Helicopters are cool

You don't see them nearly as often as airplanes, so it's always kind of special when you hear the thumping of a helicopter flying overhead. Hey, where's that coming from? Oh, there it is! Coooool...

They look cool; they sound cool; who wouldn't want one?

The paramedics want one for Winnipeg, after the life-saving rescue of miracle-boy Samuel Gross involving our medical rent-a-copter during the flood.

Tom Brodbeck wants another one for the Winnipeg Police:

The story of the scumbags who smashed their way into the home of Winnipeg police Insp. Danny Smyth over the weekend is a perfect example of how a police helicopter could have helped apprehend the suspects. ... If a police helicopter had been airborne at the time, it probably would have arrived on the scene in less than two minutes.

Yes ... if it were airborne. Is this thing going to be airborne 24 hours a day? Yikes ... that could get expensive. It is very tempting because of the aformentioned cool factor, but seriously, what is the return on investment here? Ok, suppose we catch the kids who broke into the house or stole the car or whatever: these kids get another mark to add to the collection on their record and get released back into public the next day. Was that worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars that it cost to buy this machine, staff it, fuel it, maintain it, and have it flying around all the time? Maybe once the justice system is toughened up a little bit, but right now it doesn't seem worth it. Perhaps if we equip the helicopter with guns or heat-seeking missals ....

Let me bounce another idea off the interweb: a combined-use Emergency Services helicopter. I don't know if that's doable, but if they could stick an infra-red camera on a medi-chopper and make it available for use by both the Police and Paramedic services, then we could "leverage our synergies" and make the whole thing a little more cost-effective.