So who will find the Laser Pointers if the Heli's go?
UAV's cant do it until the law of overflying built up areas is changed.

Bolkow,

Policing is now driven by the expressed views of the local population. Neighbourhood policing involves asking what locals want the police to do in endless consultation. Off-road biking is often very high in the priorities set by the public in that process. If, like me, you think it is not such a high priority you could always express your views locally. If the police ask their "customers" what they should concentrate on, they would be foolish not to act on those priorities.

I don't doubt you "know" who your local off-roaders are. The problem is that is not enough to persuade a court. Aerial video evidence and being caught red-handed not only convinces a court, but usually means a court is not involved cos the scrotes plead. It also often means the legal confiscation of the bikes.

Taking up a comment made previously, I agree that UK Police Air Support has been pretty poor at demonstrating its value. To this day, no one has sat down and simply listed all the positive effects and benefits of police air support in any sort of public or semi-public document. Those of us who have had the privilege of being involved know, but we have been poor at telling others. The benefits are not just what you see on the telly. Others have mentioned the deterrent effect and the way it changes scrote behaviour for the better.

Air support also cuts the costs of all sorts of other parts of the police operation. For instance, the timely nature and quality of video evidence from air support frequently avoids the need for a full trial. The last thing a defence brief wants is to have his client's behaviour shown to the court in black and white (or colour). If you thought that helicopters and a couple of plods were expensive, you should see how much it costs to run a court full of barristers and solicitors for weeks on end.

In other cases, the attendance of an aircraft brings an incident to a prompt end. This saves lots of time of all the ground resources that have been involved. This enables them to go and do other things. The missing person searches that are reported in the media are just the tip of the iceberg - there are hundreds of them. When a misper is reported to the police, VAST amounts of police resources are used to try and find the person. In my experience, a developed misper search can involve most of the on-duty police in a non-metropolitan area for days. Bringing that to an early conclusion saves a fortune, and allows them to go back to preventing and detecting crime.

This lack of understanding is often demonstrated on PPRUNE, when interested but uninformed posters post about police ops. It applies equally well to most senior police officers who often don't really understand what they are responsible for. This is a criticism of both them and air support too, IMHO.

Air support is a high profile activity. It should not be a surprise, if we are asked to justify it.

Recent activity against several ASUs is a most eloquent demonstration of the criminal view though. Perhaps we should get them to write a report for us.

Cuts in UK Police Air Support mooted | Shephard Group

Are the police ASU's classed as public transport or aerial work? Why don't they just use R44's and get an exemption from the ANO ?
If they do this the police could end up with more helicopter coverage and less costs, surely? Keep the twins for London though.

Chopjock,
UK Police ops are classed as single pilot, public transport - hence the observers are "CAA agreed passengers" and not "crew". It also means that the aircraft have to perform to performance category A - hence the twin engine requirement. It didn't start out that way and very soon descended into something far worse than the current US medical flight situation with all sorts of "Unauthorised" mods to aircraft and single engined heli's bumping into blocks of flats in extreme weather conditions. Cap 612 will tell you most of what you want to know about current regulations. Unlikely to change unless the Home Office change the status of the aircraft.

Ah i see... we must have been sat with our fingers up are a*se all this time then. Seems we can do a better job with fewer a/c..!!
Maybe they can turn their efforts to the energy market next and make more electricity with fewer power stations..

Ooooh thats okay then, we're in safe hands.
They made such a good job of AIRWAVE..!!
(around 3 billion spent)

in fact maybe someone should propose we bin airwave, go back to VHF/UHF
and keep ALL the a/c, with enough left over to replace the ENTIRE fleet..!!!

So the ASU's operate under an AOC then? Surely the police observers should be classed as crew and do away with the AOC all together.:confused:
Infact if money is not paid for the purpose of the flight, and the aircraft is undertaking "company" business, then it's not even "aerial work" either.
Sounds to me like they have their set up all wrong. Should be "corporate use" in my opinion.

Chopjock,
The Police ASU's operate under a Police Air Operations Certificate, (PAOC). Again, CAP612 - The Police Air Operations Manual - will tell you most of what you want to know.

ChopJock
 

and get an exemption from the ANO....that's the way it used to to be done. Then we grew up, and now work to a professional document, CAP 612, for all it's faults.
And why only twins over London.....are the lives of the people who live there more valuable than those that live elsewhere?

And for all those who suggest the use of singles over cities, I know the stats say they are reliable,but I sit over incidents above a city a lot, and two engines give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

I believe London is the only UK city with a specified area? And with heli routes? Any other city you can fly over with only one engine. How many police helicopters (twins) have had an engine failure?
No wonder they cost so much to run.:rolleyes:

Chopjock...

The legal side: the Home Office requires that police aircraft are operated under the CAA, not as state aircraft, and that means that for all practical situations twins are required; if you wish to operate low level congested area with no suitable engine failure site you need a twin.

The practical side: you can fly around on police work with one cop and a pair of binoculars but you will mostly achieve the square root of, err, a well known saying. Modern police ops need an equipment fit of about 250kg in addition to the empty aircraft plus a disposable load which allows pilot plus two and about two hours endurance. How many singles with proper maintenance support in the UK can achieve that?

