Some food for thought
The Police:

Well, Mr. Citizen, it seems you've figured me out. I seem to fit neatly into the category where you've placed me. I'm stereotyped, standardized, characterized, classified, grouped, and always typical. Unfortunately, the reverse is true, I can never figure you out. From birth you teach your children that I'm the bogeyman, then you're shocked when they identify with my traditional enemy.....the criminal! You accuse me of coddling criminals......until I catch your kids doing wrong. You may take an hour for lunch and several coffee breaks each day, but point me out as a loafer for having one cup. You pride yourself on your manners, but think nothing of disrupting my meals with your troubles. You raise hell with the guy who cuts you off in traffic, but let me catch you doing the same thing and I'm picking on you.

You know all the traffic laws...but you've never received a single ticket you deserve. You shout "foul" if you observe me driving fast to a call, but raise the roof if I take more than ten seconds to respond to your complaint. You call it part of my job if someone strikes me, but call it police brutality if I strike back.

You wouldn't think of telling your dentist how to pull a tooth or your doctor how to take out an appendix, yet you are always willing to give me pointers on the law. You talk to me in a manner that would get you a bloody nose from anyone else, but expect me to take it without batting an eye. You yell something's got to be done to fight crime, but you can't be bothered to get involved.

You have no use for me at all, but of course it's OK if I change a flat for your wife, deliver your child in the back of the patrol car, or perhaps save your son's life with mouth to mouth breathing, or work many hours overtime looking for your lost daughter. So, Mr. Citizen, you can stand there on your soapbox and rant and rave about the way I do my work, calling me every name in the book, but never stop to think that your property, family, or maybe even your life depends on me or one of my colleagues.

Yes, Mr. Citizen, it's me...the lousy cop!


The author of this article was Trooper Mitchell Brown of the Virginia State Police. It was written some 3 months before he was killed in the line of duty.

I've never done any police flying and didn't know until TC mentioned it that Police helicopters are ever used for catching speeding motorists.
Is that widespread?
Or only in TC's force?
I resent a single penny being used for this purpose.

Fortyodd, anyone who has gainful employment, does so for the want two things, Credit and wages ( and not to do housework), unfortuately the Police force as a whole, have a PR problem, men and women join because they want to be Policemen/women, we need a Police force, What we dont need is a set of people who see themselve's above the others who are not in their gang, and we dont need Police men and women with something to prove, or with a chip on both shoulders, get that right and we will all love you, carry on as seems to be the norm now, and you will all still be taking compensation for stress, and having second jobs whilst on the sick, or if you dont like your public image, DO somthing about it!

This is not aimed at any one person, just those who fit the profile!

[This message has been edited by Vfrpilotpb (edited 24 April 2001).]

Just getting back to the original thread.
My understanding is that in Germany the HEMS are funded by the insurance companies in one big pool.
They have obviously decided that there is a commercial argument for a fully funded HEMS service yet we have to do with a service funded by charity. :mad:
I find it hard to understand how the govt came to their conclusion when a group of commercial enterprises came to exactly the opposite conclusion. http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/confused.gif
Good luck to you all and I wish I had the ability!


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Use it don't abuse it.
What day is it anyway?

Hoverman: Why?

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Thermal runaway.

Letsby: dear, oh, dear, we have got our knickers in a twist haven't we?
I'm still waiting to hear from you about asking your colleagues about their primary role? I suspect they've told you but you are having difficulty accepting it?
I notice you tell them exactly what they can do with it when they comment on looking at motorists...I also suspect morale up there in the NE ASU must be sensitive to say the least between front and back seat??
Let's hear it from you one more time...prove me wrong...

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Thermal runaway.

Just slightly off the thread a little. perhaps TC would be kind enough to answer this little question, On a past thread I think TC mentioned that he had spent time helping collegeues to sort out their Terms and Conditions of Contract, Now I feel that we are pretty well aware that TC's colours are nailed to the mast of the PAS, but are these people self employed flyers, needing the expertise of a hard nosed contract , or are they employed as "on the cards" as other policemen and women. If these flyers do have a seperate arrangement, I would like to know WHY, and I am sure some other would also. But I could have misread your previous thread TC! no doubt you will correct this inquiry!

vfrpilotpb - have you been caught speeding by any chance?

OoB, not for a long time, what I dont like is over-equiped, over-paid, chip on the shoulder whingers, who seem, and like to act as if God chose them! if you read most of this thread, there seems to be a few about!

I think this thread is beginning to get a little warm. Not that I'm averse to such things but I'd rather we maintained a modicum of civility so that we can meet up on other threads and still be interested in one anothers' comments.
To that end I intend to withdraw from this thread in readiness for another, with this final comment on the subject:
I reiterate, .1% (1/10th of 1 percent for those who missed the decimal point in my other thread) of our tasking relates to catching speedsters. Those that we are targeting are a minority of wreckless bikers who seem to think that the rural highway was designed for them to justify the ridiculous top end their machines are capable of. Each year, in this force, 16 human beings die as a DIRECT result of speeding motorcyclists. 90% are the bikers themselves, but occasionally, they take someone else with them too. And there's the rub! Something has to be done to crack down on this sort of activity, and if anyone out there can advise the police as to how else it can be achieved, i'm sure they'd be only too pleased to oblige. Cameras don't work because the numberplates are too small(an offence in itself). Cars can't catch them!
We sit in the hover, 1/2 a mile from the scene so as not to distract anyone and radio ahead near a safe spot where they can be stopped. When you have picked up as many remains of bikers and victims as I have over these last 7 years you might appreciate where I'm coming from.
Example: Hyabushi(spelling?) doing speed trials with lookouts at each end of a straight, tracked speed: 199 m.p.h. Shall we turn a blind eye?
Sometimes I despair at some peoples attitudes towards law and order.

Leaving this particular arena...see you elsewhere guys!


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Thermal runaway.

TC, whereas it seems that vfrpilotyob (sorry I am not too good at spelling either)is so perfectly balanced that he has chips everywhere, I've heard that you had personal problems with motor bikes. True or False?

"keeping an ear to the ground"

Oh Dear Earpiece where did you get that from!!!!

Letsby, did I hear it from you?

"keeping an ear to the ground"

Earpiece, sounds like the questions posed to Tc have hit some area's of truth, M'lud, as for your initial comments, well, you must be a very similar sort and type, remember the old school ground saying, " Sticks and Stones" or " Heat of the Kitchen".

By the way, I would much prefer "Thug" to "yob"

[This message has been edited by Vfrpilotpb (edited 26 April 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Vfrpilotpb (edited 26 April 2001).]

The Met Police heli's would have proved their worth monitoring the thugs out in London today.

More for less, could have also been achieved using CCTV camera's on buildings and pole's.I have no sympathy for any mob rule, but I really can't see why the Helios were deployed, there were, we are told 9000 policemen and women available, who seemed to have handled the problem perfectly!

I'm not a police pilot, and I agree it seems there was less for the heli to do this year.
BUT, saying you can't see why the heli's were deployed is like saying (with the benefit of hindsight) that such large numbers of police officers weren't needed.
Thankfully, fewer yobs than expected turned out so, yes, it was easier for police on the ground to monitor than last year. Also, this year, the police seem to have been better organised than the thugs.

But, the advantage of airborne support is that the police can monitor build-up and movement of yobs over a large area, and direct officers on the ground to where they are needed.
It's difficult to say whether half the cops were superfluous to requirements, or whether the large numbers and helicopter activity acted as a deterrent to the yobs.
I hope they take the same steps next year, rather than be complacent.

Alternative plan:
Give our Police a day off, and bring in French/Belgian police on an 'exchange' for the day - all part of our great European community etc.
Then sit back and watch them sort out the yobs! Videos of them in action could then be sold for charity! :) :)

vfrpilotpb, of course, had the Metropolitan Police been in possesion of an 800ft tall pole with a camera on top, with thermal imaging capability, that could move quickly around the city to the various trouble spots, then I'm sure they would have used one. Have you not considered that the reason that the police coped so well might just be due to the real time information being downlinked to their commanders in the control room from the aircraft??

Fortyodd, I still think ground based camera's would have been simpler, and cheaper in this case.



[This message has been edited by Heliport (edited 04 May 2001).]

I've deleted two posts, and edited one, because they added nothing to the debate and were unnecessarily personal. Let's keep to the merits of the arguments guys, not the merits of the people who post them - PLEASE.

Vfrpilotpb
You say "I still think ground based camera's would have been simpler, and cheaper in this case".
Fine.
But, on what basis do you 'still think' that?
Do you have any experience at all upon which to base that opinion?
Or is it just a hunch/prejudice against the Police?
Or against air support for the Police?

You say your views relate to "this case."
As it turned out, the Police were more than ready to cope with the troublemakers on the streets. Because fewer demonstrators than expected turned up, they were unable to cause the usual degree of damage.
But imagine the public outcry which would have followed if the Police had not been fully prepared for a worst case scenario - based on previous experience?
Have you any idea of the havoc which these yobs have created in London in previous years? Or the number of small shops which were looted? Or the number of cars which were trashed?
I was in London when a previous demo took place. I'm not generally of a nervous disposition - but I found it alarming, and was pleased to get away from these so-called 'peaceful' demonstrators.
It really is a serious problem, which you may not appreciate if you are not based in the South East.
Entire offices closed for the day rather than risk their employees being caught up in violence.
Many City offices which weren't able to close down advised their staff to come to work in jeans/casual clothes instead of suits so that they wouldn't be identified as City workers.

Finally, if you have no experience of the sort of work the police and police air support do on such occasions, why are you so reluctant to learn from those who do? A number of contributors are clearly professional pilots employed to fly police helicopters.
Surely one of the benefits of a forum like this is that we can learn the 'inside story' from people who have experience in particular fields?
And if the facts are different from our preconceived notions, isn't that a good way to learn?
Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but you're up against informed opinion.
Worth a thought?