Anyone know what that was all about? Had it wheeling a searchlight around Bretton for around an hour till almost two AM!
To me , the obvious answer is that they were looking for possible felons. As part of our duties where I worked our department had the task of buying the Jet-A1 Kerosine dosed with the anti icing agent Aftur, for the Met, Dyfed Powys, Derbyshire and South and West Yorkshire Air Support units. Having seen first hand the kit on those machines the fact they were looking for an hour, tells me they didn't flush anyone out. As well as searchlights they have thermal imaging cameras, night vision etc etc and can usually find a suspect very quickly. Once they have located their suspect, the area around Bretton would have been crawling with on the ground back up officers.
Never heard of that product J1. For obvious reasons, the purity of the Jet fuel is absolutely crucial. We used Air BP for all our deliveries. Every part of the delivery/ dispensing process is fully enclosed and the kero already dosed with its anti icing agent, is pumped from the tanker into the bulk storage facility or the bowser whichever each Unit tended to use.
Massive responsibility mate. Always remember one weekend a Eurocopter came down in the East Midlands and a police observer was killed. I was really worried thinking it might be one of "ours", but it transpired that it was the East Midlands machine and the accident wasn't fuel related.
Maybe this? Car thieves active last night on Woolley Grange ! They drove a Mercedes on to the estate and around 4am a blue GT Golf was stolen. A resident noticed there was something going on and the police were alerted. They headed for the motorway but one vehicle was followed and 1 person apprehended and the stolen Golf recovered .
9 years 156 days army air corp it was all part of the training as a groundcrewman at 18yo you just took it in your stride, then when one of the aircrew got flu in ireland and passed it through the others i did 3.5 months as aircrew, nightsun over belfast aahhhh those were the days
Although our Purchasing team visited several Air Support units, we were never allowed to fly in a Police helicopter. I suspect the reason was due to Health and Safety concerns. I did however get a chance to fly in a Sea King in 1989. Back then, Shell Oil used to bring their top buyers together and fly them from Bacton to a Shell/BP rig somewhere in the North Sea. Fantastic experience. Remember I was on one of the last visits ever to be undertaken. The Shell/BP engineers were anchoring a new rig to the sea bed and had a few pints before turning in.During the night, the rig broke free from its moorings and was found drifting some miles away. After that near miss, which put the wind up their senior management, all visits were knocked in the head.