Oh My.......

[nomiddlemas]

Why the crap would the highway need a airvan to fly? What are they going to do? give aerial tours to prisoners? They shouldnt have airvans.  Fools. 

[PHall]

You have no concept what the CHP uses their fixed wing aircraft for, do you?

[nomiddlemas]

You have no concept what the CHP uses their fixed wing aircraft for, do you?

Nope I dont. 

[Flying Pig]

Why the crap would the highway need a airvan to fly? What are they going to do? give aerial tours to prisoners? They shouldnt have airvans.  Fools.

Do you comment regularly on things you know nothing about?  Because you made the varsity team with this one.

[nomiddlemas]

My idea was that highway patrol would just be using ground forces.  Being in the air seems kind of pointless when all you need to catch is on the ground.  I never thought that highway patrol would use aircraft for their ops. 

[Garibaldi]

My idea was that highway patrol would just be using ground forces.  Being in the air seems kind of pointless when all you need to catch is on the ground.  I never thought that highway patrol would use aircraft for their ops.

Not at all. You can see a lot from the air when it comes to pursuit and catching speeders. Directing the ground guys in, etc. Kinda like our air crews do with ground teams...

[nomiddlemas]

But why use GA-8? they are roomy and all but it seems all you would need is a pilot, copilot and maybe a scanner. 

[Eclipse]

They do it a lot in my state - CAP Wing HQ is even in a shared hangar with the SP, and because I live near a major interchange I see them all the time.

Pretty low-tech, too - in some places there are timing marks on the pavement - start / stop a watch between them, bam - busted.
Radio to a chase car waiting below, ticket city.  There's usually a speed trap setup at the interchange before major holidays, etc.
Since the interchange is below a major approach for ORD, the SP planes do a dance with the heavies.

Fun to watch, especially when you throw in the traffic from the little GA airport a few miles down the road on the same approach
and maybe a traffic copter or three.

[nomiddlemas]

I know but wouldnt a Cessna 172 or 182 be fine? Its not like they are carrying around a ton of people to and fro. 

[Eclipse]

You'd have to read the RFP to know what the requirements were.  Odds are a transportation
component was included.

[PHall]

I know but wouldnt a Cessna 172 or 182 be fine? Its not like they are carrying around a ton of people to and fro.

Again we speak of something we know nothing about. Quit while you're ahead.

[Flying Pig]

Not even gonna bother.....   So anyway, back to that Airvan. 

[Mitchell 1969]

My idea was that highway patrol would just be using ground forces.  Being in the air seems kind of pointless when all you need to catch is on the ground.  I never thought that highway patrol would use aircraft for their ops.

You admit to having no idea why they need them, yet felt that you should call them "fools?"

[Mitchell 1969]

.

[jeders]

My idea was that highway patrol would just be using ground forces.  Being in the air seems kind of pointless when all you need to catch is on the ground.  I never thought that highway patrol would use aircraft for their ops.

You admit to having no idea why they need them, yet felt that you should call them "fools?"

Such is the way on CAPTalk.

[Flying Pig]

The plane will definitely meet their needs.   The CHP Chief Pilot and Fixed Wing Chief Pilot are very experienced fixed wing and helicopter pilots, ex-military.  Ive flown with them personally.  (The CHP has one main CP and then has a Helicopter CP and a FW CP separately)  If this is what they chose, then those guys put the GA8 through its paces and decided that any deficiencies were manageable.   They spend a lot of time in the air and are starting to use their MX15s in a patrol function pretty regular.   I watched a video of the Sacramento CHP plane work a foot chase from 5 miles away and at about 5500ft.   The optics, combined with the mapping system they "chased" the guy around for 15 minutes.  All the officers did was lay back and easily drive to their perimeter locations and then slowly collapsed the perimeter onto the suspect without breaking a sweat.  All directed from the comfort of an air conditioned command and control platform.  (yes.. their 206's are air conditioned)

[JeffDG]

If you had a ball on the GA-8 it would get flown.

Really?

And where do the pilots come from?

Adding an ASP to an airplane doesn't grow pilots.

As far as flying, it's just a high-performance bird (by the FAA definition anyway) that any pilot can do a Form 5 in with 100h TT.  If you are qualified to fly a 182, you're qualified to take a Form 5 in a GA-8.

The 300h PIC is only for ARCHER missions since the last 60-1 revision.

[Eclipse]

True, but with having generally only one in each region, usually squirreled away for someone's pet project or "private" use,
just getting access to the aircraft can be like pulling teeth, and maintaining proficiency is near impossible.