mickjoebill

As someone who has made docs about police airwings could I give my perspective of the craft and experience that would be useful for non policemen to learn the job of Police air observer;
+500hrs flying as a crew member.
Knowledge of ground and aerial police tactical responses
Knowledge of local police resources
Local knowledge
Street smarts and common sense
Experience in aerial video/FLIR gimbals
Ability to verbalise (the scene) and direct others via radio.
Experience working under pressure whilst communicating to others.
Team player
Understanding/reading /predicting criminal behavior & public disorder


I know of many TV news cameramen who score seven out of the above ten, including having a good understanding of how specialist police resources are managed from the air (ie dog squads).

I suggest that very few can move straight into the role without cockups.
I was onboard a police machine (making TV doc) once at night searching for a suspect, the newish police observer used FLIR to direct police ground resources to a pile of steaming compost.
Another night flight an observer was adamant we were heading in the wrong direction as he was using FLIR for navigation and had pointed the FLIR at the wrong cooling tower.

No question that it is a tricky job, where x number of flight hours doing the job can only go so far, after that it is the fundamental abilities that make a good air observer...
natural situational awareness
navigational skills
ability to verbalise the picture and communicate via radio
ability to multi task


Surely these are the fundamental skill set, woven into ones genes (and also relevant to numerous other occupations) that count the most, whereas the understanding of; tactical application of police resources, criminal behavior and reading the situation on the ground can be taught and experienced on the job?




Mickjoebill

SilsoeSid

So really, all we have is another 'In Principle' sign up.

My current thoughts though concern the first paragraphs' 'employment of staff' statement.
Am I correct in thinking that West Yorks do not employ their own pilots? If that is correct, they will soon find themselves employing a shedful of pilots, non of whom are from their own (at present) ASU. What happens further down the line? Will there be a complete all pilot contract tender put out to private sector (£$£$) companies or have West Yorks now effectively been forced into employing pilots as their own Police Staff ? Not so much a financial burden for West Yorks, but an admin nightmare looms.
Have West Yorks looked into direct employment previously and if so, why didn't they go for it?

If in the near future NPAS decide to close down another base or 2, the pilots of which are employed by West Yorkshire, I wonder if they would replace some contracted pilots positions with their own staff. Blimey!
If not, a possible headline could be; "West Yorkshire Police make staff redundant while preserving private sector jobs".


Good for NPAS, it's all potentially in the hands of West Yorkshire now
:handwash smilie:

Art of flight

Spot on Sid, a list of get out clauses more than anything positive. So now they need a collaborative agreement to be signed by ALL forces to mitigate against any financial losses in the future! How long will it take to get all the forces to do the homework and sign that document?

RIP Cambridgeshire, 15 years loyal service, a pleasure to have flown with you guys.

morris1

To my knowledge West Yorks dont employ pilots and they dont do any engineering..!! (theyre with PAS as far as i know.)

Which all in all makes all seem a bit of a step into the unknown

Overnight going from maintaining zero aircraft, to twenty odd..!!

kuntynuty

No its right first time, sorry to deflate your ego
It does seem that this thread should be re titled protectionism of our nice little numbers.... I guess as a private sector person paying the fat pensions I should have known better...
I was just thinking outloud for the decent over taxed tax payer!

Surely it is only fair that private sector people get the chance to work in these roles as they are and have been supporting the public sector with their taxes?

SilsoeSid

I suppose you have a point KK.

Civilianise the observer posts, so that all crew members are civis. You can contract the pilot and observer posts out, so ultimately they all get paid less, yet NPAS will pay the private company more for the pleasure.
Make all observers ex policemen or military so they have a pension to top up their income and all will be rosy.

I guess that by your thinking, having the extra private sector workers paying the extra income tax will offset the extra cost to the public sector for the private company contracts. Oh hang on, less wage, less income tax payment!

KK, is it true that when you are asked the time you forget your name?
How on Earth do you think you could do what is required of a police observer, unless of course your name is Mr Windsor

SilsoeSid

Thanks JAFO, why oh why is something as important as 'the report' trusted to someone that can't even spell his own name correctly

Thomas coupling

Silsoe - sorry I'm playing catch up here: are you insinuating that kunt(y) is part of the machinery??? Have I missed something (telling the time etc?)

Gas Generator

SO, we have some interesting problems occurring very soon:

As I see it the pilots working for WY (PAS) will be on a higher rate than most directly employed police pilots. Under TUPE all pilots have the choice of going over on their present contract rates (salary + company car + health care +?) or accepting the new host rates? West Yorks are going to be presented with a real mess of a salary pot. Over a hundred pilots on different rates? A huge range of salaries for people doing the same thing! So where do they go from there?

I agree with SS, the real agenda here is to privatise police aviation. It is a decision the police will come to regret as they will lose all control over these resources and, when they expect a helicopter in minutes and it turns up after a multiple of minutes because of the upcoming centralised 'delay and dispatch' system, they will not be happy with the service -they will not get the results they have been getting and expecting. Those CC's will be under pressure from their new Crime Commissioners to get results - that will go up the ladder to NPAS....ouch.

From a purely selfish point of view I cannot wait to be integrated into a 'blue light' company running Police, SAR and Air Ambulance - the salaries of UK SAR pilots are well above those on police pay, and, no pressure - you just turn up eventually once the command system has given you the task. It's going to be a doodle, especially for observers, all the logs will state - 'nothing found returned to base'.

It just so happens that Winsor is going to help this by making it so unattractive for police officers to transfer that you will end up with NO observers whatsoever! Especially with the projected personal losses of these 'office workers'..And with the possibility of strikes coming up this is all going to be really, really messy.

Vera City

Kuntynuty

I would be interested to know a few things about you old chap...and by the way I am not a police officer, I'm just a decent over taxed tax payer.

