Where we live in Hyde we are near to the Werneth Low Country Park, the main road from Hyde to Stockport, the River Tame, The Peak Forest Canal and various wooded areas. It's no surprise to us, therefore, when we occasionally see the police helicopter circling overhead searching for someone who's been up to no good and is proving difficult for the police on the ground to trace. Here are some photographs I took about 3 years ago of one such incident.
This particular helicopter (G-CPAO) is the one operated by the Cheshire Police and is based at Hawarden, near Chester. It's a Eurocopter EC135 P2+, about which Wikipedia says the following:
It's probably more usual in these parts to see the Greater Manchester Police helicopter (G-GMPX), based at City Airport (Manchester Barton), but there is an arrangement in place in the North West for aircraft from 4 different locations to be used across the region, as this Wikipedia article about the Cheshire Constabulary details:
'On 27 February 2009, the Constabulary confirmed that the Home Office had agreed to jointly fund the purchase of a new £1 million Eurocopter EC135 aircraft, to be operational 24 hours a day.
On 18 July 2011, the North West Air Operations Group (NWAOG) was launched. The NWAOG is a regional collaboration between five forces and police authorities. The service dispatches aircraft from a regional command desk to incidents across Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and North Wales.
The five forces in the North have four helicopters, based at four different locations throughout the North West, providing a service anywhere in the region, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
With 24-hour cover, the collaboration will enable the five forces to cope better with demand, with efficient use of all four helicopters, whilst enabling forces to make further savings and maintain resilience across the region. This is a move away from the concept of having one helicopter serving one region, to adopting the identity of one unit with support provided to all five forces
The collaboration allows for considerable savings, while offering an improved air support service. Benefits of the arrangement include the facility to have the closest helicopter deployed quickly to any incident and if there are two incidents in the same force area, then two helicopters can be deployed as necessary.'
Incidentally, when I was looking at the photographs above I enlarged part of the first one to see a face peering down at me taking the photograph:
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