Police

Air Support Unit: Eagle

The Air Support Unit has been in operation since 1988. In July 2019 New Zealand Police introduced three Bell 429 helicopters to replace the previous aircraft and meet current and future needs.

Their original aircraft in 1988 was a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter. In July 1989 that was replaced by two twin-engine Aerospatiale AS355F1 helicopters. These two aircraft ew for our Police Force for 28 years. A third AS355 was added in 2017, which enabled the Air Support Unit to be operational 24/7. Originally based at Mechanics Bay on Auckland’s waterfront, the Unit moved to its current location at Onehunga in July 2019. The primary use of the aircraft is as airborne observation platforms. From their vantage point in the sky the crew are able to coordinate the operations of ground units. This is particularly valuable where persons of interest are still present at an incident, either on foot or in vehicles. Once the aircrew have visual contact with these people, or targets, they are able to manoeuvre the ground units into position to best deal with the incident, or make an arrest.

Eagle normally operates with a crew of three - a civilian pilot and two observers. Both observers are sworn police o cers. This allows the pilot to concentrate solely on ight safety, ying the aircraft and maintaining separation from other air tra c, while the observers concentrate on the action below.

The aircraft are equipped with gyro stabilised binoculars, a ForwardLooking Infra-Red (FLIR) camera, night-vision equipment, and a ‘night sun’ spotlight. Eagle has a comprehensive array of VHF & UHF radios; for navigation the aircraft is tted with GPS integrated into a mapping programme.