1. As a decent over taxed tax payer, how much do you pay into your pension? I think you'll find that police officers pay around 11% of their salary into theirs.

2. As a decent over taxed tax payer, what would you do if you were told you were having a compulsory pay cut of over 15%, having your pension contribution increased from 11% to 14% and that you were going to have your retirement age increased by 5 years? Oh and there's nothing you can do about it, like strike. Police officers have a much reduced life expectancy over decent over taxed tax payers, around 10-12 years IIRC due to shift work and difficulty of the role into older years and of course can't strike.

3. As a decent over taxed tax payer, how would you feel if all your other public services were changed, so that they were staffed by lower paid, less well trained and ineffective staff?

4. As a decent over taxed tax payer, how hard is it to carry that massive chip on your shoulder.

You have wonderfully displayed both your ignorance and prejudice to all the other decent over taxed tax payers, which you seem to forget as a group also includes all the police officer you refer to. Funny thing is they almost certainly pay more tax and work harder than you. Thanks for the contribution, it gave me a good chuckle today.

VC

PS. Reference my last post and the accusations of being a troll and a 902 hater. A troll I may be, but a 902 hater I am not. I have worked with both types of aircraft (135 & 902) and with regard to maintenance I was speaking from experience, and referring to scheduled maintenance not unscheduled. Maybe I should have made my point better by saying, by all means move a 902 to Redhill, but for the love of god don't make it one that's spec'd to do an air ambulance role. Let's keep police air support as police air support.

Notionally Providing Air Support

Windle Poons

VC

Your post has given me a wonderful money saving idea for kuntynuty and the government to consider. With a bit of on the job training we could consider civilianising all the following roles:

* RAF personnel, particularly aircrew: fast jet, transport and rotary
* Army all ranks all roles
* Navy ditto.

After all they can't strike either, and if we can't go as far as civilianising them then we could just increase their pensions and cut their pay, especially if they're not front line. That should just about p!55 them off enough until they can't be bothered any more. Then we can all go and join the public sector and be happy decent over taxed tax payers.

You never know this could work for fire fighters, consultants, surgeons, doctors and nurses too. Actually scratch that, they can strike can't they!

I shall now stop rising to the bait and return to being the bottom feeder that I am.

WP

Vera City

Oh bugger, I've just noticed that kuntynuty (from Cambridge who ceased police air operations a couple of days ago! ) has been banned. Now I'll never get the answers to my questions. My life can never be complete!

Letsby Avenue

An excellent Thread with many points raised and questions asked all of which go unanswered by SC and her HR chums (and others). My question concerns any new national FTL . The rumoured 4,3,4,3 - 9 hour rota, if it is approved, leaves my pilots looking at an extra 23 shifts a year which won't be mitigated due to the reduction in hours on shift from 10 to 9. I can't see that going down too well...

aeromys

I do believe that the Sussex PA have shot themselves in the foot by insisting that the south east base is moved from Dunsfold to Redhill. With true borderless tasking, this now becomes a south London resource. Try getting it for the endless coastal searches when it is stuck in Croydon and Brixton all day, much closer and more needy (but obviously no more important) than Brighton, I'm sure the Met are rubbing their hands with glee at getting another Heli so close to them.

And slap bang between the Kent and Surrey/Sussex air ambulance bases. With the NPAS base at Redhill set to cover South London, Surrey, Kent, Sussex and Hampshire, it's going to be worked very hard indeed in it's Police role, and the 1/4 million saving on keeping it's air ambulance role pales into insignificance.

And what of Hampshire's busiest areas? With the busy Heli at Odiham going, and the Bournemouth base a long way from being established, who covers their area?

Windle Poons

Letsby,

I think Sussex work that shift, or something similar. They may be able to tell you how good, or bad, it is. Out of interest where did you hear the 9 hour shift rumour? That would tie in with the other rumour circulating that the 20 hour coverage from the regional bases has been reduced to 20 hour coverage across the bases (24 hour units excepted). That's a pretty major change, that will seriously affect service across each region, for not very much saving in money!

I am given to understand that an email to the NPIA asking them to confirm or deny the rumour has so far met with a deafening silence. There seem to be a lot of press releases but not many answers.

Fortyodd2

Go on then Letsby, I'm curious.....

How does this "4,3,4,3" rota work then?

Letsby Avenue

My understanding is 4 days, 3 Nights, 4 Off, 3 Days, 4 Nights, 3 Off - with a staggered start/finish time for those units not on 24 hour ops. Nice if you end up with 1700-0200 I suppose, not so nice with 1800-0300. Very similar to what most units do now but with an extra 23 trips a year in to work.

Fortyodd2

Sorry to be a pain Letsby but, I've put this onto an FTL sheet and cannot make it work - especially for anyone finishing after 0300 and all variations end up with only 7 days off in 28 rather than the minimum 8 required. Also, I can't make it work with 3 pilots over a regular 21 day period which is what a 4-3-4-3-4-3 should end up with. Instead, it very quickly ends up with 2 pilots on night shift on the same day or someone doing night shift straight into a day shift - Can somebody please explain??

Letsby Avenue

Start with threes

DDDNNNNOOODDDDNNNOOOODDDNNNNOOO
NNNOOOODDDNNNNOOODDDDNNNOOOODDD
OOODDDDNNNOOOODDDNNNNOOODDDDNNN

etc

Equates to 18.67 duties per 28 days apparently

You are correct WP, 20 hours across the region NOT each unit working 20 hours

Fortyodd2

Thanks Letsby.
Still doesn't answer the min 8 days off in 28 or, for those finishing after 0300, only 2 days off in 14. I take it that units using it already finish before 3 and have exemptions in place??

...............and over a 3 year run, one poor sod works every Christmas day!