Congratulations due to the two-man NPAS team [Paul Watts and Pete Botchett] who presented the 'Future of police aviation in the UK' to a full house audience at Helitech this morning. They managed to turn a pretty well worn pigs ear into something not quite a silk purse on the basis of not a lot and a very dated video.

The future it seems is BVLOS drones to replace the fixed wing fleet and eventually the rotary wing. Subject to a suitable type capable of Sense and Avoid [that so far has not been demonstrated as a done deal].

Unfortunately the type is not identified, but the RAF are about to take delivery of a nice thing with the comforting name Protector which I guess is about £100M a go, but NPAS will have to fund the upgrade of it to twin engines of course to meet the current requirements.
Another FIKI I guess.
There is of course one other option that already has twin engines, the Portuguese Tekever, but I am not sure that it would be too welcome over my house from reports received.

I do think that Protector RG Mk 1 (MQ-9B) is a much more cosy name than the earlier General Atomics Reaper (MQ-9A) and Predator... Ahhhhh. The police would further smooth out the name and perhaps call it a Cressida....

I do not understand the question Cabby.

Civil Air Support operates using civil aircraft of various types offered in support of the emergency services. The crews are PPL and CPL with observers they select as worthy. The pilots are often the same people as might fly you to LAX or Bahrain flying their own precious machines on their day off. Alternatives are ex-military, transport, fighter, SAR, police and air ambulance pilots again on their day off, or in retirement, offering a service [often for free] to transport bloods and samples or in the case of Kent Police to report on the view from the sky.

Where do spotters feature? role. Many of our pilots are highly experienced, ex-military or from a commercial aviation background.

Would guessed that Drones may take over some police aviation roles but I can not see this occurring in the near future. Indeed what does a BVLOS drone offer over the current FW set-up? Would assume that more rotary assets would go before FW simply because a) they're cheaper to buy and operate. b) They're much newer therefore less maintenance /flying hr

It all comes back to what is Police Air Support for? The prevention and detection of crime, and the prosecution of offenders against the peace. Prior to NPAS the 32 odd Police Helicopters were doing a pretty good job of that. Vehicle and street crime was down and an officer in trouble could expect top cover and support very quickly. Yes there were one or two areas that were behind in that but not too many. By 2008 UK Police Air support was one of the best in the world for effectiveness and immediacy. Then NPAS happened and it all turned to rats. The fleet decimated, bases closed, aircraft had so far to fly that they were usually too late to be of any use.
The once effective operational tool became unavailable for most incidents.
But even today it still all comes down to money or lack of it! Is it the case that saving life and property is less important than saving money? The accountant wins?
The real shame is that NPAS could have been so good. By delivering operational Police Air Support on a Regional basis, and using the National body to bulk purchase fuel, training delivery, bulk equipment Pilots etc, money could have been saved, and effectiveness improved. But no the only mantra was save shed loads of money and virtually destroy what had been achieved. With that the only consideration from the outset, UK Police Air support was always going to end up dead in the water.

TF

Just been watching Doncaster's UEO/Base Manager on ITV's The Chase. He and the team beat The Chaser to win £3000 each.

Didn't they do well.... but it was £5,000 towards a trip to Italy [dunno when though!].

Yes, it was. Typo. :O

There are many times, far too many times, when it seems NPAS bring the world crashing down on its multiple heads through not thinking.

A few days ago The Guardian ran a story on how NPAS were seeking to operate drones at low level over the heads of the people of this country. The paper pointed out that Civil Libertarians were up in arms about the revelation. Now this morning they have run broadly the same story stating that.....Two Labour peers have demanded greater parliamentary scrutiny of police plans to use surveillance cameras mounted on drones after it emerged that forces across England and Wales could deploy the technology. Shami Chakrabarti, the former head of the civil rights advocacy group Liberty, has tabled an amendment to the police bill that would require the home secretary to approve the use of new “weapons, surveillance equipment or investigatory technology”.

All this results from an exercise they ran with industry asking about the capabilities of cameras in drones. The story was spoken of at he recent Helitech presentation at Excel London last month. It was not controversial and it simply laid out the parameters most manned airborne helicopters/fixed wing work to in terms of altitude. They added drone to the mix. NPAS do not fly drones, but they have this dream that they will one day and that they will operate them out of bases BVLOS.

They need to be forgetting all this tosh - it is just winding up people in civil liberties and they are mainstream politicians these days and so have the ability to vote down the new funds they need - and getting on with sorting out todays problems and operating a new fleet of aircraft.

Many in the drone industry see a workable BVLOS operations as being at least 5 years away and probably 20 years in the wake of public distrust of the aircraft industry post Boeing 737MAX.

Typical left wing reaction. BVLOS operations? Just a dream.

Two labour peers is hardly worth getting your knickers in a twist over MG, and I wouldn’t knock the left wing too much, just take a look at what the right wing are currently doing. They deserve much more of your concern.
When I read the press reports of the NPAS release, I felt that the reporters had misunderstood what BVLOS meant and seemed to think that the onboard systems would be able to ‘see’ beyond visual line of sight, (a much more oppressive idea), rather than the the whole package could be controlled beyond line of sight.
notwithstanding that, I’d double your 5 years unless there is a big change in airspace management (or global warming gives us 24/7 CAVOK.

What you must understand is that, in Senior Police Officer Land, the earth is flat, the sky is always clear, the radios always work, the fuel is everlasting, maintenance is never required and the crew, as well as being psychic, never go sick or take leave.
So, from their point of view, why is it so hard???

Not my comment, handy. :E

Yes, Hogan-Howe.

It would seem that the 7 aircraft outside of London are to be in addition to those that NPAS are operating at the moment as they have realised that after all the cuts, they now don't have enough to provide a decent service. :ugh:

If only someone could have seen that coming and warned them. I'm sure they'd have listened to people with decades of operational experience rather than deciding that they knew better.

Its a bit Ironic that I lost my job in 2011 for daring to predict the result of the NPAS cuts!

TF

They ignored every dissenting voice and Tigerfish was just one of many. The other dissenting voices, also people with years of aviation experience, were simply sent back to division, to pound the beat or plan other things, for the rest of their service on one pretext or another. Tigerfish was unlucky in that he was contracted to work for a company with far too much to lose when it came to keeping certain senior police officers happy. It was easy to let him go.

That's life.

There are fortunately other ways of regularly cooking the NPAS goose but I just wish they would get their act together and take the future of UK air policing out of the gutter once and for all.

.

Fully accept your comments Bryn. But the truth is that it could have been so much better! The concept of a National Police Air Wing was exactly the way to go. The ability to standardise training, engineering support , manpower and the fleet could have saved a great deal of money, the fleet size was about right as it was, but would have been made more effective by some re locations to give better coverage. BUT operationally it needed to be delivered on a Regional Control basis not solely from West Yorkshire. The reduction in fleet numbers catastrophic - The remaining aircraft had too far to fly to reach most incidents and as a result were not effective in their primary task of the prevention and detection of crime and the prosecution of offenders against the peace!
So bad did it become that control rooms stopped asking for the useless response. Yet prior to NPAS many an officer in trouble could expect top cover in a very short time. By 2008 the UK had one of the best air support capability of any Police Service in the developed world.
The way NPAS was rolled out destroyed all that in quite a short time!

TF

Hear, hear!! :D

One of the other factors resulting in the reduction of service to Officers on the ground, was the removal of the ability of those Officers to contact the Air Crew directly, even if they could physically see one of the Fleet passing overhead ! Prior to NPAS commencing, the Midlands Regional forces ( West Midlands, West Mercia, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicester and Warwickshire ) had ALL of their Officers Airwave Radios ( no longer limited geographically like the previous UHF and VHF radio systems ) programmed with a single Air Unit "Hailing Channel", ( Known as "Talkgroup 88" ) which each of the four Midlands Air Unit crews ( West Midlands, Central Counties, North Midlands and East Midlands ) would monitor both at Base, and while airborne, and liaise using it. All requests were assessed by those Duty Air Crews and a response ( where appropriate ) was agreed and provided by the nearest available aircraft. This was extremely efficient, provided a fast response, and inspired confidence in those "end users". NPAS removed that facility and required all requests to be routed to their new Control Room, meaning that an Officer on the Ground had to : Alert their own Control Room and provide details of the requirement, that local Control room had to forward the request to the NPAS Control Room, the Task request had to be analysed and vetted by someone at the NPAS Control Room to determine if the request was viable. If it was the NPAS Control room staff had to assess which was the nearest / most suitable aircraft to deploy to the scene, then contact the relevant Air Unit, pass details of the request, location etc. to them and deploy them, as well as arranging / advising on the Communications to be used. THEN the Aircraft would deploy to the incident. This obviously created an additioanl delay in the end response, a delay that was NOT factored in to the original plans and "20 minute response circles" sold to the UK Police forces, which made a flawed assumption that at the moment of any request for Air Support, the Aircraft that ( might ) be deployed, was already travelling at 120 Knots ! This inevitable delay resulted in Officers on the ground losing confidence that if they requested Air Support they would receive it in a timley manner, and quickly enough to be effective. Often Officers did not / do not bother to call, due to a perception / the reality that it would usually take too long for the response to be of any benefit. NPAS of course can demonstrate how they have "improved effectiveness" by reducing the demand for Air Support. <Banging Head on the Wall Emoji ).