Helicopter reaches big milestone

The Eurocopter has clocked 10,000 flying hours

Police helicopters play an important role in fighting crime.

One in particular, based at RAF Benson, has clocked up 10,000 flying hours, the second highest flying hours of its type in the world.

The Chiltern Air Support Unit, which flies the Eurocopter EC135 aircraft, has been presented with a certificate at a special ceremony.

The Managing Director of Eurocopter, Marcus Steinke, handed over the award at the RAF station.

The helicopter has some more impressive statistics to its tally. It has been to more than 24,000 incidents and the crew have been directly responsible for 1,650 arrests.

"It's a real landmark for us," said Doug McKay, Head of the Chiltern Air Support Unit.

"Those were incidents where if the helicopter hadn't been available then the offender - which could have been a burglar or a person who'd stolen a car in a car pursuit - would have got away.

"They just would not have been detected [without] the equipment and the skills of the officers that I've got working for me."

Thames Valley Police have two helicopters covering the Oxfordshire area.

The second aircraft is available due to a partnership with the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire police forces and is based at RAF Henlow.

Between them they cover 6,000 tasks a year.

It is no wonder that the helicopters themselves have become the target of criminals in some parts of the country - one police helicopter was firebombed in the West Midlands while another was attacked by armed men at its base in Merseyside.

"The villains see it as something that will ensure their capture," Mr McKay explained.

The crews can take to the air within 90 seconds of receiving a radio call. A helicopter can typically reach the southern end of Oxford from RAF Benson in three to four minutes.

Mr McKay insisted the cost is not prohibitive: "It's not cheap, however it is value for money.

"If you look at how much it costs to search for vulnerable people or criminals using a traditional ground force it's 400 man hours to search one square mile of open land. It's 12 minutes in a helicopter.

"So you can see straight away where it's a force multiplier and you can save a lot of money.

"In fact once you've committed the capital into owning an aircraft, to actually put it in the air once you've gone down that road is only really an additional £250 per flying hour which actually is not very much money at all."