British police helicopter attacked on ground
 

Just unbelievable:

Gypsies trash £5million police helicopter - Telegraph


skadi

skadi
 

It certainly is very unbelievable......NOT!

I was made aware of the most recent incident shortly after it happened by a source from Surrey Police. Which didn't come as a surprise to me!

If I've got my facts correct - this is the second time the aircraft has been damage intentially by unknown suspect?

A similiar incident took place within the last six to twelve months where the very same ASU was attacked in the early hours of the morning whilst under the blanket of darkness by unknown suspects. This immediately took the ASU of line and out of police operations for a short time.

Apparantly and not confirmed I was also informed, later that same morning there was a serious robbery within the county which was possibly linked to the aircraft being damaged initially, so the aircraft was not avaible to respond, locate and assist with apprehension of the suspects concerned?

Surrey Police really do need to think long and hard in relation to the safety and security of firstly their ASU staff and then secondly the aircraft and the aircraft's current base location.

Fairoaks is a lovely and idillic, established airfield but for the location of an ASU base it's very vulnerable. I admit, both Surrey Police and previously in conjunction with the Met Police (SEASU) there has been an ASU based at Fairoaks for a number of years now, but as stated in the "Telegraph" newspaper, the suspect's jumped over a small wall which is does exist to which any member of the public can go airside at anytime, especially during the night hours.


Secret Service

Oh gee....what a feat!

Under the cover of darkness, a gang of thugs stepped over a four foot high wall....intimidated unarmed folks with axes.....vanalize a Police Helicopter....Detectives were ready to make arrests on thefts but the identity of the axemen remains unknown.:D

A few questions pop to top here.

Four foot wall....what about a ten foot fence with razor wire on top....electric gates operated by those inside the compound....Video cams....motion/infrared sensors like Tesco's use for Burglar Alarms....and Armed Police then the Id's of the Axemen could be determined by DNA and Fingerprints assisted by a third eye.:{

Someone really needs firing over this!:oh:

SASless - you clearly have got out of touch with our esteemed police force and its competency levels. Hair raising stories abound this side of the fence. We have police no-go areas in rural Somerset for goodness sake. Dia-bleeding-bollical:)

I'm not sure that Fairoaks is actually a police no-go area. The fact that I work there has put them off, sure, but they still pop in now and again.

I wonder if the Army will lend them an Apache to replace it whilst its out of action - that way they could sort out the pikeys permanently...

remind me of oldie but goodie.

What key can open any lock?

Baston , old chap You are actually quite offensive in your remarks . I take it you speak from a long history of experience as a serving police officer , during which you encountered all manner of violent people and faced oodles of differnent weaponry.
Police officers in the main are not incompetent , the senior officers set over them and the policies and procedures they have to abide by most certainly are .
As for no go areas , you really do watch too much television .
Having worked for years as a police officer in London and Manchester I have yet to even hear of a no go area let alone avoid one .
Behave :ugh:
Alternatively Joint eh special constabulary , Im sure you would clear the crime rate up in minutes few with your exceptionla knoweldge of policing matters

GEARDOWNFLAPS

I am sorry if I appeared offensive. That was far from my mind. I will not go into details of mind boggling police activity,or lack of it ,around here. Suffice it to say that Grumpy Old Men have a very different view of the Police Force nowadays than they held 30 or 40 years ago. Ask around. Also, no, I am not a police officer, but I am a very strong supporter of them, and their attempts to control crime. I feel that due to many reasons, political, fast track promotion,lack of topdown cover from above for the officers on the ground and so on and so on, has left them with a much poorer reputation than thay held in days gone by. No Go areas around here? I will tell you an illustrative story if you would like to PM me.

Gypsies smash £5million police helicopter with axes in revenge for 'spy' flights | Mail Online

The Mails version, wrong helicopter, but at least it is black and yellow. To those who mock us doing the job: Big electric fences and security cost lots of money. Guess what??? Senior officers don't have lots of money. You and I know that the helicopter is worth a fortune, but the police are being stretched to the limit. We run our unit with 1 civilian UEO, one sgt and 4 crews. No admin staff at all. We try our best to protect with what we have.

Just thinking aloud here, so don't everyone get in a state. This is supposed to be a discussion, not an attack.

How cost/result-effective are UK police helicopters? They cost an awful lot of money (£2,000-£4,000 per flight hour?), what main results do they get? Looking for missing persons, chasing car theives, covering public gatherings?

Would this money be best spent on other aspects of policing or crime prevention? How many police on the beat would a police helicopter budget buy? Do police helicopters prevent crime? Or do they reinforce the "them and us" problem for police and the public. (eg witness the unpopularity of police sitting in lay-bys with speed cameras).

Given the negative preception of the police in the wake of the Stockwell shooting and the G20 demonstration problems, do police helicopters help or hinder the public's perception of the police.

Over the USA every tin-pot county and city seems to have a police helicopter and it can seem to be because local politicans want their county/city to have one so they can feel superior. Does that happen here?

Do the UK public really want police helcopters? What do the public really think of them? Are they willing to see their taxes spent on them? Or would they prefer a few more local policemen/initiatives for young people etc?

I'd be interested to hear people opinions on this. Obviously all the police pilots out there will have an "pro helicopter" opinion, but what does everyone else think?

FlapFlap,
You are not related to Paarmo are you? £2,000-£4,000 per flight hour? Where'd you get that from??

As a non-pilot, non police officer etc I would suggest that most people would generally support a police helicopter if it does useful things.

I suspect most people would think that keeping an eye on gypsies was useful and if it provided evidence that lead to their apprehension then fantastic.

I aslo suspect that most members of the public would not approve of them being used to spot speeding motorists as it is alledged some use up their hours doing.

I also guess that many members of the public would be surprised that it was so easy for "unknown" assailants to damage this aircraft be getting over a 4ft wall! I suspect most members of the public would anticapate that the helicopter was kept in a secure area, although I guess that it wouldn't occur to most people that it would be delibrately damaged whilst on the ground.

I'm no relation to anyone!

£2,000-£4,000 was just a wild guess. Does anyone know the cost per flight hour?

A flight school will charge an AS355 out at £1,000 per hour, so I guessed an ASU with all the other costs, the cost to the taxpayer would be more? I know the London met EC145s were not cheap!

Ahem.....I think you mean 145's.

From my own experiences (ex-chief pilot of a police ASU), it's a fallacy to suggest that police helicopters deliberately take off merely in the hope of "spotting" speeding motorists, or carry out "patrols". It's a waste of valuable resources and the last people on earth who would wish to do this would be the crews themselves. That's not to say that an aircraft on it's way from a job would ignore an obvious case of irresponsible or dangerous driving because of a moral and legal responsibility to do some thing about it.

Flight schools make PROFIT. A typical EC135 flying hour with all pilotage and engineering costs well under £2000 per hour. When other forces use us, we charge them under a grand.
When we see speeding motorists, we use the camera for a close up first, more than 75% of those stopped usually end up being done for more serious crimes. It is filtered by our experience, we assess manner of driving/car type/area/intel/time of day/is car insured/is car well away from home etc etc. If something is dodgy sounding, we get it stopped. This has netted large amounts of drugs/stolen property/wanted criminals/stolen ringer cars and firearms. Sometimes we stop innocent people, then people bleat about how bad and wasteful we are.
There are some very nasty people out there, I agree that is NO excuse to harass innocents. Our crews work day in day out to try and make YOUR lives safer. We have good success, instead of people bleating, for once I would just love someone to credit us with some positive comments. Bobbies get abuse that you wouldn't believe, the MAJORITY do a great job. The minority are seen acting up on the news and everyone is tarred with the same brush.
When we search for missing persons, we can clear a large open area in minutes, a ground patrol would take hours. So that frees officers for other important tasks.

Have I missed something, if the identity of the vandals in 'unknown' how does the currant bun know it was the local Gypsies..?

Flap Flap Flap

I have ben a police officer in London for 27 years and a rotary pilot for 5 years. I am not a member of the Met ASU (too tall unfortunately).

In answer to your hypothetical question, from my point of view, these aircraft are worth their weight in gold.

They have on one occasion amost certainly saved my life. Whilst chasing a suspect after a very nasty GBH robbery the chase ended up on a railway line and the chopper crew warned me to get off the line urgently as an itner-city was coming round the bend behind me.

As far as vehicle pursuits are concerned, one of the main advantages of having an aircraft above is not as most people think, to get video footage for forthcoming tv programs, but it allows the following ground units to back off whch not only reduces the danger to the police officers but encourages the bandit vehicle to slow down, thereby reducing the danger to the public.

