A $4.5 million ask: Fort Worth police want to buy a new Bell helicopter
A new police helicopter could be flying over Fort Worth by the end of the year at of cost of nearly $4.5 million.
The Fort Worth City Council will vote Tuesday on purchasing a Bell 505 police helicopter mostly with funds from a half cent sales tax dedicated to the police. It will replace a more than 20 year-old-helicopter that will likely be scrapped for parts. The helicopter costs about $2.4 million, with additional technology and equipment at about $1.7 million. A Bell training course runs just under $245,000.
The department expects to receive the helicopter by November.
The city operates two helicopters: a 1996 model with about 24,000 flight hours and a 2003 model with about 13,900 flight hours.
“Because replacement parts are difficult to find for these helicopters, one will be used as parts to repair the other,” Sgt. Chris Daniels said.
It wasn’t immediately clear how often the department has used its two helicopters. Asked how many times a helicopter was deployed in 2019, a police spokesman responded that a formal records request would be needed to gather the information. Information about the cost to fly the aircraft was also not available with out a records request.
Helicopters are not cheap to operate — the city budgeted $450,000 per year for maintenance and fuel.
A 2018 Bell 505 costs about $465 per hour to fly, according to avbuyer.com, an aviation purchasing website. Aviation news website AINonline reported Sacramento was one of the first cities to receive a law enforcement-configured Bell 505 in late 2018. Stockton, California’s police department also received an early model and anticipated spending $1.7 million annually to operate the helicopter based on flying it 16 hours a week.
Most of the funding to purchase the new helicopter will come from the Crime Control Prevent District which uses a half-cent sales tax to fund police efforts, including vehicles, training and equipment. Voters will be asked in May to extend the tax for 10 years. About $876,000 will come from a 2016 allocation from the city’s general fund.
When the department last floated the idea of buying a new helicopter in the spring of 2018, it said it wanted the ability to shoot from the aircraft, drop officers onto rooftops and perform land and water rescues, among other things.
Regardless of whether the helicopter has those capabilities, department policy prevents officers from shooting from the helicopter or transporting people for emergency medical purposes, Daniels said.
The city issued bids for helicopters last summer and considered a larger model that would allow the department to “perform various missions” or a smaller patrol and observation model or both. After receiving two responses, the department determined the smaller observation model was best.
The helicopter will be equipped with video technology that includes infrared, thermal and night vision and will be primarily used to “support patrol with observation and searches,” the department said in an email.
Police first approached the city’s purchasing department about the need for a new helicopter in 2016 with the intention of using grant funding. That fell through in 2017 when the state didn’t give the OK to spend money on a new helicopter and the grants expired, according to Star-Telegram archives.
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
