A BRAND-NEW EYE IN THE SKY
Newly minted Air3 brings San Jose’s air support into the modern era, replacing a chopper that had doubled its recommended service life
San Jose police just got a serious aerial upgrade with its brand-new helicopter.
How serious? For starters, pilots will no longer have to use paper maps and Thomas Guides to navigate their way above the city. Yes, they actually were still using these — in 2018.
They also won’t have to meticulously weigh themselves, their one extra passenger, and any cargo just to make sure the aircraft can safely get off the ground.
With the Airbus-manufactured H125 unveiled this week, police now have a modern helicopter to replace Air2, which had been in use for 16 years, twice its recommended service life.
“Helicopters generally don’t fly as long as Air2 did,” San Jose police Chief Eddie Garcia said. “It was time to give this police department and this community really what it deserves, to be able to help fight crime.”
The $5.2 million chopper is the third for SJPD — accordingly dubbed Air3 — and has the horsepower to support other uses beyond pursuing suspects and backing up officers. It also could help with rescue operations from cliff sides and water drops on wildfires.
“This gives the department a lot more potential for different kinds of missions,” said Sgt. Steve Guggiana, a supervisor of the SJPD Air Support Unit. “It’s a game changer. We have so much more capability.”
The soon-to-be-retired helicopter, an Airbus EC-120B whose model is no longer in pro-
duction, was too costly because of its age and required more frequent maintenance and had limited flight time. As of now, it was only in the air two days a week, and in imminent need of a new engine to the tune of $500,000.
Once it’s broken in, the upgrade to Air3 will swiftly double that to four days a week, with the eventual goal of having it on full daily duty.
But back to those Thomas Guides. Among other hassles related to an aging helicopter, the 2000-era mapping system in Air2 had become unusable, so pilots — all sworn officers — were relying on their memories and spiral-bound maps to pinpoint where they were being summoned.
The instrument panels in Air3, and cockpit in general, resembles a mini-Best Buy, highlighted by a large high-resolution screen that can display a painstakingly detailed outlay of the city — think Google Maps on steroids. It shows the full capabilities of the primary external camera, which from two miles out can produce a realtime image detailed enough to be mistaken for being from across the street.
Pilot Officer Andy Lacayo said those combined technologies will make tracking fleeing suspects — and directing officers on the ground — safer and more efficient.
“We get eyes on them quicker,” he said.
That function was in full effect during a test flight with this news organization, when on Thursday afternoon the new helicopter hovered over a fiery crash on Highway 101 and pilots zoomed in to get an upclose photo-realistic view of the scene — including infrared images — despite being more than a thousand feet in the air.
But perhaps most important of all the new features is a basic one. Air3 just has more power, nearly twice that of its soonto-be predecessor, at 849 shaft horsepower. (It’s a variation of horsepower that isn’t a direct equivalent of traditional automotive horsepower, and this newspaper doesn’t want to be chided by aviation aficionados.)
That’s not just a chestthumping stat. If they need to quickly transport officers, or have to make an impromptu rescue, the extra oomph gives them the latitude to do that spontaneously.
It also allows them to double its passenger capacity to six. Guggiana, a native of the North Bay ravaged by the Wine Country Fires last fall, poignantly recalled how vital that was when California Highway Patrol helicopter crews evacuated dozens of residents by loading them quickly into choppers similar to Air3.
The path to the new helicopter was beset by turbulence. Nearly every year since 2010, the department budgeted funds to buy a new aircraft, but saw those plans derailed for a myriad of reasons, including the grounding of the helicopter unit in 2011 for budget savings.
The up-and-down fortunes of the effort at one point drew the wrath of the Justice Department, which in an audit last year pointed out that SJPD was sitting on hundreds of thousands of federal asset foreiture funds that were meant to be spent expeditiously. The money was actually being socked away for the intended helicopter purchase that kept falling through.
But Guggiana, with the backing of the city council — and eventually, even the feds, whose funds ultimately covered more than half the purchase — spent the last year and a half pushing the acquisition past the finish line.
Garcia said the strong support of the council was crucial in securing the new helicopter.
“This doesn’t happen without them,” he said.
And as it has been for the department’s history, Air3 will be the lone chopper operated by SJPD. LAPD, on which San Jose modeled its air support program, has 19 helicopters in its fleet.
Granted, San Jose doesn’t have nearly as many highspeed car chases, but the department is enthusiastic about having a much more reliable eye in the sky.
“We’re going to catch a lot of bad guys with this tool,” Garcia said.