i want to fly airborne

[americaniron]

hello guys and gals

i was wanting to know if thier is any airborn law enforcement unit that will higher without working the street as a cop first also what does it pay and how much flight time do you need and what are the general requirements for the position i really appreciate any and all responses to this question everyone take care

[AndrewT]

For most departments (at lease those in New York) you have to have 2-3 years as a police officer before they let you go to any of the special programs (which includes airborne). However, you might find something in the job positing secion of this forum and others like it. Though I think most places would want you to be on the street first.....its the idea of being a police officer first, pilot second.

[Azpilot]

If you have 1500+ hours Baltimore PD is looking for pilots. AZ DPS is also looking for pilots but they want 2000+ with 206 or 407 time and you have to go to POST school prior to flying for them.

[americaniron]

thanks for the replys they are much appreciated i am actually starting flight school at the end of summer i am just checking what is out thier flying airborne is something i would love to do but i know i have to start at the bottom

 

do you know what it pays and how many hours you get on the average also what is the post school for and i have to agree that you should be a cop first and pilot second makes you more aware of what you are actually doing it for

[Azpilot]

Peace

Officer

Standardized

Training

 

So in essence you are a cop prior to flying if you go to DPS. Not sure what Baltimore requires.

 

As far as pay is concerned depends on where you go. Salaries are a little lower than industry standard or what you would make say in the gulf fighting fires. But the bennies are generally better and you go home after each shift. Amount of hours per depends on the department.

[EAGLE1]

It really all depends on where you go to get hired.  Most departments in the Southern California area use police officers or deputies and train them as pilots.  Expect 3-5 years on the street minimum. There are some exceptions to all of the above.  As for pay, I think it is higher than the industry standard, at least it is for me.  I average 600 hours PIC and 500 hours as a flight officer each year.  Bonus is they paid for ALL the training!

[americaniron]

this is going to sound stupid of me but PIC is pilot in command correct so what is the difference between PIC and flight officer also what is the current industry standard from my research it seems to be between 45000 and 55000

and is 1100 hours of flight time a year good medium or could it be alot better

[EAGLE1]

Yes PIC is Pilot in Command.  Flight Officer is fancy for Observer or the guy not flying the helicopter, but directing officers on the ground operating the FLIR, searchlight etc.  In my unit we are all pilots, but we trade off the duties so half the time you are manipulating the flight controls and half the time you are working the equipment and directing the show.  5 hours of flight time a day 4 days a week at 52 weeks will give you just under 1100 hours a year.  I can't speak for everyone, but 5 hours a day week in and week out is enough for me.  I think you will find that 1100 hours a year is a substantial amount of flight time.

[AndrewT]

Yes PIC is Pilot in Command.  Flight Officer is fancy for Observer or the guy not flying the helicopter, but directing officers on the ground operating the FLIR, searchlight etc.  In my unit we are all pilots, but we trade off the duties so half the time you are manipulating the flight controls and half the time you are working the equipment and directing the show.  5 hours of flight time a day 4 days a week at 52 weeks will give you just under 1100 hours a year.  I can't speak for everyone, but 5 hours a day week in and week out is enough for me.  I think you will find that 1100 hours a year is a substantial amount of flight time.

I suppose that the knowledge of police tactics and what not is one of the major factors for having pilots do their time on the ground before they get their wings.

[americaniron]

I thought that you would learn most of what you needed in post school which azpilot mentioned. I want be in airborne so badly i can taste it but not at the expense of haveing to work the ground for five years then maybe maybe not getting to fly that is alot of hours i can build in that time. I appreciate all the info on the subject. Eagle if you dont mind me asking what do you make a year? Just curious as long as i can live i dont really care what i make i just want to fly but lol money is nice.

[EAGLE1]

Total compensation package which includes medical, dental insurance etc., vacation and sick time and all the others is just over $130,000 per year.  The Police Academy does not come close to preparing you for the streets.  It gives you the very basics and then you spend another 4-6 months with a training officer.  When you are done with that you know just enough to be dangerous but not effective.  Thinking you can leave the academy and be ready to handle the streets is kind of like thinking you can read the flight manual and then go fly the helicopter.  There is no substitute for experience.  You have to be willing to put the time in on the street to be truly effective.  Just my opinion.

[americaniron]

thanks for the input eagle1 but i guess what i meant was does post school teach you what you need to know about police proceedure to fly the helicopter efficiantly does the pilot need to know that kind of stuff if anyone can describe a typical day in airborn then let me know i think that would be a great add on the this conversation and thanks eagle for the pay break down that is for flying right

[HeliMark]

Most do not. You usually get the 1-2 hour lecture from one of the pilots about how they help you on the ground and that your training officer will help you learn more during your training.

 

The most effective helicopter crew is one that both the pilot and observer have a number of years on the ground. I know people will argue with that, but after lots of years as a pilot and observer, and a number of years as a ground pounder I think it is the correct one.  

 

I do not have time to say what my day usually encompases today, maybe in the next day or two. But like Eagle, I fly six hours a day/four days a week in an A-Star and I am ready for my days off. And I am one of those lucky ones that flys in the mountains a good amount of time.

[americaniron]

Thanks helimark i will look forward to hearing what your day is like like i have said before i see stars when i talk about this career it really is a dream of mine and although even i have to agree with you that it would make a stronger team if both crew members beat the street first but i think that i will be great at it anyway i like to be the best so that is my goal take care and fly safely

[EAGLE1]

Americaniron,

 

PM me with your e-mail address and I will send you a post I wrote on a typical day in air support.  It is way too long to post here as it is about 3 1/2 pages in Microsoft Word.  It goes into painstaking detail of a typical day(what ever that is).  I do not really address the issues of why I feel two police pilots are better than a non police pilot with observer, as that is it's own topic.

[EAGLE1]

Well a typical day for me goes something like this; let’s take Wednesday the 18th of May, 2005 for example.  I get to work at approximately 9:00am.  I usually get there 30 minutes early so I can check my e-mail and see what’s new on VR.  Then I check the flight board and see what is on tap for the day.  There is a mission for 5:30 pm to assist the DEA on a surveillance in Compton which is in neighboring Los Angeles County, approximately 30 miles away.  I call the DEA agent in charge and confirm I have the right frequencies and that we are still a go for the mission.  The mission is still on, but it is close to my end of watch so I ask if we can move it up a little to 5:00pm.  The agent says 5:00pm is fine, but there is a small problem with the radio frequency.  My encryption code is old so I get the new one and I have to go out and manually reprogram the frequency.  That takes a couple of minutes and now everything is set for later in the day.

 

I head for the locker room and suit up in my NOMEX flight suit and duty belt with .40 caliber Glock 22, extra magazines and handcuffs.  I grab my helmet bag and head out to the helicopter, a Eurocopter EC120B, and start the preflight.  The preflight is uneventful because one of our maintenance technicians just finished his daily inspection of the helicopter 30 minutes prior to mine.  I make sure all the mission equipment is attached, ready for service and in good working order.  Satisfied that the helicopter is ready for the day’s duties it is back to the hanger for a last check of messages and the ubiquitous “precautionary pee.”  In this business you are never guaranteed when you will get the next potty break.

 

Once back at the helicopter I get myself strapped in and ready to go.  I go through the start checklist and light the fire cautiously.  This is one of the most critical aspects of the day as a bad start could cost you $50,000.  It only takes a nanosecond to go from a good start to an overtemp and there goes the engine.  My flight officer climbs aboard and gets the FLIR and moving map set and ready to go. Once all the checklist items are complete I get a clearance from the tower and we head off into the wild blue yonder.  

 

My partner and I cruise the patrol area monitoring the radios.  I am listening to two aircraft radios and seven tactical police frequencies, all the while looking for some sign of criminal activity.  It is early and the radios are mostly quiet with routine calls for service that do not demand our attention.  We respond to an injury traffic collision on the freeway and locate it a half mile from were it was reported and of course going the opposite direction.  We advise the Highway Patrol of the correct location and let them know which lanes are blocked and that three vehicles are involved.  We jump over to the Fire Department frequency and give them the updated information and their best access point to get to the crash.  

 

That mission complete, we respond to a male and a female fighting in the street near a bus stop.  Once again we are the first ones there and see the couple arguing.  The bus shows up and the male gets on and the bus pulls away.  The female stayed behind at the bus stop and we direct units to her location.  The ground units advised us it is a domestic violence dispute and that the female has sustained visible injuries.  I orbit back around and pick up the bus as it approaches the next stop a half mile away.  The male got off the bus and casually walked away like nothing was wrong.  We direct a ground unit over to him as he entered a 7-11 and he was taken into custody.  One more knucklehead is going to the Clink that most likely would have gotten away had we not been able to respond and locate him quickly.

 

We clear the call and head down to the beach for a run down the shoreline at 50 feet to give us the opportunity to preview this years bikini fashions.  It is a beautiful day down on the water, dolphins are jumping in the water, the surfers are out in force, and of course there are plenty of bikinis to distract us from our primary mission, which is making sure the body surfers are clear of the rip tides.  With our curiosity of the latest beach fashions satisfied we head to the station for fuel.

 

The flight officer hot fuels us at the station bringing us up to around 550 pounds of fuel.  This is about 200 pounds short of our maximum fuel capacity and coincidently our maximum gross weight.  This still gives us two and a half hours of flight time plus reserve, which is plenty of time to handle most of our missions.

 

As we lift off the pad at the station and head in to the airport for a break, a gang unit goes in pursuit of a robbery suspect.  We head that way and are approximately a minute and a half away which does not sound like much, but seems like an eternity when you are trying to get there.  About half way there the units reports that he lost the vehicle and has terminated the pursuit.  We continue to the area and spot the vehicle still driving at a high rate of speed approximately a mile and a half away from the unit going the opposite direction. (Note to robbery suspects, do not drive bright yellow Scions.  They are very easy to spot from the air when they are driving erratically at 80 m.p.h.) We start directing units to the area as the suspect pulls up in front of a house and runs to the front door.  After pounding on the door with no response he ran back to his vehicle and pulled a baby out of the rear seat and ran for the backyard.  Units are starting to arrive and the suspect makes it into the backyard.  My partner is directing the units to him and I am on the P.A. telling him to surrender.  

 

Oh yeah, did I mention we are at about 500 feet AGL in a very tight orbit in a residential neighborhood with not many options should the engine quit. Additionally I am in Class C airspace at a very busy commercial / general aviation airport within 2½ miles of the field and I have plank drivers trying to kill me because by golly I have to fly exactly 45 degrees towards the downwind to enter the pattern.  Never mind if there is other aircraft, a crane or even a mountain in my way! I swear some of these guys would fly into a mountain that was in plain sight if ATC told them to do it.

 

Back to the story, the suspect fell down a few times in his haste for freedom which allowed officers to cuff him before he made it in the back door.  Luckily the child, who was the suspect’s, was not badly injured in this whole episode.  One more knucklehead headed off to the Clink!

 

As we are leaving the area an undercover officer who had responded to the pursuit, saw two gangsters passing a gun between them.  As I turn back towards the new call they figure out the cops are on to them and they take off on foot.  As I roll in to the call my flight officer observes them running through back yards.  They run into a house and units start setting up a perimeter under the direction of my flight officer.  Once again I am at 500 feet AGL in tight orbits trying to keep my flight officer in the best position to cover all sides of the house should they decide to make a break for it.  One guy runs out the back door and over to the back fence.  The suspect throws something over the back fence and hot foots it back inside.  20 minutes later they make contact with the people inside and all occupants of the house come out including the two suspects who changed clothes to evade capture.  The flight officer directs units to the area where the suspect threw the object and they find a loaded Glock 10mm handgun.  After a positive ID by the flight officer and the undercover officer two more knuckleheads on their way to the Clink!

 

The whole time we handled these two calls my partner and I only exchanged a few words.  There isn’t time for a whole lot of talking, we are both plenty busy and we do most of our communicating nonverbally.  In addition, I know what he needs to best accomplish his mission and he knows what I am doing because yesterday our roles were reversed.  This is teamwork and CRM at its best.

 

Not bad for a Wednesday morning, a vehicle pursuit, two foot pursuits and four knuckleheads in custody.  All this activity occurred before lunch, which by the way, we are an hour and a half late for, and I have not left the pilot’s seat for 3.5 hours. Remember I spoke earlier about not knowing when the next potty break would be?  After another top off at the station I head into the airport for a break.

 

We drive over to Quizno’s for lunch and I pick up a honey mustard chicken salad and take it back to the hanger.  We can not eat in the restaurant because we never know when we will be called out for an urgent call.  After lunch we work on some paperwork and my partner fills out a few supplemental reports.  I re-call the DEA agent and confirm we are still on for 5:00pm in Compton.  He said the mission has been moved up to 4:00pm and he gives me the last minute information before we launch for the mission.  We get there a couple of minutes early and make wide orbits of the area.  We are up in the stratosphere where the plank drivers (airplane pilots) crisscross the sky looking for helicopter pilots to kill.  I get on with ATC so I can get radar service and an extra set of eyes to alert me of these kamikazes.  (I can bad mouth airplane pilots because I am one too.)  We are way up there so we do not attract the attention of our intended target.  After 45 minutes of going around in circles and dodging airplanes the mission gets called off because the target is not cooperating and the times keep getting pushed back.  We have a term for this, it is called “doper time.”  It seems these guys don’t have real lives or jobs so they juggle everything around some weird schedule that seems to suit only them.

 

As we head back to our patrol area another vehicle pursuit starts up, once again perfect timing, we could not be any further away.  I pull up to the top of the green and start lining up my clearances through the airspace ahead of time so there are no delays.  I keep checking the collective for the button marked “afterburner” like in the movie Blue Thunder so I can get us there “right now” but the factory seems to have forgotten to install that option on this helicopter and my search is in vain.  The pursuit goes on for about 15 minutes and about a minute before we get there the officer terminates the pursuit because it has gotten to dangerous.  Close but no cigar.  We head into the area hoping lightning will strike twice and we will pick this guy up like we did earlier in the morning.  No such luck, the guy was driving a black Honda Accord and they are not nearly as easy to spot as bright yellow Scions.

 

After another stop at the station for fuel it is back to the airport to turn the helicopter over to the night shift.  Not a bad day, another five hours in the log book and hopefully society is a little safer due to our efforts of the day.

 

I hope you enjoyed this rather long post and caught on to my failed attempts at humor.  This is more or less a “typical” day in air support.  Of course after 12 years and over 12,000 hours combined PIC and Flight Officer time one thing I have learned is that there is NO typical day in air support.

[HeliMark]

This is a recent day, not typical in the sense that we were called out in the morning for a search of a person who was last seen in some fast moving water.

 

My partner and I came in at 7 am, with me wondering why I did not stop and get that morning coffee on the way in. Oh well, went out and preflighted our helicopter (AS350B2) while my partner contacted the search and rescue guys on what was going to happen. Found out the location, and it wasn't the top of that 10,000' mountain I was thinking about, just a creek near the base of it. Spent the next 3 hours flying tree top level in very slow flight or hovering, positioning the helicopter the best I could in the canyon so that my partner could see the creek. Man that water was moving fast, and it has already claimed several lives this year. But what an awsome day, waterfalls here and there. You have to shake your head and smile to yourself at the sights around you. We could not find the person and went home. He was found later that day in a spot that we could not search due to the terrain.

