H99. You might be right, - but how many have tried it? Ive never seen any requests for donations to the Police Helicopter!

My feeling is that the Criminal has suddenly realised that are are no bobbies on the beat any more, and in many area no air cover either, so he's started back up to his old tricks again. Thefts of motorcycles have shot up around here, and muggings too.

Tigerfish

Especially since the report - it shouldn't be about needing to spend more money, we aren't spending any less money than pre-NPAS but it was money much better spent before. People should demand the pot is better utilised before agreeing to make it bigger.

And at what cost to hour flown :{ sums don't add up

The problem goes deeper than that. The operational advantage of the system prior to the NPAS cuts was based on the credo that "any officer can request Helicopter support" just as he/she could request the attendance of the Police Dog. As soon as the ASU evaluated the call, deciding whether they could provide the service required, they would deploy. Normally the arrival on scene would be less than 20 minutes max. NB 20 minutes from the commencement of the incident, NOT 20 minutes from the call being made.
If the latter criteria were followed then there was a reasonable chance of a successful outcome.
NOW with the jam spread so thin, and distances so great, an effective response is practically impossible, so less and less calls for helicopter assistance are being made. What's the point?
By the time the Helicopter reaches the scene, it will be much too late to help. So today the Helicopter is really only of use in pre planned operations such as marches and demonstrations etc.

Yes before anyone says that is not the case, I would say that there will always be exceptions, especially when the incident is fairly close to a base, but the cold hard truth is that 19 helicopters can never hope to provide the level of service to the Guy in trouble on the ground that 33 could. And remember the guy on the ground can feel very alone and unsupported at times.

Tigerfish

The original contract stated if more than half of the England and Wales forces decided to opt out then the whole thing would be dissolved...
Not sure if that has been amended since.

Short of that the answer is no..
An individual force cant.

Tigerfish

I couldn’t agree more. Very well said!

The recent rationalisation is utterly stupid, until you appreciate that there is only one aim. Cutting cost. Absolutely nothing else. But the REAL stupidity is that it doesn’t even achieve that!

Crackers!

It's not 'just' the money saving directive, it's what you do with what you got!
Maybe the costs mean one has to make the remaining 19 aircraft work harder or more efficiently and this is where the regime let's itself down.
The vast majority of the board and the overseers are cops. Cops are good, we all know that and very efficient they are too when it comes to traditional policing. BUT this is not and never has been a traditional means of policing. The aviation world is complex, buying maintaining and operating the right aircraft to carry out this policing is complex and requires experts in the field.

How many aviation epxerts are left on the NPAS board - ONE. He knows who he is. He is responsible for providing the right technical information and the most effective operational inputs to make the 'model' work.
Rumour has it he is just waiting out his time and his pension before he retires and his inputs are virtually non existent these days....is that right I wonder.
4 x FW is an example where the aviation expert has been derelict in his duty, I would suggest.
It must be wearing having to keep his head above water amongst all those cops.:ugh:

NPAS seem to think that they've saved £17M rather than the £6M stated in the report, and the £7M that I had estimated.
News | NPAS

Quite right TC. Police Aviation was successful because UEOs kept the whole operation at arms length from the police

The only press coverage that I could find:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-england-wales

means 'we didn't listen to those who knew about airborne policing and made the same mistakes all over again'
means 'we had to get the police forces used to not having a helicopter available because we were saving so much money'

Bloody criminal.....

TC, I am a little surprised by your comments, because I know you quite well, and have a great deal of respect for your wide experience of operational Air Support. But we are talking about POLICE Air support here no more & no less. We have always had great respect for the knowledge and experience of our professional experts (Our Pilots). But this was always and must remain a Police operation, for after all it is the Police service that picks up the bill at the end of the day.
HOWEVER, that said, to have a board with only one professional Pilot in a position of influence is I agree completely and demonstrably wrong. No wonder the wheel is coming off.
IMHO, the only way out of this mess is to call a halt. Reposition all 19 Aircraft closest to the main centres of population and therefor crime and ensure that the message goes out to operational commanders, - Your air support is back, now make use of it to lock up those ******ers that are wrecking your crime stats. Sadly I will be the first to acknowledge that that will leave many semi and rural areas uncovered until such time as we can rebuild the service.
Much brainier minds than mine will have to work out how that can be funded but it is clear that the forces that do not get a service must be relieved. This exercise of tying to run NPAS purely as an accountants model simply will not work. The criminal, who must be the target doesn't play by the accountants rules and the service has to get wise to that, or give up all together. I say again that by 2008 we led the World in Police Aviation, - now we are nowhere!
OK, I'm a wrinkly now, but I do know what makes the service tick, and its not Politics and its not accountants! Mutter mutter, - Bah!

TF

TF

I agree with you that it's a police service but not only does it need more aviators making decisions, it needs police officers with some knowledge of the job and how it works in reality. I agreed with you when you first stood up and said it wouldn't work and I agree with most of what you say now but to leave rural areas without air support is not the answer.

Max, it is the answer....... if the question is how to spend less money on air support, and keep some senior people well looked after, regardless of the impact on public services.

I don't think anyone believes that the real aim was to do better for less money.

MaxR, I think that you have misunderstood what caused me to say what I did. Believe me as a rural bobby and later a Rural Sgt, nothing would please me more to see the rural communities getting the quick cover they pay taxes for! But we must live life as it is.
NPAS has liquidated over a third of the air support assets, 32 down to 19 aircraft, and a similar number of the bases.
I really do believe that NPAS is now in terminal decline, so if anything is to be salvaged from the ashes, then those that will have to effect the re-build, will have to cope with what remains. That means living in the real world and basing the remaining assets in the locations of greatest demand. That does not mean for one minute that if another Hungerford, or other serious incident occurred they would not attend, - of course not. But initially, not as a routine responsibility. Then as the recognition of the value of real operational Air support returns, then the new body can start to re build itself closer to what is a true Police National Air Support Service.

We can not give up on this. Too much blood toil and tears were spent in the early years to give up now. Besides who wants to let the criminal win?

TF

So where do you suggest the lines are drawn, bearing in mind that you are effectively saying that if you live in Birmingham, you’re more important than if you live in Shrewsbury.....?
And how about removing the Air service from police control? Therefore keeping the decision making about the aviation aspect away from the politically driven decisions that have caused these issues.
By remaining in the polices hands, they have no one to blame for this mess than themselves.....

Come on Rotate... He's not suggesting you're more important if you live in Birmingham. He's saying a helicopter in Birmingham will see a lot more crime than the same helicopter being based in Shrewsbury, so where is it better utilised until there is a plan for rebuilding a comprehensive fleet.

And clearly you need the better heads from both the police and aviation experts involved in the decision making process.

Last I heard then next great plan being considered was 3 x 139's at N.Weald with the fixed wing, it'll be one typhoon with full U.K. Coverage before you know it :ugh:

Dude, it’s not a dig, but if you are dealing with a society that gives no quarter and accepts no compromise because they are the center of the universe (Facebook tells them that!) then there would be very serious questions to be asked regarding the use of assets post an incident where the outcome is open to question.
Are you seriously telling me that a chief constable would sit there a say, yep, no problem I’m happy to stand up a make a decision that could be interpreted as this part of the country does not deserve the same service as that part of the country.
Not very national I would suggest.
Helicopters should not be in the hands of the police. The SAR model or the air ambulance model where an aircraft is effectively leased to the organisation proves there are better ways.
Every moment that the HQ in Wakefield spend on trying to get this “new”(seven years) organisation on track within the constraints placed upon it is time distracted from frontline policing.
So let’s admit, accept it hasn’t worked and take the time to re plan, reassess and start anew, no blame, just do it properly.
Meh.

RTL, - Are you seriously suggesting that the Police should not be in control of POLICE AIR SUPPORT? If so what planet do you come from?
From day 1 of the Police use of helicopters we have fully accepted not only will the service ONLY employ fully qualified pilots with a minimum of 1,500 hours relevant helicopter experience. We have always accepted the captain's decision in all matters of flight safety whilst both considering and in the execution of the task. But it is, and must remain a Police Aircraft. Therefore it will be for the Police duty crew in consultation with the Pilot to decide whether any request for service will be accommodated.
Chief Constables do not make decisions on such matters, they are not qualified. Policy matters are another issue completely and will result in certain guidelines being issued to units. However All Police Officers howsoever engaged in their duty, have a responsibility under the Crown for the protection of life and property. I know of no Officer who in receipt of a request to attend a serious incident would refuse to assist, because no prior agreement to pay was in place. (Flight Safety matters always taking precedence).
I have no other issues that bear on such considerations and do not subscribe to facebook or another social media, Neither do I consider that any one part of the UK is more important than any other. What is more important to any Police Air support unit, is where they can be located to provide the best service to the area of greatest crime activity. That is what a POLICE aircraft is supposed to do!
I do accept though your questioning of whether Wakefield is the best placed location to manage the National Picture. Personally I would prefer a system of Regional centres working to a National Administrative Policy.

TF

Like the Babcock running of the Police Scotland cab?
Whatever

That really proves my Point. How could one helicopter, originally tasked to cover Strathclyde only, suddenly be expected to cover the whole of Scotland? A decision clearly not made by anyone with any knowledge of air support. Knowledge of what is not possible, is in many cases actually more important than what is possible. Air support IMHO is a wonderful boon to crime fighting, when done properly, but is well known to bite if undertaken without proper consideration.
I suspect that although our language might be very different, our views no quite so far apart.

