My ride in a police helicopter

[JSkating2]

Ive been spotted by a copter before. The light is so cool

[TheGatman101]

the spotlight is useless.... why havnt this heli got infrared yet?

[Odonataman]

3:34, the pilots demonstrated their FLIR system for me. The spot light wasn't used as a search tool, but I would guess to assist the officers who were fumbling in the dark. Kind of makes you wish you had watched the whole video before you asked, doesn't it? :)

[TheGatman101]

i figure the spotlight would be dangerous to shine on highway drivers..... however the forward looking infra red camera would see em better and not cause crashes

[Odonataman]

They just used the spotlight to get the drivers attention. Because they were high above, no one got a light in the face or anything, it just became daytime for them. Maybe a little startling, but the only affect should be to slow them down, which was the idea.

[Jakeequa]

@TheGatman101 The police helicopters do have a infrared system called a Flir. And the spotlight on these things are called night sun's.

[adam3176]

cool vid man

[beaman220]

Haha the guy driving at the end all drove away.

[SonicRyan]

4:35 thats sweet!

[bearkillr]

they were flying pretty low werent they?

[Odonataman]

I thought it would be cool to start the video as we were taking off, so it literally shows the pavement from several feet off the ground. After that, we went lower whenever we were looking for suspects or supporting ground units.

[Odonataman]

No, it was an EC 120. At that time (unlike now), Air Two was stationed at San Jose Int Airport and I helped them with some maintenance issues and they just asked one day when I wanted to go up.

[Highice007]

Very cool! What type of helicopter was it, a Bell Jet Ranger? How did you get permission to go up?

[cadetkvn]

they do give civilian air ridealongs at san jose and sheriff (santa clara)

[notar1]

@cadetkvn really ? how much