Helicopters?

[Group9]

Thanks for the quick reply and the info. Sounds like smaller dept.s are SOL when it comes to helicopter surveilance.

Does your dept. use helicopter surveilance? If so how much of an asset is it in terms of pursuits?

We put one up when we think we will need it, and if it happens to be up when a chase starts, it is great to have. But, unless it is already up, we could never get it up after one had started in time to do any good.

And, helicopters are not cheap to buy, run or to maintain. I'll bet not many taxpayers in small communities would be willing to foot the bill just to have for chases.

And, they don't always stop when there is only a helicopter following them either. I was on a chase on I-95 once where the subject outran everything but the helicopter, and still never slowed down until he hit a roadblock at the Pennsylvania state line.

[P01IC3M4N]

i was in a pursuit where the helicopter ran out of gas and had to go back to refuel. they wouldn't have done much good as an alternative in that one. we had already tackled the guy after he wrecked out when they finally returned.

another time, the guy bailed out in really tall weeds. the helicopter couldn't see crap through the weeds and they had flir, thermal, and a night sun.

i like having them overhead. they keep your suspect lit up like daylight, but they have their limitations. we've caught several people on foot using a helicopter and thermal.

[Bearcat06]

Also, I have seen in the past that military offers helicopters and other government equipment at dirt-cheap costs to law enforcement agencies so they can afford equipment that may help.

The Clay County Missouri Sheriff's Department tried that a while back with (2) used OH-1s and lost their rear ends with pilot, ground crew, fuel, and maintance costs. If I remember right, they sold the copters to another LE Agency.
The only agency around here that has one is Kansas City, MO and it's busy with their stuff. Every now and then you will hear it up North helping someone out with an escape or an armed suspect on the loose.....

[ChesCopPodz]

We've got 2 planes, no helos. Both equipped with night sun and FLIR

[Wombat311]

We've got 3 Dauphin helicopters. One is a dedicated Police machine fitted with FLIR and Nitesun. One is a dedicated Air Ambulance, fitted with only Nitesun (but can be changed over to police role with FLIR in 30 minutes) and another that is on standby to be either.

We also have a Squirrel helicopter which is used only in rural areas. Single engine helicopters are not permitted to fly over the city.

The problem is that due to funding they rarely ever do patrols anymore and only come up when requested. It takes abou 10 minutes to get them overhead and by then most pursuits are one way or another, over.


And, I just saw in an e-mail today we are going to be using spikes here soon! I never thought I'd see it happen. Of course, it will only be Fetom's type of people that get to play with them no doubt. But it's better than nothing which is what we have now.

[Group9]

We've got 2 planes, no helos. Both equipped with night sun and FLIR

We have two heliciptersin my area. The planes are not as sexy as helicopters, but they are a lot more useful in just about every way when being used to support surveillance or chases. About the only time we use the helicopter is when both planes are already spoken for.

[lebinky]

I'd like to thank everyone for all the information that you gave me. I think its really going to help my paper to be able to quote actual LEO's rather than just citing some statistics.

Thanks again and keep up the great work!

[Menace]

We've got two birds we use CONSTANTLY, we are actually getting another one so we can retire one of them. Our helicopters are INVALUABLE in calls involving denagerous felons, shots heard, chases, missing persons, etc. We use air all the time.