Freewheel,

I know what you mean. Huesey and the Chopmeister just didn't want to listen to the answers others were giving him/her.

All the best.

still don't
:ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

Speak to some of the ASU's that have their own engineers and you'll find that it works out cheaper than having contracts with EC and the like.

And a great deal more efficient in terms of how fast you can get back on line following maintenance.

Hughes500 - why choose Exeter?

Well it has an excellent weather factor especially in wet and windy SWesterlies as it is in the rain shadow of Dartmoor - that means better chances to launch and recover rather than divert.

At Chivenor we hold Exeter as a most probable diversion in poor weather.

Exeter has a 24 hour airport with radar and ILS available and is in low lying ground giving a low DA unlike Plymouth which is 700' up and closes at 2200.

There is no point in basing your helicopter centrally in the D and C patch because there is nowhere with the facilities required to maximise the availability of the helicopter - you would end up diverting a lot, away from your engineering and operational support which would be counter-productive even if it did save a few quid.

Being close to the coast also means that if inland is socked in, the aircraft can route around the coast to try and find a break in the weather rather than being stuck with no options.

Not to mention that Exeter is right on the M5 which is where any scallies will route out of the SW after conducting whatever criminal activities they have chosen for themselves.

Can't think why they chose to put it there at all:ugh:

Chopmeisterjockey et al,

I would rather do what we have just done and turned out for a missing 6 year old girl, that was found just after we turned up on scene, than to be called up at 2am to illuminate the river area in order to assist the recovery of a body.

Not only do we give the community the reassurance that we are there for them when they are in a time of need, it also frees up officers on the ground to do a more thorough local area search, which is in fact what happened in this case.

Have a pleasant evening!

crab,
Not completely correct, Plymouth is about 470 ft elevation, not 700 ft and has an ILS.:ok:
Also Exeter suffers a lot from FOG, wafting in from Marsh Barton. Plymouth rarely gets fog. Oh and EGHD is very close to the coast too.
Plymouth would make a much more central, stretegic position for an ASU in my opinion.

Please let me have a bite on this one! Snap snap!
 

Actually Chodjock, I think you'll find crab@ was referring to the DA at Plymouth being 700 ft, not the elevation, which by the way is 476ft.

As an aviator I would have thought you would know better than to argue that one potential base location is better than another purely because of the weather.

Once again you disregard answers from known reliable sources and show your ignorance about basic aviation operations.

Best of all you ignore the fact, one that you were told, that Exeter operates 24h as opposed to Plymouth that doesn't.

Not very handy for a unit that operates 24/7 is it!

Sorry - Plymouth elevation typo, meant to press 5 and got 7 instead, must be my age:)

Chopjock I didn't say Plymouth didn't have ILS but their weather factor is far worse than Exeter because they are South facing and on a hill which means you need 700' amsl cloudbase to get in on an instrument approach.

Crab

Thanks for that, I have been merely making the point that if you are in Cornwall, having a machine so far away makes little sense, espically when the biggest conubation is more central.
As I live on Dartmoor I know what the weather can be like in both Plymouth and Exeter ( have flown down here for 20 years and 5000 hours). Not sure on the actual facts but I would agree with the wetness of Plymouth but Chop is also correct at how easily Exeter gets fogged in due to the Estuary and low lying land. Castle Air at Liskeard dont seem to do too badly and they are in Cornwall
Somewhere along the line savings will have to be made, ASU's need to either show how good they are and how cost efficient they are or come up with cost and efficiency savings, more likely to be both. I would think having a central run asu rather than its "my train set" will help, you will then get economy of scale.
Most on this site do not have the first idea of running a business, after all that is what the police force is. Comments like the staff live in Exeter is laughable
Having 4 machines myself ( yes I know they are not as complicated as a 135/145/902) I have to question how often a machine goes wrong that it needs so much time to look after it. If you do the maths that is 3952 man hours to keep 2 machines airbourne for approx 1000 hours ( that used to be same man hours for 1 machine doing between 400 to 600 hours). That is nearly 4 man hours for 1 hour of flight. That does not include avionics support and outside agency support.

To you all I have no issue with what you do. But you have to get it in your mind that you are not bomb proof in what you do. Most of you have the attitude that the heli is king, It is part of a team.
To keep the team going something has to give. Yes there are probably better cost savings to be had elsewhere but as any big budget item an asu is a bean counters target. All I have been doing is playing devils advocate, which is what you have to do when running a business, " think outside the box". In any big business there will be people trying to build and maintain their empire.( look at the mil arguing about Eurofighter, Trident, aircraft carriers etc etc)So instead of arguing about how indisposable you are you will need to cost justify what you do against a finite budget. Most of you have explained to chop about using singles and The CAA, correct answer, but maybe in the future we will need to look into using singles who knows. Look at the Cessna Caravan, a single aircraft that can be flown for public transport now.
SS I am ready for your spear:ok:

Really? At night and/or in IMC?

When did that change?

Ask Bob Crowe, rumour has it he has got it/getting it through

when ecuk can charge up to £60 an hour for an engineer. Why do you think hueys, that paying 2 engineers to look after an aircraft is expensive.:rolleyes:

Interesting thread.

