Frequently Asked Questions
How long has the force had a helicopter?
Since November 1994 when the Constabulary bought a Eurocopter AS355N Twin Squirrel helicopter registered G-LCON.
Why does the helicopter fly low over residential areas?
Many of the people we are looking for don't want to be found, so although the search equipment on the aircraft is powerful there are occasions when we have to operate at low level to find out whether something is worthy of investigation by officers on the ground. The helicopter routinely operates at three or four times higher in the sky than our permitted minimum height.
As well as tracking criminals, what other work does the helicopter get involved with?
- Missing person searches
- Helping Mountain Rescue Teams to find missing people
- Casualty evacuation (when the air ambulance is unavailable)
- Photographic tasks for serious Road traffic accidents and planning purposes
- Major incidents such as road traffic collisions (involving multiple vehicles), murder scenes and firearms incidents.
- Football duties including crowd containment and traffic management.
- Helping the Coastguard in searches
- Community focused operations such as Operation Caretaker, which involves keeping watch on schools during the holiday period.
Does the helicopter have to be so loud?
There is no such thing as a truly quiet helicopter! Believe it or not, the EC135 is one of the quietest helicopters currently available. The pilots are always conscious of the noise and fly as high as they can given the requirements of the task. They don't stay any longer than they have to, but when there are offenders needing to be caught or missing people to be found then the job has to be done properly.
Does the helicopter have any special equipment on board?
Video Camera: A camera pod is mounted under the nose of the helicopter and contains the colour video camera and thermal imager.
Microwave Downlink: This system enables live video to be sent directly from the aircraft's camera system to communications rooms around the county. Live pictures help in command and control of incidents by giving senior officers real time information about the situation on the ground.
Thermal Imager: The thermal camera looks at the world differently to normal cameras, it does not "see" light just heat. The camera detects the difference in temperature of everything within its field of view and builds up a picture by shading objects according to their temperature. The coldest things are shown as black and the hottest as white.
Skyshout: A 750 Watt public address system which allows the team to relay messages to people on the ground. The equipment has proved very effective during missing person searches when descriptions of the person has resulted in information regarding their whereabouts being phoned in to the police.
Tracker™ stolen vehicle locator and a stretcher facility.
The helicopter is certainly a valuable addition to policing Lancashire. It saves hundreds of staff hours when vast areas need to be searched and has the advantage of being able to fly anywhere in county with fifteen minutes - much quicker than any patrol car!