Curious about copters?
Learn about helicopters and more at the local edition of the American Heroes Air Show Saturday.
Bryan Smith has a bone to pick with Hollywood. “I have never — not even one time in a movie or TV show — seen law enforcement aviation depicted realistically,” says Smith, a helicopter pilot for the Seminole County Sheriff ’s Office.
To help people get a more accurate view of what chopper pilots do, Smith organized the local edition of the American Heroes Air Show, happening Saturday at the Oviedo Mall. The free event, which began in Los Angeles in 1993, invites the public to get an up-close view of whirlybirds and their crews from different agencies public and private.
More than 25 helicopters will be on hand — from state police departments as well as the Navy, Coast Guard, hospitals, private companies and NASA. Other attractions will include a Vietnam-era Cobra gunship and emergency fire, police and rescue vehicles.
The idea is to let people not only see how these machines work, but also ask questions.
“A lot of times people have misunderstandings,” says Smith, citing previous questions such as, “What is that helicopter doing over my neighborhood? We’re paying all these tax dollars. What is it doing for me?”
Smith, 43, has been a law enforcement pilot since 2004. The Minnesota native says people are surprised to find out what helicopters can — and can’t — do.
“We do demos at schools,” he says. “I’ll offer the kids $100 to whoever can find the guns [on the helicopter] first.” The trick is, police helicopters don’t have guns. Smith says there’s also no such thing as “whisper mode,” a popular concept since the 1983 movie “Blue Thunder.”
Helicopters are often employed in fugitive chases and searches for lost persons, but they also patrol.
“We use a variety of crime statistics … areas that we know there are issues to be addressed,” says Smith, an Oviedo resident. These include industrial parks and housing developments that have had recurring break-ins. “Our air crews have had some pretty good success in finding people breaking into businesses and cars.”
In chases, rotary wing vehicles operate as far-seeing eyes for the officers on the ground. Smith recalls watching a suspect duck around a corner ahead of a policeman in pursuit and seeing the suspect remove a gun. Without a warning from the helicopter, the officer would have run into an ambush.
While the pilots might seem removed from the action, Smith says the danger is very real. “People often call for helicopters when the weather is terrible,” he says, noting that bad weather is the No. 1 killer of rotary wing pilots in action. In Seminole County, the sheriff ’s helicopters also fight fires, using the device known as a “Bambi bucket” that pulls thousands of gallons of water out of nearby lakes and ponds.
Taking all that into account and add in that pilots are “maneuvering these things, running camera systems, searchlights, microwave downlinks that maintain a perimeter around a scene, it becomes a very, very busy workspace up there,” says Smith.
The American Heroes Air Show will also include a naturalization ceremony and a car show. Public viewing runs from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday at the Oviedo Mall, 1700 Oviedo Mall Blvd. Details at heroes-airshow.com.