9. Policing from the air

Helicopters are part of the Air Support Unit of the Metropolitan Police. The Unit is based at Lippitts Hill in open country near Epping Forest and the facilities there include a hangar, a control room over­looking the landing pad, workshops, service bays and stores.

From this base, the helicopters, with a maximum speed of 150 knots (173 mph), can be over anywhere in the Metropolitan Police Area within 15 minutes’ flying time.

The basic flying pattern for the helicopter is to carry out a fixed number of routine patrols (about 1 ¹/₂ hrs), Monday to Friday. During the evening, after rush-hour and at weekends the helicopters are available on an ‘as required’ basis. In an emergency, a helicopter can be in the air at very short notice - any time of the day or night.

The list of police operations in which the helicopters may be called upon for help is endless. Crowd control, traffic control, searching and pursuing and any situation in which observation from the air is of special value are all part of the helicopters’ workload.

A typical day’s operations recently included going to the scene of an armed robbery in South London, observing the build-up of a traffic jam on a main road into North London and a search for a stolen lorry in an area of parkland, golf course and market gardens. In a typical month, the Air Support Unit will take part in 450 assignments of all kinds.

The Metropolitan Police helicopters of the Air Support Unit are observation and communication platforms in the sky and their equipment for these jobs must be the best available.

Each helicopter can be quickly fitted with the “Heli-Tele” air-to-ground colour television system. With this, colour TV film of anything happening on the ground can be relayed back to Scotland Yard (via a mobile receiver station if necessary) and the film taken can be recorded for later viewing. In addition, the Bell 222s carry ‘Night Sun’ a powerful searchlight which can be steered down and focused from the helicopter cabin and ‘Sky Short’ a 200 watt output public address system. A British Aerospace ‘Steady Scope’ monocular (a type of binoculars) is also carried.

Radio Communications between air and ground cover all Metropolitan Police Channels, Air Traffic Control at Battersea and Heathrow and all UK aeronautical channels.

The helicopter pilots are civilians from Bristow Helicopters. The observers (there are normally two in each aircraft) are experienced Metropolitan Police officers who have been specially trained for this job.

The Metropolitan Police helicopters must observe strict rules operating over the densely populated London area. They normally fly at heights of between 800 and 1500 feet, but when they are in the neigh­bourhood of Heathrow, their maximum height may be much lower. Generally speaking they only fly outside the Metropolitan Police area when in “hot pursuit” of a suspect vehicle and, in one case, they pursued such a vehicle up the M1 as far north as Daventry before police on the ground could move in and stop the driver.