Fresno Police Chief Wants A Plane` | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-02.03.25

Airborne-NextGen-02.04.25

Airborne-Unlimited-02.05.25

Airborne-FlightTraining-02.06.25

Airborne-Unlimited-02.07.25

Thu, Sep 30, 2004

Fresno Police Chief Wants A Plane`

City Council Calls Proposal "Luxury"

Say, can you spare a quarter of a million dollars or so for an aircraft?

That's essentially the pitch from Fresno (CA) Police Chief Jerry Dyer to the city council.

The reply? "I don't want to be a smart aleck, but we're not an air force," said Council Member Brian Calhoun, an avid opponent of the idea. The council failed to support the purchase and now, Chief Dyer plans to appeal directly to the council president.

Dyer's force isn't completely ground-bound by any means. The Fresno Police Department runs a helicopter unit called Skywatch, founded in the late 1990s. He already rents an aircraft for $185 an hour. But the Fresno Bee reports Dyer doesn't want to continue renting because it's an unbudgeted expense.

Instead, the chief wants to spend part of a $713,800 grant from the Department of Homeland Security. Dyer figures a fixed-wing aircraft would be quieter, more economical for surveillance missions, and more capable of catching high-flying drug smugglers.

"We need to start thinking that we're a big city as we address big-city crime," Dyer told the council.

But some council members called the concept of a fixed wing police aircraft a "luxury." Calhoun wondered aloud what the department would ask for next. "Heck, two years from now you would want a bigger, faster plane and then you'd be into jets -- I'm trying not to be facetious."

Well, the chief wasn't laughing. "We need to start thinking that we're a big city as we address big-city crime," he said, as quoted in the Bee.

In the end, the council voted to accept the money, but turned down the idea of buying a plane for the police. Dyer figures he might have a chance to change some minds, though, and perhaps get a new vote.

"I'm hopeful, through our discussions and the information that I will provide him, they'll have a better opportunity to make an informed decision," Dyer told the Fresno paper.

FMI: www.fresno.gov/fpd

Advertisement

More News

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (02.07.25): Navigation Reference System (NRS)

Navigation Reference System (NRS) The NRS is a system of waypoints developed for use within the United States for flight planning and navigation without reference to ground based n>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (02.07.25)

Aero Linx: International Scientific and Technical Soaring Organisation The new constitution of OSTIV concentrated merely to the objectives ‚to encourage and coordinate intern>[...]

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (02.08.25)

“As AirVenture is the world’s largest annual gathering of warbirds, bringing these two iconic aircraft together is another of those ‘Only at Oshkosh’ moment>[...]

Airborne-NextGen 02.04.25: Dream Chaser, Drone Pilot Busted, Asteroid Samples

Also: New Acting FAA Boss, Matternet M2 Drone Ops, Serbian Midnights, NOTAM Foulup Sierra Space announced that its Dream Chaser spaceplane successfully completed the Joint Test 10B>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (02.08.25)

Aero Linx: Army Aviation Medicine Association (AAVMA) The Army Aviation Medicine Association is the subset of members of the SoUSAFS that are also members of the Aerospace Medical >[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC