When the last creation of NPAS was attempted it was pretty clear that West Yorkshire were the only bidders.

After the caning that West Yorkshire has taken thanks to its operation of NPAS it seems very unlikely that any other police force would again step forward to be so abused. Those 40 plus forces that said 'you must be joking' last time the offer was on the table were the intelligent ones.

Who has the crystal ball to suggest where we go from here?

It will take all the brains in the country [and maybe outside it as well] to suggest a way forward. Even getting them to meet in one place as equals will be a major achievement. And first we have to decide who are the right people!

If I were to suggest any one name as a start there would be an argument by six others stating why that person was the wrong one. There is no clean Mother Teresa figure out there.... or is there?

PANews, Although history shows there were no other takers for the job of running NPAS, I believe that in the original 'Chiefs' Meeting following the decision to create NPAS there was another force interested in running the whole thing. However as soon as W Yorks took one pace forward to volunteer. That CC took a subtle step backwards and let them get on with it.

Whoever runs this "RGF" next, I hope they do it more effectively. I find the "Police Interceptors" and similar TV programmes so frustrating to watch. Jobs such as vehicle pursuits having to be called off because they were deemed too dangerous...no helicopter on scene to complete the job whilst allowing the cars to back off...which used to make the situation far, far safer for everyone concerned..... Someone needs locking up over this whole debacle - not just the criminals! :mad:

Shame it can’t be wrapped up in the ongoing UK Government SAR re-tender……just saying 😉

A recent Helihub article:
https://helihub.com/2021/06/18/uk-ma...028WU12Md2moFM

Out with some ex colleagues last night. It just gets worse. Bases being reduced to 12 hours. Bases offline due to lack of aircraft, pilots or TFOs. Pilots being allowed to get their CAA medicals during work time, thereby putting the base offline. One day recently, there was just one NPAS Base operational.

NPAS have put out a government tender for industry to run NPAS and London [separately] as well as provide new airframes.

This was something that was explored a year ago but I am not aware of the interest in any industry feedback.

Aside from the sheer cost of this plan, Howe anyone expects industry to get this up and running in the next 50 weeks escapes me. It took a decade to arrive where we are and I cannot see anyone undoing that little lot in the time allowed. If industry takes it up perhaps it will shut down most of it and restart each element when it can get it to work to their standards.

NPAS Tender
So looks like 7 outside London and a service level based number inside (ie enough helicopters to provide a set level of availability). Similar to current or is that less?

H135T3H/H145D3 pairing has got to be near the front of the queue for this?

​​​

What an interesting read that tender makes. Down to 7 aircraft outside London? Wow.... just, ...wow.
:yuk:

NPAS tender document.
 

The NPAS tender mentions "rotary aircraft".

The NPAS fixed wing p68's which took years to come on line, aren't mentioned anywhere.

Any clues to which 7 aircraft will be left outside of the London area?

There are many unanswered elements in the papers so far released. No mention of the existing airframes at all, that might suggest the plan [it is not yet a tender] is 7 plus Met plus existing fleet however the successful tenderer might wish to operate them.

But of course it is not a plan.

NPAS has produced dozens of plans over the years but none of them has lasted long enough to come to fruition. Until something suggests otherwise I expect that the plan will be whatever industry can live with. Even 7 plus Met (2 + a spare) is going to be a big dent in someones piggy bank. £100M?

Thanks for the reply PAN.

How many staff members do NPAS employ, and is anyone aware of the payscales?

As we know Annual Reports are scarce and inconsistent in the information given ... but the 2015 version gives a grand total of 340 people directly involved [such as the Strategic Board members, maintenance organisation, PCC would be significant extras].
The numbers from that report state 180 TFOs and 87 pilots.

The 'compact' and less informative 2018 report gives the overall staff numbers as 332. Current Police Officer payscales are going to be variable but an example is given at https://www.polfed.org/norfolk/infor...nk-pay-scales/

A lot has happened since the last report from NPAS and it has been promised for months now. I suspect that they may never appear.

Out of interest, how many was it pre-NPAS?

Thanks PAN, it seems strange that NPAS are a public body, but they don't provide details of the financial costs of the operation?

I wonder how much the senior management are paying themselves?

Not sure who has oversight of the operation, but it sounds like its going to be a very expensive operation for a private company with so many staff involved at the moment.

