Sadly very few Agencies can afford, let alone have, helicopters available to them and even those that do, very rarely have them up in the air for more then 6-8 hours a day..........I believe Seattle PD has at least one but I can't think of too many other Agencies up here that have them.......Maybe one or two of the larger Counties but I have no personal knowledge of them.

Just for reference, the helo's themselves cost a ton (unless an Agency was lucky enough to get in on those Military surplus sales) and the maintenance of the birds, the cost to train, employ and use pilots (which are almost always cops from that Dept.) is astronomical. Millions of dollars a year.........which the taxpayers (you & me) get to pay for.....which is also something tons of people bitch and moan about as well as noise from the helos, lights everywhere, etc.

 

I totally undrestand that. If you can afford one that is awesome! It is such a valuable tool. Hopefully now that they are going to diveret some money from homeland security to local law enforcement agencies they can get some updated equipement.

 

That would be nice......

In Cali, where I was at, we lucked out, getting into a partnership with the local Sheriff's Dept. They got 3 or 4 (can't recall) Military surplus Helos, 2 they used for patrol and the other/s for spare parts......they provided the pilot and we provided a spotter (all 4 were sworn Officers & Deputies) and they bought each of the birds from the Military for $1.00 each!!!!! Federal law prohibits them being given away, so they have to charge something.....just no requirements as to how much.

But the cost of keeping those birds flying, paying for training, updating the training, fuel consumption ( ), etc was out of this world. In the early 90's they were grounded and left sitting for several years due to a lack of funding for them. Fortunately, during my last 5 years we had them up and flying, but they only flew from approx 5pm - 1am.....sometimes later (usually on weekends) but there are FAA rules that limit the number of consistant (ongoing) flight hours for this kind of thing (for both the helos and the pilots) so they were basically up in the air for about 6 hours a night if we were lucky. Many a night I could have really used them but they were either down, busy elsewhere or just off. They really are nice luxuries to have but definitely not the norm for your average Department.

 

i know which chase your talking about and the guy had just blown through one school zone and was about to go through another so the cop figured better to take out some cars then to let the dude hit some little kid.

 

No this a different one. I the one you are talking about the one with white Ford ranger, that one was on there too. I know he had no choice in that. They even interviewed the Sheriff.
This was a blue square style Ranger (maybe it was an S-10 but looked like an old 80s rangers)and 2 door explorer in front of a seven eleven just before he did it and smashed the tree. They didn't interview that officer. It looked pretty awesome the truck he hit was smashed good. I am suprised the guy in it was able to get out and run...
It was in California, go figure. All the good highspeed highway chases come out of there.
This show had the Mustang that get hits like 3 or 4 times, spins 3 or 4 times and keeps going and that Suburban that leaves the highway must be going 110 he jump the road below (he left the raod at an overpass) it was crazy.

 

OOHH! I found the Suburban chase...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9RqLp2cCOA
a little graphic at the end...

 

Dude, after living in L.A. for almost 10 years, there are basically police chases on the news/tv 5+ nights/days a week.....and those are just the ones that last more then 10-15 minutes........so they have enough time to fly the news copters to the scene.
So I am confused.......in that video the crash occurs at 45-50 seconds into the video, but the FIRST cop on scene doesn't arrive until a full one minute later..........so obviously he was a LOOOOOONG *** way behind that suburban. Long enough that a minimum of 4 civilian vehicles stopped to assist/check on the driver of the 'burban before a cop arrives.........and if you look at the footage from the helicopter camera, there wasn't a cop car in sight for a good mile or more back.......is this what Howard was talking about when he mentioned "dumb cops trying to be action heros"? Or something like that? Or is that yet another chase in a State 1500 miles from here? Cuz unless I misread that video, that was in St Louis County, MISSOURI!!!!! Not some cops up here in WA. :shrug:

 

Yeah it was in Missouri. They give the details on the show. The cops backed off because of the danger, but he was trying to out run the helicopter, or so they say,I think that the Guy was just stupid, I was just impressed with amount of air the Burban got...
I know some guys that were stationed in SoCal, talking about watching chases and actually getting passed by some, something you don't see here all that often.

 

The helicopter made me crash?

Yeah, more then once I saw a local chase or 3......that doesn't count the ones I was doing the chasing in of course.