Small Sheriff's Departments Using Helicopters

On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 20:23:16 GMT, Other side of the COIN
wrote:

Davdirect wrote:

Then why require the law enforcement training? Wouldn't it be wiser to have an
experienced pilot than to have an experienced cop who has minimal hours?

If you were a police department what would you rather have.......

An experienced police officer who knew the lay of the land, had worked
the streets, understood exactly what was going on, and had been
trained to fly a helicopter as a police officer pilot.

OR...... An experienced helicopter pilot who had never made an arrest,
worked the streets, or knew what the boys and girls actually went
through down there on the ground...... but was now a sworn in police
officer with a gun at his hip.

What experience is more important to the police department.

If in their wisdom they were to hire YOU off the street and spend tens
of thousands of dollars and many hundreds of hours training YOU to be a
police officer and at the end actually give you a gun with all the
responsibility that it implies. then why wouldn't they take an
experienced police officer and spend tens of thousands of dollars and
hundreds of hours to train them to fly a helicopter with all the
responsibility that it implies.

I have found I can train a person to be a good safe pilot in much less
time I than I can teach them to be a police officer. If a person goes
to the trouble to go through the police training, work the streets &
go through the BS you have to go through to get in an air unit, it is
far less likely thy will leave a short time later.

In law enforcement I want both members of my flight crew to be cops.
That "low time pilot" flying PIC usually has a high time pilot riding
with him as the other crewmember for some time. He doesn't stay a low
time pilot for long. If you can land a gig as a police pilot, it's a
great job, thus the petty professional jealousy on the issue of
civilian vs. cops for pilots.

My department started its air unit in the 20's The helicopters showed
up in 1967. Since then we have only suffered 1 crash. The cause was
pilot error. The pilot had 20,000+ hours of military & civillian time.
The "low time" guys have never put a scratch on the ships.