HPD Announces Plans to Expand Helicopter Fleet April 23, 2008 - The Houston Police Department announced it will be expanding its helicopter patrol fleet, beginning in July 2008. In keeping with its objective of providing 42 hours of helicopter patrol every day, seven days a week, the current flight patrol fleet of four MD500E helicopters and two Schweizer 333 helicopters will be expanded from six to a total of 13. One MD 500E helicopter is currently on order with plans to purchase eight more over the next eight months, beginning November 2008. The two old or non-functional Schweizer 333 patrol helicopters will be sold. In addition, HPD will purchase three Schweizer 300C training helicopters to replace the existing 33 year old trainers – which will be sold. Two Schweizer units will be delivered July 2008 with the third scheduled for September 2008. All of the patrol helicopters will be equipped with the latest avionics, a high intensity spotlight and with FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared Radar) which provides night-vision search capability. The total cost of the helicopter and equipment purchases will be approximately $18.3 million and, being capital equipment, the debt will be amortized over 15 years. For your viewing, a three-minute DVD of flight footage of the HPD Helicopter is available for pick-up at HPD Headquarters, 1200 Travis. |
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