Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1034474
Formally, the Police Aviation Force started its activity on 9 May 2001, when the reform process was completed. Although most of the equipment was not new at the time of handover, nothing had been done to improve the situation with the available equipment for many years. On the contrary, the number of helicopters has gradually started to decrease by being withdrawn from service due to the run-down of service life. What is more, police tiltrotors are used not only for tasks to be handled by the abovementioned service, but also to support others – among their most spectacular achievements there are: extraction of workers' corpses from the chimney of the Kozienice power plant, participation in the aid for the victims of floods in the southern part of the country, and support given to TOPR (Tatra Mountains Volunteer Rescue Service). Unfortunately, despite several technical modernization projects (including the National Helicopter Program, the Police Modernization Act of 2007), the only successes have been: purchase of the used Bell 206B JetRanger III as well as transfers of used helicopters from the Ministry of Defence (Bell 412HP) and the Border Guard (W-3 Sokół and Mi-2). Interestingly enough, many government documents from the turn of the century pointed to the need for a purchase of new helicopters, including medium multi-purpose one, to fill the gap after the withdrawn Mi-8S, replace the Mi-8T (planned to be withdrawn in 2017-18), and expand the operational potential. At the turn of the year, the police tried to purchase new helicopters, which was related to the decrease in the number of assets at disposal – three Mi-2s were to be withdrawn by the end of 2019, when the service life is to expire. They were to be succeeded by light multi-purpose machines – the tender was launched on 21 November and the bids were opened on 9 April. It turned out then that the only offer (Heli Invest) significantly exceeded the assumed budget (PLN 77.2 million gross, while the police planned to spend PLN 53 million). As expected, on 20 April the procedure was cancelled – one of the reasons for such a response from the industry was the fact that the police required the delivery of equipment www.fragoutmag.com