LAPD’s Air-Support Division
March 26th, 2016Via: New York Times:
The air-support division of the Los Angeles Police Department operates out of a labyrinthine building on Ramirez Street in the city’s downtown, near the Los Angeles River. A looming mass of utilitarian architecture tucked beside the 101 Freeway, the complex appears to have no real public face; here the view from the street matters little. Instead, like much of the city around it, the air-support division makes more sense when seen from above.
On the first of several flights I would take with the division over the course of the last three years, our helicopter lifted off into the haze of a July afternoon. The true bulk of the structure below us finally revealed itself. The building’s landing deck alone seemed nearly the size of an aircraft carrier’s, and from this new, elevated perspective, the headquarters indeed resembled a landlocked warship in the heart of the city; a half-dozen other helicopters were waiting there on the tarmac. The division began with a single helicopter in 1956, and it now has 19 in all, augmented by a King Air fixed-wing plane. The aircrews operate in a state of constant readiness, with at least two helicopters in flight at any given time for 21 hours of every day. A ground crew is suited up and on call for the remaining three, between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. On weekends, considered peak hours, the number of airborne helicopters goes up to three, although in a crisis the division might send as many as four or five “ships” up at once.
