DPD Air-1 grounded in 2010?

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jfab

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It doesnt sound like its "grounded" per-se...it sounds like it can be used in certain situations if the higher command deems necessary.

As far as the dog, I think Chief Whitman made the right decision in calling out the chopper to find this dog. 9news just airing another story to make DPD look bad...
 

abqscan

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taxpayers will save $473,800 by "grounding the helicopter unit."

I'm so glad were saving money by not using one of the most effect tools the police have... :roll:
 

Toneslider12

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Too bad there can't be a collaberation between multiple metro area law enforcement agencies. If grounding Air 1 will save Denver $473,800 why not split the cost between the 7 Metro Counites? Each county would be responsible $67,000 and change. That's about the cost of two fully equipped command staff SUV's that respond to less incidents than the helicopter would.

All 7 counties could share and request the chopper, requests would be prioritized based on severity. Each county cutting two, take home chief cars would be well worth it in my opinion.
 

jimmnn

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Great idea but the problem becomes politics once again, since when have all the 7 metro counties agreed to anything in the past?

Jim<
 

firescannerbob

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Too bad there can't be a collaberation between multiple metro area law enforcement agencies. If grounding Air 1 will save Denver $473,800 why not split the cost between the 7 Metro Counites? Each county would be responsible $67,000 and change. That's about the cost of two fully equipped command staff SUV's that respond to less incidents than the helicopter would.

All 7 counties could share and request the chopper, requests would be prioritized based on severity. Each county cutting two, take home chief cars would be well worth it in my opinion.

One word: "Turf"

And yeah, it makes perfect sense...so it will never happen.
 

abqscan

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I wish they would treat it as a fractional ownership. Any agency who wants the use of the bird has to split the costs of maintenance. Then the agency that requests its use, pays for that specific flight time. At that point, it's first come, first serve along with a new call sign, Metro-1.
 

jfab

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This would probably never work, but what if a private agency stepped in? So the chopper doesn't belong to one agency, but rather a private company that signs contracts with different agencies. That way PDs and FDs (for SAR type incidents) can utilize the chopper. And the Chopper is dispatched out on either Fern or Cleer. Similar to FFL or AirLife I guess...

And I really like Erik's "Metro 1" idea!

Just thinking out loud...
 

karldotcom

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About 5 years ago, the City of Burbank, CA had 2 birds, and the adjacent City of Glendale had 1. They set up shifts so that each city would have a bird over their city or in quarters during busy periods, and then one would cover both cities say 1am to 9am.... Then Burbank sold the old helicopter, and Burbank and Glendale merged into one air unit, with only one helicopter in the air during busy periods and 1 on call during early hours. I think sometimes during rain they even had no helos available. Then Pasadena joined, and they parked a bunch of older helicopters, but they now have a newer (but louder) bird, and also do contract work for some of the San Gabriel cities.

I am not sure how many helos are in the air now, but there are 7 cities sharing them....and millions of dollars saved. I would think it would be one of the easiest ways to save big money, before cutting officers (who transfer all the time anyway)
 
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dracer777

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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

I like jfabs idea of a privately owned heli. Too many politics involved for gov owned. I mean, you could mount a FLIR on a med heli, and a digital and VHF radio, programmed with MAC and WINTAGs and use the med helis. They are privately owned, correct?
 

letarotor

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Regional Airborne LE Programs

There are very few successful airborne law enforcement integrated programs in the United States. The only really successful program that has lasted the test of time is Airborne Law Enforcement Services (ABLE) in California. ABLE is a shared helicopter program between Costa Mesa and Newport Beach operating three Eurocopter EC-120s. These agencies in the beginning set everything up right with all kinds of written agreements and built in replacement costs for each helicopter. These types of agreements are very hard for many agencies to reach because of politics and local government rules. The idea has been tried on numerous occasions in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and each time any attempted program has crashed and burned before the ideas even made it to contracts. There is also the issue of how the helicopters can be operated under FAA and public use rules. If a private company attempts to set up a program and contract out their services and operate for compensation or hire and carry passengers (i.e.: police officer observers) then they have to operate under Part 135 air taxi rules. The same rules helicopter EMS companies have to operate under while carrying a patient. Also, public use rules prevents police agencies from charging services for use of their aircraft to other agencies, especially if they are operating any surplus military aircraft which don't carry airworthiness certificates.

When Dallas PD first started operating helicopters 41 years ago, letters were sent out to surrounding agencies soliciting their interest in contributing funds to make the unit regional. There was no response to any of these letters. A similar request was made about 10 years ago, again, no responses. Every body thinks it’s a great idea until they have to start coughing up the cash! The simple fact is small agencies, and even some very large agencies all want helicopter support, but simply can't afford it. There have been numerous individuals and helicopter companies over the years attempt to start regional airborne LE support units in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and like I said none have even gotten close to getting off the ground. You would think an area with a combined population of over 6.5-million people (Fort Worth with 700K, Dallas with 1.2 million, and Arlington with 359K) and over 30 to 40 smaller suburbs could all get together and agree to set up one hell of a airborne LE program that could support everyone. You would think the same idea would work great in the greater metro Denver area also. But I hate to say it will never happen. There are too many obstacles in the way. Individual governmental fiefdoms may be the main obstacle, but there are simply too many municipal, state and federal rules standing in the way. Numerous programs have been tried in other areas in the country, but usually fail because of the squabbling that starts over who gets preference for the helicopter when it’s airborne. If it ends up spending too much time in one city when another city is in need of the helicopter the squabbling gets ugly!

It's a shame that Denver has had to park its helicopter except for special events. They really had to fight hard back in the early 90s to purchase a new helicopter to replace the Bell 47s they had back in the 70s and 80s. But it beats the alternative, which is loosing the helicopter completely, which is what happened to Tulsa PD recently.


Mark
 

jimmnn

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DPD Air-1 has been up the last few nights on regular patrol even went mutual-aid to Aurora on Friday to assist with the search for a missing child.

Guess they found some monies in a buried line item somewhere maybe from Ritter's bike replacement fund.

But nice to hear them back on the air.

Jim<
 

rckydenver

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Has anyone heard if Air-1 been running? Usually during the summer months there busy with there bright spotlight. I have'nt heard them in awhile or they could be grounded.
 
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jimmnn

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Has anyone heard if Air-1 been running? Usually during the summer months there busy with there bright spotlight. I have'nt heard them in awhile or they could be grounded.

Yes I've heard them recently while not that often (due to costs I'm sure) they seem to be up on Friday and Saturday nights especially.

Jim<
 

rckydenver

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Yes I've heard them recently while not that often (due to costs I'm sure) they seem to be up on Friday and Saturday nights especially.

Jim<
I'll have to listen more, yeah i can see Friday and Saterday being the busy days. Usually with these HOT temps days crimes activity goes up.:eek: 102 on Saterday, and today maybe a 100.
 
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