Where does it say that the plan to acquire 7 helicopters under a fleet replacement program is the whole fleet? Check the wording

Memory isn't great - I believe it was around 16 rotary/3 fixed-wing in England, 3 in Wales and 1 in Scotland, plus the 3 in London. Stand by for corrections...
Very sound observation - thanks

33 helicopters from 27 bases by 2010. GMP also had a fixed wing and Cheshire and Hampshire may have got rid of theirs by then.

I know we blame the 'management' but the mindless activities on NPAS go far higher than that.

Last November the UK gave France £28M to provide patrols along the French coast so that Migrants could be stopped from making the journey to England. Magically the numbers safely making the journey went through the roof!

Having worked that out the same government department is to pay another £54M to the same French government to provide patrols along the French coast "so that Migrants could be stopped from making the journey to England."

So far £82M has been paid out to France in 8 months. That was about double the UK police annual budget for air support that was set to be cut by creating NPAS. And that does not include the millions pumped into UK SAR to get them patrolling the English Channel for half the day.

These people need to go to business school.

Both of which come under the same inept minister's responsibility

nothing is new in police work.
I posted this almost a decade ago. .!




https://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/55...ml#post8874796

PANews That's absolutely staggering, the fact that we would pay France - who don't care if migrants leave their country to come here, in fact would possibly welcome it - and then because that didn't work throw more at it seems almost inconceivably stupid.

Just in case you haven't seen the "Must Read Tomes" thread, I just thought I'd put this here. I hope no-one minds.

My book about my time flying on police helicopters was published this week, there have been lots of great reviews and I figure that people on here might enjoy it.

So, it’s that time of year again. Here are the stats for 2020/21. Overall, costs have increased by £1,872,147(not as much as 2019/20’s jump of £3.3M and Actioned Calls are down by 315(again not as much as 2019/20’s drop of 3855).

As always there are winners and losers. the biggest loser seems to be Bedfordshire. Their costs have increased year on year for the past 3 years while their Actioned Calls have gone down from 393 in 2018/19 to 188 in 2020/21.

Cheshire haven’t fared so well either. Paying $0.4M for less than half the Calls of last year, giving them a cost per call of £6050. However, Cambridgeshire top the cost per call chart at £9214.

Mind you, the cost per call that I arrive at is something of a mystery given the wide range in costs. From Cambridges’s £9214 down to Lincolnshire £1138. Especially given that talking to an NPAS pilot who said that the Forces get charged a flat rate of £2500 for a call, regardless of whether the aircraft is there for 5 minutes or an hour. Obviously other things are taken into account.

Hours flown by NPAS bases in support of Forces is up on 2019/20, 13,139 compared to 11,545. That’s largely due to the fact that I was only given 3.5 for the Met(North Weald) for 2019/20.

Anyway, make of the numbers what you will.

Oh, as for NPAS Annual Reports?? A quote from my latest FOI request:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....037e3f6380.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....156a768be2.png

Thank you MG.

Certainly some inconsistencies there..... that would make it difficult to write and sign off a sensible Annual Report I guess. If in doubt.... avoid it!

Based on those figures it is evident that in the past year the fixed wing unit has almost doubled the number of hours it flies each year. To put that in perspective though sorties are far longer than those of the rotary wing fleet and other bases where only a single helicopter is based are exceeding 1,000 hours pa. I guess, if it were properly resourced, we should expect the fixed wing fleet of four to be flying at least 3,000 hours by now and taking the pressure off the older helicopter fleet.

Some hope. Just when the P68R has found its feet [it took long enough] it seems the management has lost faith in the project and now there arn't enough pilots to get them in the air regularly enough to ramp up the hours and fill the gaps caused by the growing age of the rotary fleet.

Its like a stuck record.. stuck record .. stuck record..

Who knows one day we may be able to write about other news that is uplifting and smiley.... Not yet awhile I fear.

I follow the fixed wing on trackers regularly and it seems to have moved from a national asset to covering the North East region only around March/April of this year. Apart from the G20 tasking they have not flown on any active incidents outside of the Yorkshire counties and the North East area so there must be a new agreement in place when previously they were tasked UK wide to cover like a rotary asset.

It seems at the moment the Carr Gate helicopter is working the late/overnight shift and the fixed wing covers during the day up to midnight in the region. Something has to change as just one out of the four planes is ever active at any one time and is still not a 24hr asset after all of this time.

I seem to recall reading/hearing that when asked, the North East Forces were the only ones willing to pay for the fixed wing.

Just in case anyone's missed it, the book is back in stock.