Hughes500 - you know the patch well, understand engineering support for helicopters and are capable of picking up some of D&C's 'creative' claims in their blurb. In particular, '24/7 availability', 'difficulty of providing mutual support to neighbouring forces'... However, Sid's comments come from an experienced pilot on one of the country's busiest and most successful operational units - much of what he says is good gen.

Sid - you know the job well and are good at research. In particular, you are able to give useful insight into the intricacies of operating a police aircraft run directly by the force concerned. However, I'm sure that even you can see that a high proportion of the tasks on the D&C website would raise eyebrows on an operational ASU/AOU, and as for D&C's claim that they are available 24/7 - take a look at the earliest/ latest task times to see what the reality is down in Janner Land. As an ex-native, you'll have a fair idea of where the crime is around here (clue - it ain't around the far east of the area). You may even be able to discover the D&C police pursuit policy and the aviation unit's history (or lack thereof) in involvement along the M5 when compared to a force like yours. As for mutual support, they're 'aving a larf - pretty much a one-way street, and it's all inbound to D&C. Your 23:55 post on 20 June even has D&C citing 2 different endurances for their aircraft, one (2h30) to show how useful they are and t'other in your following quote (2h00) to show how they need to stay near Exeter.

As an interested local, I have been very pleased to note the massive increase in air activity outside the immediate environs of Exeter since the expensive new toy turned up. I hope that this new enthusiasm to get airborne continues, as it might mean that units on the ground who've grown used to not even bothering to bid for the aircraft may be tempted to give it a try.

Yesterday the 145 was sat on the ground while 3 emergency aircraft responded to a major RTC on the A361 (2 air ambos plus Rescue 169 from Chiv, bless 'em). Don't know why, other than that the aircraft was u/s. No engineering activity seen at Middlemoor when N Devon's helimed called in to drop their casualty by the land ambulance there, but that of course is not to say that things weren't in the process of being fixed. As the N Devon air amb lifted to return to base the pilot heard Exeter Radar chatting to Police 10 - another mutual support task on D&C's patch?

My own thoughts? Get the police aircraft into a position with sensible reaction times to its whole patch. Don't constrict thinking to historical aviation sites - Castle do seem to manage very well from Liskeard despite the vagaries of the weather down here. It's nice to be IFR capable (and in my opinion essential to operate on NVG), but a police aircraft in IMC ain't a police aircraft, it's just another Public Transport passenger aircraft doing nothing to support officers on the ground. Naturally none of this will change because of the forthcoming budgetary restraints, but I hope D&C don't think we're all convinced by their claims. I certainly ain't.

Engineers!
 

Budgie, You comment that ECUK, - (& presumeably PAS ) can charge up to £60 per hour for an engineer, inferring that that was expensive. Well I guess in some ways that it is, but having just been charged nearly £70 per hr by my local garage for servicing my car perhaps its not ( & my fitters didn't need to be licensed either!

But what a lot of the none proffesional small heli drivers don't seem to appreciate is that the current almost all weather 24/7 Police Heli's are carrying a lot of very advanced Police role equipement. That equipment is not only pretty heavy, but is often more likely to develop a fault than the A/C itself.

We have got to the point where even I begin to wonder if we might be able to save some money by not always going for the very highest level of kit. NB that is NOT to say I am advocating a return to a hand held camera and not much else. What I mean is this, - is the current HD version of the camera, any camera, much better than what was claimed to be the best in say 2004/5 or does it take a real expert to be able to tell the difference? (I genuinely don't know, that is why I ask ). The same goes for other uprated kit. Also weight equates to additional fuel burn, so why to we always specify a very heavy PA system when most units say that they hardly ever use it. How much does it cost to fly that around on every mission?

Again, whilst I can never accept the arguement for a dual roled aircraft because of the compromise on kit carried, I must again suggest that real money would be saved by combined bases. Economies of scale on nearly everything else would surely follow.

Tigerfish

Sid, would like to apologise to you about my last postings. When I said waste of time searches, I didn't mean the ones where young kids go missing in the street. For those, there is a chance of success and I would agree to launch every time. I am talking about the totally rediculous searches where there is little or no justification to go. We spent hours on one regular missing from home, the bosses would not ping the phone because it would cost a hundred quid....... :uhoh: ......... When they finally did do the ping, the kid was 30 miles away in Blackpool!!

Sid
What? Plymouth has a Density Altitude of 700 feet?

It wasn't me that first brought weather into the discussion.

Could that be because you conveniently only tell one side of the story?

That is 24/7, subject to weather conditions.

No, it has a Decision Altitude of 700ft. I think this is another example of what others have termed, "ignorance about basic aviation operations".

Whereas Plymouth only operates 0630 - 2230 so even if when the weather is nice, it's not much use to a 24 hour operation. :rolleyes:

Cheers

Whirls

Thanks for explaining that Whirls, It clears it up nicely as I was beginning to wonder, talking about elevations etc. Although I wouldn't term a precision approach a "basic aviation operation", especially with regards to helicopters.

Pah. He's been saying that for 10+ years. Ever since he's been flogging Cessna Caravans actually.

SE public transport at night/in IMC isn't going to happen in JAA/EASAland. The Germans will never let it happen, apparently.



Anyway, back to the subject in hand...