TF

The POLICE have been shown to be incapable of running this national asset. Maybe it needs some non POLICE input to unf*** it.
The HMIC report was utterly fair. Accept it.
That’s what we do on planet earth.

At unit level, I don't think there's any question that the best way to run it is police officers or police staff dealing with the police task in consultation with the pilot providing aviation expertise. As it has been for as long as we all remember.

I also don't think that there's any question that police officers running the whole show has been an unmitigated disaster.

Actually, it's only 17, as the other two are supposedly spares. However, serviceability/availability is not always as it should be:

RTL, This is pointless, so I will not continue this exchange any longer, but you do seem incapable of understanding that it was the Police that fostered the establishment of Police Aviation in this country, admittedly with the active assistance of two highly professional aviation gentlemen. It was the Police, again acting with the benefit of professional advice that developed the system of UEO led units around the Country, and turned early operations into highly effective independent units, acting very much in a co-ordinated way and with close co-operation. It was One or two CC's acting under Central Govt pressure that turned the excellent Concept of a National Police air wing unto the disaster it became. Caused purely by the sole aim of saving money NOT of increasing efficiency.

I do agree however, that the HMIC report was completely fair. It Highlighted exactly what many of us predicted would happen if we were taken down that road! NPAS management has never been staffed by Police Officers that were experienced in Police Air Support matters, but mainly by Police Officers intent on following Govt financial dictact! Many of us gave more than adequate warning of what the result of their changes would bring, but we were total ignored.
You appear to be incapable of understanding that fact!

TF

Whoah there mister rose tinted specs! Whilst I’m sure your back in the day rant has traction at the base you’ve occupied for god knows how long, feel free to get up to speed you angry little man.
You proudly assert that’s its cops who had the idea along with input from a couple of aviators, oversimplification I think. UEO’s? What, the same ones that were never there and got the PC’s do the donkey work or piss off back to division?
You remember division don’t you? Where real Police work happens. Mention being returned to unit and watch a TFO literally **** themselves. You’ve feathered your nest alright, now stand and shout from the sidelines that it’s buggered.
GENIUS.
I’m just waiting for the right job and I’m gone, not because of the job, but because mis guided pilot wannabes that created their cushy little world and will defend till death.

How Unnecessarily Rude
 

Rotate too Late you should be ashamed of your tone and language - plain RUDE.
I hope you find the job you are looking for very soon because it is clear that the one you have is unsuitable. An apology would be most appropriate.
ANOrak :=

Perhaps time to take the toilet tube rolls off your eyes RTL and take a wider look.

Police air support was not invented in the UK but generally the ancients in the UK police market took the disparate practices in the USA [where units come and go quite NPAS like at the whim of senior officers and politicians] and improved on them. They could have looked in greater detail at European models of course but we all know that Brits do not 'do' foreign languages so its the USA or nothing.

What they originally produced were a series of daylight only flying clubs that in the main evolved into 24/7 public service that provided a service that was grass roots orientated. But many did not produce the goods and as you say looked after their own backs to the detriment of the industry as a whole. What was good was pretty good but there were enough problems for ACPO as it then was to seize upon. The politicians naturally went for the jugular.

The fault lies with NPAS, yes, but it also lies with just a few at unit level who gave ACPO a chance to get in and create havoc.

The NW ASG was one of the best but the infighting there that broke up an operation that used the same aircraft and maintenance set up - showing signs of a perfect regional "NPAS" The inability to make real use of the fixed wings they had.... sorry Cheshire had ..... and other failings ultimately left the whole set-up wide open for NPAS.

I may be unfair in singling out NW but it is the clearest one.

Just one detail of infighting that was repeated across the board by the rank and file and that stopped those growing regional ASGs getting their act together after all the work put in by those that went before.

Tiger fish, I believe an apology is indeed warranted.
I apologise.

RTL

PAN, is that the North Wales Air Support Unit or North West Air Operations Group?

North Wales were hardly one of the best, operating 0700 to 0300, flying 800 hours a year, mainly looking for lost sheep(:E) on a budget of £2.1M(1.5% of the Force budget), compared with GMP, operating 24H, 1200hrs, £1.7M(0.3% of the Force budget.

As for the NWAOG, well, having been part of it, that was just a foretaste of NPAS and what would be. And they shut down Merseyside to form it.

Hargreaves I do not believe anyone could make a call on that any more than they can predict Lotto!

Mighty Gem it was North West Air Operations Group, that you were part of ....

It was going so well [in a rustic sort of way] but lost direction. It was probably over-resourced [if such things can be over-resourced] but from the outside it was a good model to develop. You probably have a very different view as you were there. Suffice to say it appeared OK where others did not.

Lord HH of course threw Merseyside into the bin as his 'contribution' to NPAS just as Hampshire was binned in another CC/ACPO demonstration of willing .... although they were as different as chalk and cheese.

