law, must obtain fair value for any assets they dispose of or transfer; and that having seen no business case or financial details, Treasurers would not be in a position to advise whether the transfer is appropriate or whether the financial model makes sense and is capable of delivering the savings claimed.

A police helicopter which could have saved a young man's life was not sent up because staff were due to go off duty, an inquest heard.
Officers, family and friends were desperately searching on the ground for 21-year-old Danny Cavill who had threatened to harm himself after a night out.
Mr Cavill was still alive when a request was put in to South Yorkshire Police for a helicopter to help find him but night-time air support staff declined as their shift was due to end 20 minutes later.
An official investigation discovered that because 'a life was at risk' the shift should have been extended by an hour and Danny, who hanged himself, could have been saved.

Chief Insp Butler outlined a series of mistakes by the force and said another helicopter could have been called in from neighbouring forces but the call was never made.
He said the incident should have been classed as an 'immediate priority' and the police call centre handler did not elicit enough information about Danny’s plight.
An expert search officer was not contacted and cell-site analysis was not deployed which could have pinpointed Danny’s position within 200 metres and narrowed down the search parameters.
Mr Butler also said the police sergeant in charge of the search was working on a 'flawed assessment' passed to him second-hand from the family.
The Rotherham hearing was told Danny, who was drunk, was ejected from the Liquid nightclub in Rotherham town centre about 2am on Saturday, May 7 last year.
He phoned his best friend Josh Hill, 21, in a distressed manner and told him: 'Nobody likes me, I can’t get in contact with anyone. I’m going to do something stupid and I’m walking by the rail track now.'

After Mr Hill raised the alarm police were called in and searchers initially went to a railway bridge where Danny had previously been found when drunk before the search switched to the golf club.
Sgt Kevin Bradley, who was later reprimanded, said the family did not believe Danny would carry out the threat to harm himself and he only rated the incident as 'medium risk' so did not call out the consortium helicopter after the South Yorkshire chopper failed to get airborne.

Danny’s father Stephen said: 'He liked going out on Friday nights with his mates. He used to like a drink and fell asleep in different places. That is what we thought had happened that night.'

'The question of the helicopter was not properly pursued when it should have been. It was available to be deployed had the proper questions been posed.'