In these days of increased terroist activity the police helicopters play a large role in making life difficult for the terrorist organisatons in ways that for obvious reasons are kept out of public awareness. I am not even privy to all of the jobs they are called upon to undertake. In fact the role of the police aircraft go far beyond what the public are generally aware and therefore an answer to your question is consequently very difficult to give.

I think it would suffice to say that I think the Air Support Units are a very effective tool for todays police services.

This thread itself oviously shows that the criminal fraternity are concerned about the presence of the aircraft which means their activities are being disrupted by it which can, in my humble opinion, only be a good thing.

These units should not only be accepted but actively supported.

LM

I know of an incident in Thames Valley. Horse trailer stolen, with the postcode in 24" letters on roof. Owner suspects it's in a local-ish traveller's site, so asks friend with PPL(H) to check it out. Confirmed, so the owner tells the Police. Police tell him to claim on insurance, as they won't enter the site for a £3,000 trailer.

Lord Mount - very well put.

As another London copper of 23 years, and as a dog handler, I frequently work in close partnership with the Met ASU and can confirm that they are worth their weight in gold in terms of speed of response and reduction in officer-hours taken to search large areas. As Jayteeto says, the vast majority of these jobs are never made public.

And as far as:
...then I simply don't believe it. If it is even partially true, then the victim of the theft should make a complaint.

I would agree that the victim of such a situation should make a formal complaint in writing to the Chief Constable (copies to local Member of Parliament and Sun newspaper).

100% true, I'm afraid. It was about five years ago - perhaps things have changed since?

Flap Flap,

Ok, just as a guide, our current D.O.C.s are £540 per hour on an EC135 scheduled for 900 hours - £486000. Slightly less than last year due to slightly lower fuel costs, slightly cheaper P.B.H. for the engines and no pay rise for the pilots this year. As to whether or not you think that's value for money - I can only add that so far this financial year we have been directly responsible for the recovery of almost two thirds of that in stolen vehicles and property.

Airborne artist chap , having served as a cop for 13 years and specifically on a public order unit in an area with one of the highest pikey populations in the country , yes they do pose problems you cannot send a panda car to retrieve stolen property from a site it is really a dangerous thing to do beacuse as you know they are a lawless lot and will assault police officers . That said I have attended literally dozens of complaints of thefts of caravans ,trailers etc etc that have been found on pikey sites and we have been to every single incident and recovered the property asap , obviously some of the time it has already gone , nothing can be done about that until we invent teleportation .
I have also heard many many of the "I have a mate " stories and have personally been involved (unbeknown to the story teller) in the incident and heard the embellishments and bollocks that they come out with . Yes maybe your friend was told this , but believe me this does not make that site a no go area . As has been pointed out if that was the case , complain ! usually complaints are not made due to the circumstances they relay are not quite as they are told to their friends .
But to be honest vigilantism is the best medicine when it comes to these idiots . Ask the farmers in the great Middlewich silage caper of 2004 . These pikies turned up took residence in a field . there was a near riot with locals , up to 300 people were there takign various sides , all insisting that the young wpc there sorted the matter out immediatley . The farmers then drove a large amount of silage trucks onto the field and sprayed the bloody lot of them , funniest thing I ever saw (on video) needless to say they left the field rather quickly.
Give the guys and gals a break they are only human and put up and see more bad stuff in aweek than most people ever see in a liftetime

And there it is, the phrase that says it all. :rolleyes: How many years, exactly?

Di yeh loik dags????:p

cup o' T fah the beg fella

I suspect the travellers feel the police have an "unfare advantage" over them by being able to spy from a helicopter with impunity.
Damaging the police helicopter on the ground is one way to fight back at the police state. :hmm:

Good point , but in Mr Artists example it wasnt a police heli thats spied on them it was his mates , no one is safe

No, we most certainly did NOT. The county council fitted some "problem" roads with signs declaring "Traffic enforcement by police helicopter" or similar. The most outspoken opponents to the placement of these signs was ourselves, especially the police members of the team. We did not want to get tarred with the very brush you complain about, because most definitely we never got airborne with the only aim of catching speeding drivers.

Our aim was more efficient use of the local police budget, not harrassment of the motorist.

Sometimes errant drivers did bring themselves to our attention, these cases were dealt with in an appropriate manner as best as we could. Such as a certain "Ghostrider" motorcyclist who obviously thought crossing double white lines when overtaking a line of traffic in a 30 mph zone and wheelying against oncoming traffic, whilst blind to it, was clever. He also had no number plate. I did enjoy the video of that one. We were returning from an unconnnected incident, btw, when he was spotted.

