B.C. to get more eyes in the sky
 

VANCOUVER — British Columbia's solicitor general on Saturday announced that the province will be putting a second helicopter into the sky to be at the disposal of Lower Mainland police forces in tracking down suspected criminals.

Purchased at a cost of $2.3 million, through an agreement between the provincial government and the Insurance Corporation of B.C., the Air 2 Eurocopter EC-120B will join Air 1, launched in 2006, in the service of 17 Lower Mainland municipalities.

The federal government has also contributed $700,000 for the new chopper.

“Our existing traffic safety helicopter has brought hundreds of high-speed pursuits, foot chases and even incidents involving illegal guns to safe conclusions,” Solicitor General John van Dongen said, in a news release.

He said no injuries or deaths have occurred during a high-speed chase involving Air 1.

He estimated that Air 2 will double the capacity to help police track and take down dangerous and reckless criminals.
© Copyright (c) The Province

thats still not enough. I personally think they should have at least 3 for the lowermainland

I think we could use some apache longbows for high speed chases. =)

About time... :) :thumbsup:

hopefully that helps
we should just hire the watchman

bell copters or ban

hate to break it to you, but it's not going to make a lick of difference.
what we have here is a display of how powerless the authorities actually are when real criminals decide to make it so. while it may give you some sense of false security, i doubt it'll have any results in the numbers. you can thank the mass media for their hand in the rapid snowball occurrences of late. and ourselves, for fueling them with our naturally inquiring minds that need to know

Hooray for knee-jerk reaction governing!!!

An A-10 would be my personal wish. As to the effectiveness of the Choppers, ask the people caught by it if the chopper made no difference. FLIR makes it easy for the dogs to find you and some of the ground chases they called off & caught the runners by following them in the air, also look good on the crackhead car & bike thieves who steal our cars.

it only works when police have already identified and typically are in pursuit of the suspects. it does work amazingly for that though. no running from the bird. but judging by the nature of these incidents, i really doubt it will have any effect at all.