 

The helicopter that I work is based about 60 miles from our main base. It is based there (pad, fuel truck, and small hangar), and unless we find a problem with it, we keep the same helicopter until it is due for normal maintenance. This cuts down on travel/maint time, and ensures a rapid responce.

 

Came back for my normal shift at 3 pm, and since I just left the helicopter several hours earlier, I looked over the critical area's without doing a full preflight. The wind was back up to 20-25 kts, normal day. Checked my e-mail and my partner and I launched.

 

For about the next hour or so we support our ground units on priority calls, then it seemed that all the bad guys were taking a dinner break. We headed up the the mountains and spotted several big horn sheep, checked several well used hiking trails for hikers in trouble, then came back down into the flatlands. The area that we patrol is vast (approx. 2,000 sq miles), and most of it is very rural. We look for dope labs, people dumping bodies, dumped stolen cars. Our ground cars try and get in the area's, but they can only do so much and our vantage point gives them a big helping hand.

 

As we were cruising along at about 500', we see what appears to be someone filming a movie. Not uncommon in the area, so we head towards it to say hello and "show the flag". As we get closer, my partner is looking through the stabilized bino's and I notice he is really perking up with a big smile on his face. Seems that it is a porno movie. The "actors" on the ground know that it is illegal to film in the area, and when they see the helicopter with it's big lettering on the side, well, it was like an Abbot and Costello movie. They were running around, running towards there car, mostly without cloths. It was an absolute riot to watch. Boy did that make our day. Yes, the girl was  ::2thumbsat:: . We then went and checked several of our other area's, including a boating lake to make sure no one was drowning or burning too bad. Then headed back to our hangar for fuel and a break.

 

As we were eating our lunch, about an hour into our break, a foot pursuit comes out over the radio. Seems several of our local citizens do not want to go to jail for stealing a car. We run out to the helicopter and I get it into the air, and with one of those lucky situations, they are not far away (depending on where, flight time can be 15+ minutes. We are the only helicopter in the area and our other ones would be further). We are overhead in about 6 minutes from the time of call. My partner sorts out the ground situation and re-adjusts their containment. We then start looking for the suspects. As we are orbiting, here is someone walking through a backyard, trying his best to not be noticed. The walk, the hey, don't look at me kind. You know, the kind like there is no helicopter 300' above with a 30 million candle power search light on me looking at me. We directed several deputies towards him and the foot pursuit is on. Seems every turn he takes is a deputy coming at him. Sure he is cussing at us for that. We finally get him boxed in and he is taken into custody. Of course this is fun doing this with 25-30 kt winds. His other buddy thought that since we were paying attention in a different area, he would make a break for it. Right into the hands of another deputy set up just for that.

 

We decide that since we are up, to forgo the rest of our break. The rest of the night is normal mundane type stuff and we land after another 3 hours, going on standby until our shift is over at 1 am.

 

Last week we had a vehicle pursuit that lasted an hour and a half. Been on containments for 4 hours. Due to the remote area, we land a number of times a day in a lot of different type of terrain to talk to people on the ground or check out stolen vehicle's. I also will put my partner out to assist a one man car with his back up 30 minutes away.

 

Like what Eagle1 has said, depending on where we are, we are the first at a situation and advise the ground units rolling in.

 

Wanted to add that although some of the stuff above were "fun", the successful turn out was due to hard work on both sides of the ship, CRM, training and experiance. It gets very very busy in that helicopter during these situations with the pilot manuvering the helicopter for the observer, several radio's being talked on not including the aircraft radio, and the observer also utilizing the spot light and FLIR.

[americaniron]

THANKS EAGLE1 AND HELIMARK

Great both of you wrote great explanations of your days. Thier is no doubt in my mind that i want to fly airborne. It sounds fun exciting and best of all challenging the pay seems good and you get lots of hours in all kinds of conditions i could not think of anything that i would rather do. Your guys' attention to detail is very much appreciated. Thanks for everything I hope on day i will be up thier with you but until then safe flying and good luck catching the bad guys.