[ripberge]

As someone who lives in central LA and has them circle my neighborhood frequently, actually shaking my house, I think this is awesome.

These needs should be filled by drones. Way less noisy, dangerous and expensive.

[kylehotchkiss]

Down in SD at least, the sheriff's office helicopters serve many purposes. They'll use them for firefighting, hike rescues (often! according to their IG), first responder to an aviation accident, loudly shouting garbled messages through their loudspeaker, etc.

There's just enough high-speed/timely crime here that I prefer they use these over drones. There's some extra legal protections built into helicopters that drones don't get, like prison time if some idiot points a laser pointer.

[VerifiedReports]

I seriously doubt that physically rescuing hikers or delivering first-responders to plane crashes represent a large percentage of LAPD helicopter missions. I live in a nice suburb and there's one of them circling over it probably weekly.

I don't see why large drones can't do most of what these helicopters are doing. They're using needlessly expensive helicopters, too.

[stickfigure]

I work with CHP helicopters as part of our fire district's rescue team. We pull a half dozen people a year off of one of the local trails (sometimes as "recovery"). Most of these are via helicopter. There are two helos for a huge area - Yolo county down to Santa Cruz county. By acreage it's a lot bigger than LA.

My point is, two small helicopters are more than enough to do that job as a side-gig from all the other CHP work they do.

Also, Cal Fire has its own air wing. LAPD helicopters are not equipped for firefighting.

[asdff]

LAPD doesn't conduct rescue operations or anything like that. Different helicopters are used from different agencies.

[monkaiju]

Idk, having a bunch of government surveillance drones doesn't really sound great... Maybe we just don't need this level of surveillance at all?

[autoexec]

It's absolutely worth looking at the ROI on these flights and weighing that against the intrusion on our privacy/freedom. No doubt they'll always need drones and helicopters but I'd be surprised if there was any real need for them to be in the air that often. I think that's a question that should be asked everywhere but the LAPD in particular are terrible enough that it makes this a great place to start.

[whalesalad]

I was in Santa Monica - the dense part with all the alleyways - during a foot pursuit involving a heli. Felt like I was in vietnam. It was at night, they were pretty low, and that light felt like the sun coming into the building.

[DiscourseFan]

Couldn’t someone take out the drones pretty easily?

[autoexec]

That depends on the drone. There are drones/UAVs that fly so high in the air you can't even see them seeing you from the ground. Even low flying drones would be very hard to hit from a car involved in a high speed chase, and it's not as if people can't shoot at helicopters which are both larger/easier targets and much more dangerous if brought down.

[Zigurd]

Helicopters aren't exactly robust under fire and are four orders of magnitude more valuable as a target.

[polalavik]

why LA is spending thousands/hour when drones exist is crazy.

[tcdent]

You're talking about technology that's only become realistic in the last couple years. Even then, there's probably nothing off-the-shelf that would serve the current need.

LAPD has been patrolling with helicopters for decades. I have yet to see a drone follow a car in high speed pursuit down the 5 at 100+ MPH.