Chopjock. You do ask some stupid questions!

UK Police Air Support provides a 24hr service 365 days a year in some of the worst weather that Europe can fling at us. Why?

Because we are there to provide a service to the public in preventing and detecting crime. Incase you have lead a very sheltered life I will explain that the criminal does not restrict themselves do committing crime in fine weather and in daylight.

How long do you think an R44 would last in heavy rain and gusty conditions at 0330? How much equipment would it carry? We need FLIR stabilized cameras moving map etc etc. Most of our a/c are already operating at max weight now! And above all it has only a single piston engine. I will not even mention the question of safety.

Under the PAOC, - The Police Air Operators Certificate TWIN ENGINED machines are mandatory for all operations both fixed and Rotary wing.

What makes you think that you know better than all of the proffesionals that have been conducting UK Police air ops for the past twenty five years.

Just look at the facts 33 machines averaging about 1,000 hours per year each have had a huge impact on serious crime. Yet despite the fact that those operations have been conducted around the clock in poor weather we have had very few accidents. In twenty Five years less than five!

And you want us to use R44's BAH!

Tigerfish.

Now old Grumpys blood pressure is really getting high!

R44's work well for the police in other countries I believe and are available with flirs.

Robinson Helicopter Company Newscopter Page

An R44 has flown around the world, is there any evidence that turbines are more reliable than the R44?
I don't think that, this is a forum and I am only discussing the other point of view, however other countries get by fine with singles.:ok:

Droopy,
An AS350B2 for one.:ok: Or an Enstrom 480? or a S333?

When I was taught to operate a single in the military, I was taught to have an LS available as much as is humanly possible. My current role over Liverpool would not be possible without regularly placing the aircraft in a situation where engine failure would potentially cause a major disaster. Changing the regulating authority may make singles 'legal', but unwise. The sweeping statement that other countries get away with it is absolute tosh. What you mean is that other than the many YouTube engine fail videos, they have got away with it SO FAR. Why do I need to wear a seatbelt in my car?? The law says so, but I have never had a major accident SO FAR. Motorcycle helmet?? Driving Licence?? B747 performance calculations?? 1.6mm tread on my tyres?? MOT?? Holiday Innoculations?? Use a condom??
All these things reduce risk, a helicopter crashing on a city ONCE would destroy police aviation.

It's already happened. To a twin. (in Wales). Nothing to do with having two engines though.(having two engines could not safe it) Might have something to do with all that extra weight of having to carry a spare engine and all that fuel for it too.:rolleyes:

BBC News | WALES | Rotor failure caused helicopter crash

Chopjock,
Tonight, I've got an EC135T2 with 2 observers, 64 Kgs of "Carry on" role kit and 400 kgs of fuel and I'm 10 Kgs off max all up weight. The 400 Kgs will give me about an hour and 30 mins - (1 Hour & 40 by day). You want me to put that into a Single Squirrel, an S333 or an Enstrom 480 and achieve what exactly? R44's do work well in other countries but have no stabilisation, nowhere to carry or fit a stretcher, no room for a paramedic to treat a casualty en route, no ILS/coupled autopilot to get you out of the poop when it all goes pear shaped and they generally have to make a choice between a camera or a nitesun.
UK Police Aviation did not arrive at the current solution overnight, it's taken many years to get where we are and as soon as the latest aircraft enters service the next generation peice of kit hits the market. The police in the US do manage with their singles but most of those that I have talked to over the years would love to operate the aircraft that we do instead. The Germans do it, the Spansh do it and the French are now an almost exclusively twin engined fleet.
I know you would love to replace us all with a UAV but, unless and until you fully understand our existing capabilities and the job we currently do then that is not going to happen. Your latest post merely demonstrates your poor understanding of the subject.

Perhaps, that's why I am asking questions. However I DO understand that the current situation may be the best, but apparently un affordable. If it costs too much, then why not look at the cheaper alternative, that's all I am suggesting.:)

Because the "Cheaper alternative" is where we came from 20 odd years ago and it proved to be inadequate and incapable. The Skeeter was a great helicopter for it's time but I doubt that the Army Air Corps would find much use for it in Afghanistan.
The 3 most expensive things in Police Aviation are:
No 3 - Buying an aircraft.
No 2 - Buying the wrong aircraft.
No 1 - By a very big margin - an accident.
Getting number 3 right, can help you to avoid numbers 2 & 1.

Single engined helicopters are not allowed to carry out Public Transport by night or IFR in UK. Full stop.

It's not just the number of engines, but a lack of IFR kit, duplicated generators, autopilot systems etc.

Hi JT2

Whilst I agree with the general theme of your last post, I don't see why you need to spend so much time - "regularly placing the aircraft in a situation where engine failure would potentially cause a major disaster."

Is that really how we are operating modern machines?

Chopjock, can't really see your point. If you had taken one engine and half the fuel off that helicopter, the outcome would have still been the same; salvaged by some good piloting from the guy in the machine :ok:

Cheers

TeeS