Too much weather

Don't take this the wrong way but if police forces want to save money I say scrap all helicopters. They are useless. Don't get me wrong there is one time in about 5,000 incidents the helicopter is called to when it plays an invaluable role but can the forces seriously justify the cost implications against all those times it can't even take off.

The helicopter itself costs a fortune to buy and maintain including fuel bills. A cheap helicopter costs £260,000 at its lowest, then there is costs in modification, costs in repairs. Then there is the task of actually flying it. This falls to ex military, Yes two ex military helicopter pilots are employed to fly and co pilot the helicopter, Per SHIFT. So you are looking at about 6 ex military pilots due to flying times. This itself is a lot of money and then finally you have the cost of an observer from Essex Police with all his technology and kit! I personally would estimate it must cost my force, without seeing any figures I hasten to add, about £150,000 a month to run the helicopter!

That is all fine but the one bug beat I have is the fact that when as officers on the ground we ask for eyes in the sky we regularly get told "they are offline" which means one of the two helicopters is in for repairs and they won't lift off incase it breaks the only helicopter they have. Otherwise we get told that they won't lift as there is "too much weather" which happens every time other than in the summer sun. Frost, can't lift, fog, can't lift, snow, can't lift, rain, can't lift, low cloud cover, can't lift, little windy, can't lift. The fact that we are in Britain makes having a helicopter that cannot take off because of the aforementioned weather conditions utterly useless! The worst of it all is the fact that if the weather is looking like it may be anything less than blissful sunshine then we as a force still pay the ex military pilots to sit in the hanger! Figure that one out! Get the helicopters gone and save to police a lot of money!