NPAS News 2022
Cleveland Police PPC Steve Turner said he is a big fan of drones. The force now has 29 drone pilots.
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/t...eland-25205095
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/t...eland-25205095
In my opinion police car pursuits are not worth the risk of collision with innocent parties.
Cost effective when it comes to missing persons and similar operations. A lot of high speed chases are also non productive using helicopters when you look at sentences given to car and drug crime criminals.
In my opinion police car pursuits are not worth the risk of collision with innocent parties.
In my opinion police car pursuits are not worth the risk of collision with innocent parties.
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Cutbacks.
According to some reports in Westminster, the last Home Secretary wasn't happy about planned reductions in her office budget. The new chancellor has ordered reductions in all departments.
Civil servants are also unhappy about possible compulsory redundancies. 91,000 jobs mentioned..
Will the rumoured financial cuts affect the NPAS budget, and its fleet?
https://www.itv.com/news/2022-06-09/...vants-by-91000
Civil servants are also unhappy about possible compulsory redundancies. 91,000 jobs mentioned..
Will the rumoured financial cuts affect the NPAS budget, and its fleet?
https://www.itv.com/news/2022-06-09/...vants-by-91000
Cost effective when it comes to missing persons and similar operations. A lot of high speed chases are also non productive using helicopters when you look at sentences given to car and drug crime criminals.
In my opinion police car pursuits are not worth the risk of collision with innocent parties.
In my opinion police car pursuits are not worth the risk of collision with innocent parties.
The loss of air support provision since NPAS has proliferated Police pursuits exponentialy over the last ten years.
Where once a protracted pursuit was very rare, it is now a daily occurance.
You cannot give criminals free reign over the road network in the knowledge they will not be pursued.
Banning pursuits was played with by various Forces (Notts and Humbs come to mind) with disastrous results.
Its the age old question of the kid pinching mars bars from the local shop.. the bean counters and politicians may say that its only a mars bar, vastly out of proportion to the costs of investigating, detaining and prosecuting.. which is fine until its your shop that hes in every day pinching from, and until you investigate it you dont know that he's pinching from fourteen other shops.
Sentencing criminals is not part of policing. It is independant for a reason. Once you join law enforcement a tough early lesson is to see past the policitics, get on with the job in hand, and do the best you can as an indiviudual with the tools you are given.
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I think backtothebeat's excellent post deserves more than a mere 'like' - the points made are extremely pertinent. W Mids was one of the forces that believed the advice (I think it was a Home Office report by a Dr Best) that pursuits were dangerous and unproductive; training and policy changed (no T-Pack, follow-only) until a couple of incidents (including one I sadly was directly involved in which led to the deaths of 2 police officers from a neighbouring force) obliged them to change their minds. As officers directly involved with the work had pointed out, in an urban area many of the vehicle crimes are associated with other offences (burglary being one of the most common) so reducing the success-rate of criminals evading capture had a wider effect on community safety. I also experienced the "waste of police time" accusation when, having completed a search in the Wilts police a/c, the police observer was told of a foot pursuit nearby involving a scrote who'd nicked a bottle of something from the Off-Licence down the road. It was on our route home to Devizes, so we spent about 6 minutes locating the miscreant and orbiting him until the bobbies made their arrest - there were 'letters to the editor' about misuse of police assets, but as b-t-t-beat pointed out the offender had history of targeting the same premises and it was a good day for the owner to see justice being served for once.
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I agree that some “misper” searches can be very resource hungry. I was involved in some that were a complete waste of resources… in some cases because the persons weren’t actually missing. A couple of examples:
One involved a so-called vulnerable person who had disappeared from a care home in the midlands. He was found safe and well the following day, having decided to take a holiday at Blackpool and was at the seaside funfair enjoying himself. The search tied up the force helicopter for a whole day and part of the next.
A tourist had been reported missing to the police after she failed to return a bicycle to a countryside hire shop at the end of the day. A significant percentage of the local police, including the force helicopter, were called to an RV point near the hire shop for an operational briefing. As the briefing was taking place, the missing lady appeared with the bicycle on her car’s roof rack. She explained that as far as she was concerned, she had hired the bicycle for 24 hours and therefore she was returning it 24 hours later.
The first job in particular was an instance of when a drone could have sufficed at far less expense.
However, vehicle pursuits are better done with a helicopter, for what should be obvious reasons - but only if the helicopter is close enough to get on scene at the time. Unfortunately, those in charge of NPAS failed to understand that. Reducing the number of helicopter bases by almost half and replacing them with an unsuitable fixed wing based some forty five minutes flying time away was never going to work. A fixed wing aircraft can patrol an area more economically and for longer than a helicopter but other than that it has no practical advantage, especially if it flies no faster than the helicopters it replaces and takes far longer to get airborne in the first place. A helicopter can land almost anywhere and can transport personnel and search dogs. It can also transport personnel from the scene, such as those needing urgent medical assistance, where there is no other resource to do it.
One involved a so-called vulnerable person who had disappeared from a care home in the midlands. He was found safe and well the following day, having decided to take a holiday at Blackpool and was at the seaside funfair enjoying himself. The search tied up the force helicopter for a whole day and part of the next.
A tourist had been reported missing to the police after she failed to return a bicycle to a countryside hire shop at the end of the day. A significant percentage of the local police, including the force helicopter, were called to an RV point near the hire shop for an operational briefing. As the briefing was taking place, the missing lady appeared with the bicycle on her car’s roof rack. She explained that as far as she was concerned, she had hired the bicycle for 24 hours and therefore she was returning it 24 hours later.
The first job in particular was an instance of when a drone could have sufficed at far less expense.
However, vehicle pursuits are better done with a helicopter, for what should be obvious reasons - but only if the helicopter is close enough to get on scene at the time. Unfortunately, those in charge of NPAS failed to understand that. Reducing the number of helicopter bases by almost half and replacing them with an unsuitable fixed wing based some forty five minutes flying time away was never going to work. A fixed wing aircraft can patrol an area more economically and for longer than a helicopter but other than that it has no practical advantage, especially if it flies no faster than the helicopters it replaces and takes far longer to get airborne in the first place. A helicopter can land almost anywhere and can transport personnel and search dogs. It can also transport personnel from the scene, such as those needing urgent medical assistance, where there is no other resource to do it.
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There appears to have been a number of FOI requests to NPAS.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/npas
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/npas
Garda requirement
Speaking of islanders, the Garda are looking to replace their Islander pair and add an additional help, under 32 million Euro plan.
https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law...ircraft-fleet/
cheers
Purveyor of Egg Liqueur to Lucifer
Wishing you all a Happy & Safe New Year with the very best of wishes with whatever 2023 brings to the world of Police Aviation.
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Or, maybe looking for a new op base?
Seems I have been misled by technology.
The Flight Tracker [FlightRadar24] shows text that the P68 last flew from DSA to North Weald on 6/10 but the track map on the same app relating to the same flight also shows that flight to have been from Doncaster to Hurn where Gama have their main maintenance base.
The result is the same, one NPAS permanently out of DSA, but the detail about North Weald is now suspect.
The Flight Tracker [FlightRadar24] shows text that the P68 last flew from DSA to North Weald on 6/10 but the track map on the same app relating to the same flight also shows that flight to have been from Doncaster to Hurn where Gama have their main maintenance base.
The result is the same, one NPAS permanently out of DSA, but the detail about North Weald is now suspect.
You ought to be looking at 360Radar.co.uk in order to get the complete unfiltered picture.