Above the Law

Some good stuff by Bryn Elliot in the latest Police Aviation News:
http://www.policeaviationnews.com/Ac...August2021.pdf

Also scroll down to the Letters To The Editor section.

My Story "A long and Winding Beat" is available Through ISBN No 978-1-5272-8608-5 or via [email protected] it charts among other things the development of UK Police Aviation prior to the dreaded NPAS!

TF

Hiya TF - Amazon and Waterstones both show it as unavailable, so you have an e-mail incoming.

In the continuing downward spiral, some NPAS Bases were due to reduce from 24 hour ops down to 12 hours, from 15:00 to 03:00. The following quote is from September's PAN:
You can read more here:
http://www.policeaviationnews.com/Ac...tember2021.pdf

Rearrange the following into a meaningful sentence. Brewery, up, a, couldn't, piss, organise, in, a.

So Lippitts Hill is back...and there was one left. Such a big Hangar for one little G-POLD and former Boreham crew. Quick to revive a base location which is no longer needed, but when it come's to revival of actually needed bases like in the North West and Midlands where they are constantly having base availability issues... it is just quietly brushed under the carpet. The North West once had 6 bases and they've more than halved it to two, but only seems like Barton is the only one going now... is Hawarden dead? Not seen any activity from them in what seems like forever. The bases in Midlands being halved, Notts PCC fed up of poor service Nottinghamshire is receiving, but is another additional base active from 1300 - 0100 for the North Mids really going to be that beneficial? It's like NPAS think criminals only come out at specific times only and the rest of the time they are tucked up in bed. The midlands has a lot of urban space to cover to cut the bases to two is just inadequate. I'm not even bothering discussing about North East my local region as there is just no hope or certainty anymore. I don't even know what hour's Carr Gate operates anymore, Newcastle barely even fly anymore and as for Doncaster another wasted space would have been better keeping a Helicopter based at Humberside G-POLU maybe? If it's not dead. The South West are the only ones that seem like they are winning, all bases having the newest batch of the fleet and operating smoothly... it's not bad for some.

Seem to be flying most days??

I mean as to how they used to fly before NPAS.

If anyone knows who came up with the NPAS song to the tune of American Pie, please pass on my congratulations and thanks.

I’ll have a fiver on NPAS fixed wing coming under 2Excel ‘special missions’ operations in the foreseeable future.


Transfer of assets and staff, and then operating as a sub contractor with Police staff/observers seconded. Primary base still DSA but with temporary tactical remote basing as required.

They are one of the bases that have gone down to 12 hours.

NPAS - when Yorkshire step down.
 

Heard from a pilot at the local airport, that the current base map may look different when West Yorkshire step down from running the show.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...ce_Air_Service

Will Carr Gate dissapear with it being so close to two other bases?

Any news on who will be taking over from West Yorks?

Who would want to? I'd suggest it's a poisoned chalice.

Not only poison for a police force (sorry Service) to take on but also very much poison for any element of industry considering taking on the project.

It is easy to complain, and I do, but some alternative tactics that might work need to be considered. IF no operator of a NPAS neo is found and no section of industry feels able to stump up eye watering amounts to operate an oversized and failed operation that big money ticket may have to be further dismantled beyond delete The Met.

In theory this takes us back to before the start of NPAS. That underlines the level of failure NPCC are faced with, let us not forget where the whole badly thought through idea came from.

Police forces are gifted back their original airframes and bases and they either make individual bids to the Home Office for funding or to the potential industry bidders with a view to starting smaller more manageable operations, with or without new airframes, individual to start with and maybe as consortiums further down the road. You can probably still have central training and a pool of pilots and TFOs but there may be savings derived from getting rid of the management.

It may be that if the NPCC cannot get their act together and industry cannot afford to bail out the giant, fragmentation is the only way forward.

I would like to make a point on your ‘where the idea came from, which is invariably overlooked in the effort to heap scorn on NPAS and W Yorks. (and this is not an attempt to defend either organisation). The idea for a single, national service came from a group of UEO’s who regularly attended the ACPO air support committee in lieu of their respective force or consortium ACPO officers, (who should have attended, but saw no career advantage in doing so, as it was too niche).
They were told to find a cheaper way of doing things ( and if I recall correctly, were seriously advised NOT to look at a national structure, as it would be too difficult to implement).
In spite of that they felt (and therefore recommended), that if they could make ‘X’ savings by regionalising, then they could ‘obviously’ make greater savings by nationalising! So we perhaps need to look a little closer to home. ‘We’ did this to ourselves.