FWC Helicopter Pilots Complete
Special Training
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August 30, 2005
Seventy years ago, Florida’s wildlife conservation officers rode
horses into wilderness areas to detect law violations and arrest
offenders. Today, their horses can fly, and they can see in the
dark. |
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The Florida Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC’s) 11 helicopter pilots
recently completed three days of intense training in emergency
procedures and use of night-vision goggles. Lunsford Air Consulting,
Inc., of Bunnell, conducted the training at the Flagler County
Airport.
The course, designed especially for FWC pilots, consisted of a
one-day ground school, in which pilots reviewed all the mechanical
systems aboard the FWC’s six helicopters. The second and third days
consisted of day and night flights with simulated mechanical
failures and flying with night-vision goggles. The $20,350-course
also included refresher flight training the pilots undergo twice a
year.
Kevin Vislocky, who heads the FWC’s Aviation Section, said the
night-vision goggle training and night emergency procedures training
are especially important for FWC pilots, because most of their
patrols occur at night about 50 details per year for each pilot.
The FWC is the only state law enforcement agency in Florida to fly
at night using night-vision goggles and one of the first civil law
enforcement agencies in the country to use them, he said. We set the
standard by doing recurrent training and using the goggles in
conjunction with infrared cameras.
Flying resource-protection missions at night can be dangerous work
under the best of conditions, and FWC pilots sometimes have to fly
when conditions are severe.
We believe this night training is imperative to prepare our pilots
to cope with the severe situations they may face during their flying
careers, Vislocky said. They have to be ready to fly details at
night to detect gill net violations, illegal deer- and
alligator-hunting violations and search-and-rescue missions that can
be particularly challenging.
The FWC’s 13 total aircraft and pilots compose one of the largest
conservation-oriented flight sections in the United States and one
of the 20 largest law enforcement aviation sections in the country.
The first year FWC pilots used night-vision goggles, they made 150
cases in two of the agency’s five regions.
That’s 150 resource violations that might have gone undetected and
uninterrupted if we didn’t have this new technology working for us,
Vislocky said.
In one case this year, FWC pilots observed a group of people hunting
deer at night for 90 minutes while directing ground units to the
remote site. The operation resulted in five arrests and seizure of
three illegally killed deer.
Training law enforcement aviation units is one of Lunsford Air
Consulting, Inc.’s specialties. |
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