Flap*3

Your question is very valid. It is one that every police force asks regularly. The lower part of your estimate is probably close if you were to factor in saving to purchase a new one over the average life of a helicopter. The big financial question is how do we quantify the value of the helicopter operation? Basically it is an estimate of the manhours saved by the use of the helicopter (when compared with the manhours that would have been expended had the helicopter not been there). The estimates are based on Home Office research and trials, As a tax payer you may be pleased to know that further trials to re-validate the data are due to take place this year (I believe).

Those jobs you quoted, in particular searches (for missing persons and offenders), occupy a huge amount of police time and are very manpower intensive if done properly. That is why we have the helicopter. When carrying out a search of a large area, we replace dozens of police officers and often reduce the amount of time spent on a large or small scale search. This has one of two effects.

Either the offender/missing person is found good result all round, everyone back home for tea and medals, or

The search is considered a 'no trace' (offenders/missing persons have vacated search area or were never there in the first place). Although this is a negative result it has the benefit of releasing those police officers that were on that 'incident' to move on to the next in a never ending list of incidents that the police have to deal with.

With regard to 'chasing car thieves', The helicopter is now a vital tool in trying to reduce the risk of serious accidents during police pursuits. Once on scene it allows the pursuing officers to pull back and reduce their speeds. Hopefully reducing the pressure on the driver of the 'bandit vehicle' and thus increasing (remember I said hopefully), the safety of those poor unfortunates who are innocently going about their lawful business in the same vicinity!

The military use the phrase 'Force Multiplier', when dealing with equipment like aircraft. That is the way we think of a police helicopter!

In my case naturally, however there are still a few police plank pilots out there who may disagree with your contention:p

With drones now so cheap and so good at surveillance, get rid of the police helicopters, save a lot of ££££ and time !:ok:

Ianms,

Would that be the drones that may only fly by day, not above 400 ft, not in controlled airspace, always in line of sight of the operator and the endurance of less than 30 minutes and have to get to the scene of the incident in a van??

Memory says that G-BOOV the Liverpool Polis Heli had a Contract placed on it by Scouse Hoods and I think it was firebombed but time does dim the braincells.
Mighty Gem should be able to confirm.
john

FORTYODD

Yeah, that would be the ones. And save a bloody fortune.:ugh:

Judging by the videos which clog the back end television channels the use of police helicopters has little benefit apart from producing video where the headless voice can proclaim how dangerous the continuing high speed pursuit is.

If helicopters were used to allow police cars to stop chasing then they would represent a major improvement in the safety of the public. These videos however prove that is NOT what is done - instead it is a high speed chase usually through built up areas and an expensive aerial video at the end of it.

I'm left with a general feeling that in the vast majority of cases police helicopters are a vanity project. a view which is largely confirmed by media stories of a cetain police helicopter tracking a woman in a car who was charged with eating an apple.........

I understand the culprits were confronted by the crew. Another reason for not using civvies as observers - lack of powers or personal protection!

Why don't we get rid of their cars and vans, too - put them all back on the beat; think how much money that would save. We could all just live in a nice, safe, fluffy little world.

Alternatively, we might just regress to the dark ages where criminal anarchy ruled? The reason criminals want to target police helicopters is because they know how effective they are, especially where vehicles are involved.

Many of the helicopter "good jobs" cannot be televised; surely it doesn't take much common sense to understand why (or maybe it does, given some of the comments here). "Police, camera, action" etc tapes are not totally representative, but the sale of less classified stuff like that to TV companies does provide some income to offset of operating costs. They are for entertainment purposes and not meant to be a documentary, FFS! :ugh:

There's an AS355N with full police kit out sitting in a hangar in EIME currently unused if they asked nicely .....

View Notice


JAS

In fact, I may as well give the dog back too. The food he eats costs a fortune and as for the cost of our continual refresher training...

That way when someone breaks into your house and steals your car, they can be chased by Dixon of Dock Green on his pedal cycle, all recorded on a Box Brownie taped to a remote control balsa wood Lancaster Bomber flown by the local sixth form technology class, then when he runs off at the end I will use my superior sense of smell to find the criminal and tick him off most sternly.

Sounds perfect :ugh: