Value of Police Helicopter Support Confirmed
 

The Home Office has announced that what it calls the country's 'helicops' are to receive a 'boost' of £4 million.
The Home Office Minister admitted that many police-hours can be saved through the use of air support, and claimed that the Government is committed to ensuring that the police are equipped with the latest technology in the fight against crime.
He didn't explain why, in that case, the government had allocated only a £4m one-off 'boost' to the budget! :rolleyes:

Currently, 38 forces out of the 43 in England and Wales have air support.
The Home office confirmed that reports show that air support helps to detect and prevent crime, maintain civil order, and assist in searches for missing persons.

Air support provides useful employment for ex-mil pilots, and no doubt the cops enjoy the glamour of riding around in helicopters, and it may indeed 'help' in all the things mentioned.
But, are police helicopters really a cost effective use of public money?

My apologys in advance for spelling and or grammar errors.:-
in using Helio's do the police ever concern themselve's with the costs, or do they have a normal Mr Plod deciding when to " Scramble"

When it comes to searching for people Alty Meter you can’t beat one. To look for one old lady who has wandered off in a confused state in the middle of the night would take an entire county force to do properly. They would also be at it for days and of course while they are all doing that the burglars and associated low life are having a ball!. A police helicopter can sweep the area in an hour for a direct operating cost of around 6 or £700. Incidentally, when the Chief Constable has been allocated funding for the year, the money is his, and he is duty bound by law to provide ‘best value’ for the public.

VFR – Plod does decide when to ‘Scramble’ but they are experienced air observers who specialise in police aviation for up to 10 years before moving on and (oddly for the police) they tend to be very good at what they do.

Letsby are Plod pilots employed by the local Constab or contract pilots, just as a matter of course I have heard a tale of an Ex Mil pilot in White Rose County being booted out by the Chief Constable a few years ago(for risky air manouvers) could it be true.

Vfrpilotpb
A mixture of both.

N.Wales, Dyfed Powys, East Midlands, Devon & Cornwall, Lancashire are all directly employed and some other constabularies are considering doing so at present, I believe.

Rest are contract employed by mainly McAlpine Aviation Services, Police Aviation Services and Air Omega. 95% of all pilots are ex-military, which has been discussed in this forum at some length!!

(In case anybody missed this before.) Ex-mil pilots are attractive to police operators because the line training requirements at low-level are significantly reduced in the case of pilots with a military low-flying background. Pure economics.

Vfrpilotpb, regardless of whether the pilots are employed directly by the Police, or by one of the contractors, the Police can request their replacement should the need arise.

How about some of this government money for the air ambulances, who have to go cap in hand to the public?

Here in Wiltshire, the Air Ambulance / Police Helicopter are one and the same. It's an MD900 operated with a pilot, police observer and paramedic on board. The costs are shared between the police and the ambulance service. The ambulance service gets priority over police ops, but has to resort to fund raising to augment its contribution.

For the sake of all the population of the UK, would it not be a good thing if all Police helicopters were shared with the Ambulance force's, and all Helio's in the UK purchased to a set format/standard by the Home office and then placed into the joint services of Police and Ambulance, it would cut down on a lot of double manning and dead time costs. Possibly even make sense to Eyeinthesky! ( on second thoughts possibly not)

Are we talking about a fleet of home office helicopters and a pool of home office pilots who are available for an inland national police and emergency rescue service? All of whom are flying to a Military JSP318 set of rules and not the sanitised CAA version? Sounds eminently sensible to me, so clearly we will never see it happen.

Letsby :

I've got no knowledge of the JSP318 rules, and scant knowledge of the CAA Police flying rules - am I right in saying that they provide more relaxation in the area of Rule 5 amongst other things ? Can you provide some examples of what you mean ?

I can imagine that the only concern from a police service point of view would be that any rules under which an ostensibly police-operated helicopter flies are, and are seen to be, compliant with civil laws and regulations, with concessions made in those areas required to allow full but safe operation of the aircraft. The thought amongst certain members of the public of a civilian machine being operated to military standards would lead to all sorts of claims of non-accountability, something most chief constables I would suspect are keen to avoid.

If JSP318 fell into that basket, that's fine, otherwise I think that the sanitised CAA stuff has to do for now.

Letsby, yes, I do feel that if the Government of the day had the common to put that sort of hardware availability plus a force of pilots together, for the common good of the population of the UK, then it would serve the country better, than now, you only need to look around to see that nearly every County has different Helios, servicing alone would make it cheaper to buy all the same sorts, plus if someone in the Home office had the ability they could link military Helios buying with the Police/Ambulance Service requiremnets, and should then be able to buy with big discounts, but of course that would mean Polititians and Civil Servents comming into the year 2001, let face it how many Chief Constables know what they are talking about with Airsupport units. On your regulations I would say that it would be better to follow the CAA, after all you are still covered by the responsibility for others by your actions, why should you be exempt !

Vfrpilotpb
You say Do you mean that pilots flying for the emergency services should not be exempt from prosecution for breaching the regs during the course of their work? Rule 5, for example.
Or just that they should not be exempt from being sued in the civil courts for compensation if their flying causes injury/damage to people/property?
Or perhaps both - i.e. that pilots of emergency services helicopters should be subject to the same Orders/Rules, and the same civil liability as the rest of us, without any exemptions or immunity?

http://avanimation.avsupport.com/gif/Helianim.gif

[This message has been edited by Flying Lawyer (edited 04 April 2001).]

Good Evening ,
Flying Lawyer, why do I get the feeling that the water is already to deep, however here goes, the Police, Fire and Ambulance drivers are not immune from prosecution if they have an accident whilst in the course of a two tone rush to any site, neither, they assure me are they immune from speeding fines, so just because some ex mil pilot is flying the plod eggbeater, if he had an incident like sitting on some poor buggers roof, if it was pilot error why should he or she( sorry girls) be outside the law, whilst we have people who are immune from prosecution you would have or could have a situation like there is with Vaz/Mendalson/Meacher, and if that was to happen the emergency service's would then start to take stick from the people at the tabloids, who would stir up ill will against them.
But my idea of a nationwide heli force I think would be very benefitial to the civillians " Allegedly "
no doubt I will now be shot to ribbons!

To vfrpilotpb

Well which would you prefer if you were lying on the ground requireing urgent med attention, a pilot who says "no Im not going in there I might get prosecuted" or a pilot who is doing his best in a difficult situation. After all they have rules too ! It is just that their rules take account of their flying ability( which is far better than you or I will probably ever have.)

I noticed on another forum that you nearly got blown away by a police heli while hovering, dont let it cloud your view of Police/med ops they are good guys(gals?)doing a difficult job.

regards

hoverbover

hoverbover, fair point I accept that my view would have to be moderated to allow such pick ups, but I still maintain that there would have to be rules, albeit formed around that particular type of job. But if it was a heli force run by Jack Straws dept the rules would be made flexible to suit the situ. Plus the main funding would come from central government and leave the jolly old plods enough spare dosh to set up loads more Gatso's, on second thoughts it may be a bad thing to have that!

Police operations are conducted in UK under the auspices of a Police Air Operator's Certificate, in accordance with the Police Air Operations Manual, CAP 612. The PAOM effectively gives a number of 'blanket' exceptions to Rule 5, associated with various weather limitations. This may allow operations down to a 50ft MSD in a cloud base of 300ft and viz of 1km in rural locations by day; obviously the limits become more stringent in built-up areas and by night. The day limits bear a passing relationship to UK Military (JSP318) helo limits. Despite these alleviations, pilots should bear in mind the unecessary or reckless hazarding of aircraft or third parties, which are offences under arts 63 and 64 of the ANO. The limits are there for operational use and bona-fide training only.

In reply to AltyMeter,the Home Office itself has deemed that helicopters are a cost effective method of policing. There is a formula, known as the O'Donnel calculation, which, following tests carried out, has found that it takes a fixed wing aircraft 20 minutes to search one square mile of open land, it takes a helicopter 15 minutes to search the same area effectively and it takes one 450 manhours for that area to be searched by officers on foot. In the field of officer safety, the aircraft negates the requirement for officers to place themselves in danger by approaching an area or premises containing an armed or violent suspect to "see what's happening". The aircraft can do this from a safe height and distance and record the image for subsequent viewing or even transmit the pictures, live, to their colleagues in a control point well away from the area of danger. The aircraft are also used as airborne command and control units, directing officers to obvious points of egress or notifying them of points of conflict. In addition, their thermal image capabilities are used by fire brigade officers who can plan an entire firefighting strategy around the images they receive. As for "plod", as you seem wont to call us, deploying the aircraft, yes, in theory that is what happens. An experienced observer is ultimately responsible for deciding whether the aircraft will attend any particular task, however, in reality, it is taken as a crew decision, drawing on the experience of all three crew members, including the pilot, with whom the ultimate responsibility for safety lies. An inexperienced crew member will never fly alone and must complete the relevant training and a years probation before he may fly, other than with an experienced observer. Yes we enjoy our job, it has to be the best job in the force, but we take a pride in bringing a level of professionalism to the task envied by police air units around the world. Some units fly many hours each year. I have heard that the South East ASU, (Metropolitan & Surrey) fly about 3000 hours per year between three aircraft. Each observer in that unit apparently averages in excess of 450 hours per year. That seems fairly experienced to me, albeit in the specialist role. We "plod" don't get flight pay and, due to a strange inconsistency, we are still classed as "CAA Agreed Passengers", but, we feel we can do the job to a standard which helps ensure the safety of the aircraft and our colleagues who are unlucky enough to be stuck on the ground.