NPAS News 2021
 

Happy New Year everyone and many thanks to Bryn Elliott PANews for saying what many have thought for years - in some cases before NPAS was even created.

PAN January

I totally agree too. I even lost my job for predicting this.

TF

Agreed

I dont understand in what is supposed to be a democratic and transparent country how such an organisation can get away with such behavior with what appears to be operational and financial irresponsibility which has decimated a chain of proud units providing a fantastic service to the guys on the ground.

NPAS was sold to me years ago as an organisation that could pool training, staff, equipment and have more purchasing power. The goal being to make air support more efficient, save costs and provide a better service to the Police forces around the country. It appears to have failed on the majority of these goals.

Put an end to this organisation and give control back to the actual users, bring the birds home.

The two questions that need a truthful answer:

Has NPAS provided a more effective service than the previous system?

Has it done so for less financial outlay?

Sadly both are rhetorical. It’s a scandal which ought to be made more public.

The concept of a National Police Air Wing was sound. It could have standardised training, fuel purchases maintenance contracts and everything else. But it needed to be organised and delivered on a Regional basis. Instead its only mantra was slash and burn, decimate the fleet!

Instead of being a rapid response tool to operational Policing, it was deliberately hamstrung. Aircraft had so far to fly to get to any incident they were always going to be too late and short of fuel.

We all knew that but would they listen? **********!!!

TF

Have Private Eye covered the issue in detail yet?

AS JAFO said, many of us in Police Aviation at the time had many reservations as to whether the NPAS concept would work. Time has been proving us right for some time now.

I used to fly for Merseyside at Woodvale. I was told a few months ago that NPAS had made enquires with the RAF about moving back. You couldn't make it up.

I tried to interest the Daily Mail in the story 3 years ago but they replied that they were:

Unfortunately there is no chance of the unit that I flew for moving back. The entire accommodation, newly built in 1998, has been completely bulldozed.

Personally I blame Hogan Howe and Theresa May,
From the moment they got involved it was ONLY about trying to save shed loads of money, and the Concept of operational Police Air Support went right out the window .
From being World leaders in 2008 we were at the bottom of the pile by 2014. And have got steadily worse ever since.

TF

The Base at RAF Henlow is I believe vacant....

Is that the former RAF Henlow that's about to be a large housing estate??

I think so... Such a shame too, Henlow and Benson Units were amazing units and reflected what a good collaborated helicopter service should be like! Seems like NPAS never learnt anything...

Just read on Twitter that g-dcpb based at Exeter is going to London, I thought the reason they had a bigger a/c was that they cover a vast area including scilly isles etc also to transport specialist teams & casevacs !!!!!

Unless you have heard that it is permanent it may not be an issue. This has happened several times before.

There are insufficient airframes for Oxford to keep three on-line at the two locations ..... they are far more difficult to maintain than the EC135 and for a long time the Lippitts Hill fleet were supported by a 135 for the same reason. That was regularised by the move of the Essex aircraft to Lippitts Hill and then all the fleet to North Weald.

It all underlines just how well the stand-alone maintenance organisation at Lippitts Hill operated. They knew their aircraft and repaired them on demand. Yes they were sometimes all offline [and sometimes deliberately offline] but equally they were able to put 3 145s on line for special events. That, I would venture, simply does not happen now.

A repeated opinion over the past 9 years - "it was better when forces had their own aircraft". One question that springs from this though is which forces would actually be able to afford having their own aircraft again? Apart from the Met, GMP and West Mids, who out of those 32 / 33 Forces who had ASUs would fund it now. NPAS gets a lot of negative press but at least there is still a service to the vast majority of forces. I think without NPAS warts and all, the reality is the majority of ASUs would have been closed by chief constables and aircraft sold by now.

I do 'worry' when people invent a new identity for themselves to pose a question. But, that aside....

You are quite right. We were always aware that, particularly under Home Secretary Teresa May, ordinary UK police aviation was on he cusp of expiring [good through it was] simply due to the lack of money. And that is why it was generally welcomed as the saviour organisation.

This was a little ahead of the small and capable drone... Love them or hate them the drone has produced another option for air support for smaller police organisations. Even if they are also producing their own problems. Forces are creating organisations in house that take them from being just another tool in the box to being a department of their own. Create a department and it has to have a sergeant, and inspector and maybe a superintendent [mostly just pen pushers] to oversee it and it ends up having a staff that are taken off the streets sitting there waiting for a call [just like air support]. So not perfect.

And that's what happened with NPAS its head grew bigger than the body. It ended up sucking the life out of the mission.

A lot will end up with nothing but they will have their drones and hopefully when the 'big wheel' comes off there will be resources elsewhere that can provide a manned air support mission for the significant emergencies. In the NPAS game plan that is what the fixed wing were supposed to be .... but something has gone wrong there that we do not yet know about that has reduced the projected fleet of 6 to 4 four delivered and now to 2 operated and soon to one...

All we need now is for Ted Rogers to introduce Dusty Bin to keep all the parts of the various forward planning scripts in... (sorry if you are too young to remember Ted)...

Just heard that the crews at Carr Gate are being reduced by 50% in order to help pay for the fixed wing. :mad:

Apparently, the only Forces willing to pay for a FW are Humberside and S. Yorks.

Yet again more idiocy from NPAS HQ, Carr Gate are more beneficial than Doncaster. Quicker launch times, No Taxiing around an airport, Hovering and Deplane abilities, Better availability and more reliable... the list is endless.

I did witness that Doncaster are becoming a 24hr asset at some point this year, I am going to guess probably May-June time as there is 3 Fixed Wing Pilot Positions there which all have a start date of May. But reducing one base and then making another 24hr seems stupid to me. The most logical thing to do is ditch the damn planes and look into a Rotary Fleet replacement programme! :*