Gyroplanes Move Into The Realm Of Public Safety

By David Juwel

As a former Law Enforcement Officer, I have been having a problem with some of the gyroplane industry marketing attempts to the Law Enforcement community. Typically, the Law Enforcement aerial platform is used for multitask events.  It may be an aerial surveillance platform, an aerial command post, a search and rescue vehicle, it may conduct searches for illegal crops, or give the advantage of high speed arrival to any incident.

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Whatever the purpose, it takes special equipment to conduct these various missions. For instance, the typical police helicopter might have an infrared spotlight, a high candlepower spotlight, a FLIR device, ballistic protection, loudspeakers, winches, rescue equipment, tear gas dispensers, radios capable of reaching any emergency department within their locality (as well as other things I won't mention in this article), and the necessary black boxes, gauges and screens to accommodate that equipment.

Helicopters are expensive to buy, fly, and maintain. In this day and age of trying to reduce expenses, the gyroplane community has presented itself to the Law Enforcement Community as a viable alternative to the helicopter. The gyroplane is certainly vastly cheaper to buy, fly, and maintain.

However, having looked at the various models being presented, I am not surprised to find that most of them do not qualify as a quality Law Enforcement vehicle. They don't have the needed useful load, the crew sit in tandem instead of SBS (which LEO's prefer), there is insufficient space to add LE equipment (both outside and inside the aircraft), they have a canopy that can trap them inside the aircraft in event of a crash, they don't have sufficient power, really big LEO's don't fit inside, they aren't robust enough for utility operation, and they can't get off the ground fully loaded in a high density altitude environment in a sufficiently short space. Some of them are flying on the edge of their envelope when they're trying to conduct the Law Enforcement mission. This is the antithesis of what a helicopter offers.

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I was pretty disappointed because I understand the modern day need to cut expenses without cutting services. Then I discovered the Sport Copter II (SCII). It could in fact be the less expensive mission capable and equal of a Law Enforcement helicopter (excluding the ability to hover and winch).

The typical police helicopter has four seats of which only two are typically used, pilot and tactical officer. The SCII has two large comfortable seats. The helicopter has a loiter speed of about 55mph, but the SCII can loiter at a much slower speed (20 mph).The useful load on a helicopter is approximately 1500 lbs (depending on model), but it also must carry about 600 lbs of jet fuel which reduces the utility load. The useful load on the SCII is 500-600 lbs, but even with full fuel it still has enough useful load to carry the minimum amount of mission critical law enforcement equipment. This is because the weight of the added LE equipment is included in the empty weight of the aircraft. The range on a typical police helicopter is about 430 miles. The SCII has a range of about 300 miles. The top speed on a police helicopter is about 130 mph. The top speed on the SCII is 120 mph which still allows it to stay in the surveillance mode of a high speed chase. The police helicopter can hover to a spot landing. The SCII can land in 0-20 feet. The ROC on a typical police helicopter is about 1,350 fpm. The ROC on the SCII is 1,000 fpm with a service ceiling of 18,000 ft.

Obviously there are going to be some differences going from a 4-passenger jet helicopter to a piston engine 2-place aircraft. So why would you want to switch? Because at $197,000 each, you can buy a whole fleet of SCII's for the cost of a single jet helicopter, and still perform the law enforcement mission (not to mention the incredible savings in maintenance costs). You can easily see how the SCII can be a mission multiplier for a large department, or the opportunity to even have aerial law enforcement in a small department.

The SCII also has benefits that other gyroplanes don't have such as UV blocking windshields, a rear facing safety camera, a certified Lycoming aircraft engine, differential braking, lumbar support, hydraulic shock suspension, and more. To check it out, contact Marv Wessel who is a Dealer for Sport Copter, and also their Law Enforcement representative.

And in closing, I salute the fine men and women that conduct our airborne law enforcement endeavors.

FMI: www.sportcopter.com, www.alea.org