NPAS News 2018
 

Regarding Police pilots being allowed to fly past 60? Not popular with NPAS management apparently. It seems that they will decide if they can. Age discrimination actions in the future, perhaps?

It also seems that they are in denial about the findings of the HMIC report. Especially so that most of the points raised had been raised on an internal forum.

Welsh seem happy with NPAS
 

Dyfed Powys looking forward to more cover from NPAS.
Police air support service questioned by Panel ? Llanelli Online

Well that's certainly cheaper than the £1.2M they were paying before. Last year though(2016/17), they only paid £165,545 for 127 hours. Don'y know if that includes the rebate.

It's only a couple of months since Dyfed-Powys were saying that they had an average response time of nearly an hour and only got an aircraft 30% of the time. Now they appear to have been told not to worry as the fixed wing aircraft will cover urban areas, so they'll get the helicopters more often. I hope that works out well for them.

And where will the nearest FW launch from. Add to that response time and diversion fuel and refuelling airports....Mmmmm what a clever solution we have folks.

A pertinent comment in that report :

"... we should see the helicopter in Dyfed Powys
perhaps more frequently." :rolleyes:

Nice to see they also have their fingers on the pulse, in considering
whether exisitng Air Bases might be used for Drone operations. :oh:

Coconutty

Well, the 2017/18 FY is nearly at an end, and NPAS have still to publish the 2016/17 Annual Report.

A complete rewrite after the HMIC report perhaps?

The fixed wing promised to take up operations after the closure of NPAS Wattisham has still yet to arrive on its first operational task after a year of no meaningful air support for Suffolk and Norfolk. The PCC, Tim Passmore, has admitted to the press that "We get a pretty rubbish service from NPAS" and sites this as the reason for "supplementing" the helicopter/fixed wing with drones.

Good luck Dyfed Powys.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." - Robert J. Hanlon

Warm feeling?
 

This was not released to me... but it appeared on Air Med & Rescue last week... targeted on the new female editor perhaps? There is now a related press release on the NPAS website [in the wrong date order] but this is quite different...

The very PC line taken….?

To raise awareness of aviation opportunities among females and celebrate the accomplishments of women of aviation, the National Police Air Service (NPAS) are supporting Women of Aviation Worldwide Week (WOAW) (5 to 11 March) and International Women’s Day (8 March). According to latest figures, around five to six per cent of women are involved in aviation worldwide.
NPAS are running a series of online activities to celebrate WOAW and IWD such as Twitter question and answer sessions which involves a female member of staff being available to answer the public’s questions about what it’s like being a woman working in police aviation. Also several video clips of female members of staff answering questions about their role are being posted to encourage women to become part of the aviation industry.
Chief Superintendent Tyron Joyce, Chief Operating Officer for the National Police Air Service, said:
“This week we are celebrating our female members of staff who work in police aviation. I believe it’s important to encourage females who are interested in aviation to pursue careers and change their perception about it being a male only industry. NPAS provide police air support, which is a vital tool, to the 46 police forces of England and Wales from a national network of 15 bases. NPAS has 332 members of staff, 59 of which are female, ranging from pilots, Tactical Flight Officers, specialist personnel and Operations Centre staff. Policing aviation relies on the different skills and personal experience of our staff and I am hopeful the proportion of female personnel will continue to rise in the years ahead.”

Some are hoping that a greater proportion of aircraft get to the job in time, irrespective of who flies them.

Typical "we are all inclusive" PR stunt.

For those interested the first woman police pilot was probably Cora Sterling in Seattle in the 1930s. The first woman in a police rotary craft appears to be Gay Absolem in 1970 [Met Police contract] and NPAS got their first female pilot a year ago but she did not want to go public.

There were dozens of others who came in second, third, fourth etc....

Policing aviation, is entirely different to Police Aviation.

Perhaps if the government had the balls to concentrate on actually policing aviation, it might save more lives, than worrying about whether or not the pilots have the balls for the job.

In 2018 we really ought to be over this idea of making a fuss about women drivers. If a girl can fly, than why would it matter that she's a girl?

It is "of whom" Joyce; "which" refers to animals or objects, "whom" refers to people; see me after class.

We had a lady pilot up at Merseyside around 2010/2011, who came to us from Surrey ASU.

Lots of diversity at NPAS:
People | NPAS

Well the time has come.... they have published their report for 2016-17....

http://www.npas.police.uk/sites/npas...rt_2016_17.pdf

Like me you may well find that the first few pages are full of the same basic facts jumbled up in a different order.....

Still it sets out the 15 base plan well..... except of course that it isnt a 15 base plan at all...

The thing which stood out in the report for me was just how well they've done reaching Priority 1 calls within their target time of 20 minutes after lifting. But surely that's entirely meaningless - within 20 minutes of the incident happening, or even within 20 minutes of the request, might make sense but not within 20 minutes of lifting.

About time. Thought we were going to get into the new FY before it was published.

So, the NPAS Chair and the Chief Con say that:
The report says that:
Under an FOI request last year they told me that the total flying hours were 15432.

Re the Performance figures, you might like to read the HMICFRS report on NPAS to get a true sense:
https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov...ir-support.pdf

See they are still upbeat about the fixed wing. Should be coming into service about...now.

Hmm...word form the coal face is that crews are afraid of reporting for fear of being sent back to force. Brilliant flight safety presentations to the outside world with all the right keywords, but an SMS running on threats of return to force and disciplinary action. The mantra is, if you don’t ‘have’ to report it, don’t.

Oh, and I notice that they have 4.5 people for training. Will that be the top half, bottom half or just split down the middle. Bit messy though.

A very faint shadow of the service that air support units provided to Forces prior to NPAS.

TF