RTL, as this is a mostly anonymous forum, it is difficult to know exactly what experience a poster has, and assumptions are all to easy to reinforce when you find what you are looking for.

I don't think I have ever met Tigerfish, but I can't be sure. I'm confident that I've never met you, but can't be sure.

What I am sure about, is that your opinion of the Police in Police Air Support is based on narrow recent exposure to perhaps one or two units.

Those of us lucky enough to have sat alongside members of lots of different units, flying, working, eating and drinking with them, got a better feel for the overall measure of how the business worked.

Please don't taint everyone from Air Support in its golden years (1995-2010 imho) as being out of touch and no use at their job.

Senior Police officers have decided to allow the service to wither and die. That's not the fault of the cops or inspectors at the coal face.

I had to resolve an issue caused by a police officer who committed an offence, causing damage to the air support asset of another force. I didn't then decide that all of his force, or even all of his ASU were a danger, it was one guy, who was indeed sent back to his division, to shake hands with padlocks on the cold dark nights.

There were, and probably still are, some really good guys out there, but they are not the people in charge of this clusfertuck called NPAS.

Maybe from on high, but on the shop floor, or hangar floor perhaps, we were seeing everything that we now see in NPAS: longer reaction times, longer transits, fall off in requests, lack of decent jobs and so on.

I was with Merseyside for 15 years. Just prior to the shutdown and the start of NWAOG, I made a 45 minute dvd covering the previous 18 months, of various vehicle pursuits, foot pursuits, offender searches, arrests, cannabis farms and general tales of daring do featuring me and my crew. In the following two years until I retired, I might have made 20 minutes if I was lucky.

Things went downhill very fast.

So Mightygem who was there has an opinion you Pan who wasn’t seem to have been fed a spoonful.
Perceptions are everything in this job clearly, all it serves to do is undermine your point of view when you are corrected by those that actually served there. Once again, taking the service away from those who are happy to crow about a “world class service” (ive seen the posters!). Get out and actually use your eyes and ears.
Willing amateurs at best.

This man's unbelievable!

TF

Let's put a perspective on this.
NPAS was set up with the best intentions and 'most' of the board chipped in to make it a success.

But within a very short period it was apparent it wasn't going to work for two primary reasons.
The maths didn't make sense. A £15 million pound saving was required and this was from an an existing service which couldn't sustain such a hit. The politicains target was always wide of the mark.
NPAS is led by someone who has little or no understanding of an airforce and the job it is designed to do.
ALL the problems (allegedly) come from the Director of NPAS. He keeps the PCC and the CC of West Yorks in the dark using smoke and mirrors......and voila, they are where they are today.
To make an airforce work, the controlling authority need to understand - availability, resources, staffing, training, running costs - and that's just the aviation side!
He has ZERO understanding of that. [No problem - draft in someone who does. Enter - director of aviation]. What has he done?

Two people run NPAS, one is a cop and the other a pilot - one thinks he knows everything and runs around doing all the wrong things and making all the wrong decisions and the other actually knows everything but hears nothing, sees nothing and speaks nothing.

Most forces have picked up on this and are now factoring this into their daily ops. They simply circumvent NPAS as a matter of course. I have spoken to many of them. NPAS is becoming insignificant from the bobby on the beat's perspective.

Maybe this is what will shape the NPAS of the future - A strategic response vehicle only.

Sadly TC, I think you have summarised it quite succinctly!

TF

RTL
Part of the point here is that I was expecting a contrary viewpoint on my observation.
Anyone that pops in and out of an operation can only get a flavour, a drift, of what might be going on. A difference here is that you are recounting the here and now of your unit (wherever that is) and not necessarily all of NPAS. What I was reflecting was an opinion of 1990s police air support based on information from all of the contingent parts of the NW Police air operations and others besides, subject to the usual caveat about what I might be told as an equal and later as an outsider journalist. The differences between pre and post retirement were very obvious in some quarters - but not all.
I can still have ‘those’ conversations with many (on the unspoken assumption that it stays in my head until second sourced).
There is no set thing called police air support and internationally there are massive differences in operational expectation.
I just cannot yet work out which National model NPAS favours or thinks it has to follow. It certainly is not what was planned or pronounced 5 years ago or what was around 5 years ago.

For the pilots and crews, it is what it is. Like any organisation, the workers do what the managers tell them to. Is it better or worse now? From the coal face...... It doesn’t really matter!! I left in 2010, I talk to old sweats and what they tell you in private vs public are 2 different stories.

However

I would go back tomorrow if the circumstances were right.

The military has changed beyond recognition, but it’s still popular. As are all other emergency services jobs. NPAS is not exclusive in how managers are selected

A little dicky bird told me, that, for a period of time last Wednesday, there were only 3 aircraft available for the whole of England and Wales!