Hey, I am Matthew Burchette, and this is a special law enforcement
edition of Behind the Wings, and we are taking off from KAPA.
Clear runway 35, left clear, touching down.
Hey, everybody. Welcome to a special law enforcement edition of
Behind the Wings. And, as you can see behind me: Colorado State Patrol Air
section aircraft. We're in their hangar. How cool is this? I'm going to love filming
this episode. And I hope you're going to love watching it.
Now, did you guys know that there are over 300 different aviation sections, or divisions, in law
enforcement across the United States? Take for example LAPD's air section.
That's 19 helicopters and one King Air, for an area of 500 square miles.
Two helicopters are in the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
By contrast, the Colorado State Patrol aviation section has five aircraft, but
patrols 104,000 square miles. That's our entire state with five planes.
That is pretty cool! What is also cool is trooper Nate Reid,
who we're going to go talk to right now.
Alright, we're here with Trooper Reid, who's been with the Colorado State Patrol
for 12 years and with the aviation section for just over a year. Nate, thank
you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it. Can you give us kind of a
quick overview of CSP's air section, and what it does and how long it's been
around and all that kind of good stuff.
Yeah! Actually, this year will mark our
50th year as a continual law enforcement agency
Oh wow!
for the state of Colorado.
We did have airplanes in use before that time, but they were not on a
continual basis. But this year, this Labor Day, marks our 50th year using these
airplanes for enforcement purposes.
Well congratulations.
Thanks.
Speaking of airplanes, how many does the CSP have?
The CSP has five airplanes.
We have a King Air 200, that's behind us. We use that primarily to
transport people. So we'll transport the governor, other
state agency officials, other members of our agency, our own CSP members to all
over the state and all over this country.
Wow! So I noticed behind us is a Cessna 340.
Can you give us a little bit of difference between the two?
Yeah, obviously, the size is a big difference.
One is piston powered, and one is turbine powered. The King Air is much faster than
than the 340, but the 340 has a place in our in our in our system here.
When we don't have to transport as many people, that's a good option. It has
to be a cost-effective way of travel, as well, so this one being a little more
expensive, it will take you less time.
But the 340 a little cheaper, but you put fewer people on.
You don't want to put three people in the King Air, when you can put three people in the 340.
That's right. it's just a cost-saving thing.
So besides these guys, you've also got some 180s.
But they're kind of used for very special mission, and what is that?
They're Cessna 182s, and they're turbocharged 182s.
And those are pretty specific toward law enforcement missions.
When you're doing law enforcement, one of your big things is speeders.
Correct.
And so, I'm that guy who sees the sign that says "Speed Enforced by Aircraft."
I just put the hammer down, because you guys aren't up there.
Right.
But you really are we are up there.
In fact, we are up there, yep. And we try to be up there.
There's two of us or three of us that could be up there every single day.
No kidding. So how does that actually work?
Well, I'd be happy to show you, but...
Oh, yeah! Can we go on a flight?
Absolutely.
Oh yeah! Let's go.
Alright.
Alright, let's check it out.
We've just taken off from Centennial Airport, and we are about to go on a mission with Nate.
Sorry that was Kodiak two. Kodiak Two west approved.
West approved, thanks. Sorry.
No worries.
He had to talk to the tower really quick. We're on a special mission with trooper Nate Reid.
We're actually going to stop a couple of cars today that are speeding down 470.
What you didn't know is those signs that say, "Speed Enforced by Aircraft," that's true.
And we're going to find out how that works. What altitude are you normally flying at?
About 1,500 feet off the ground, because I like to see what kind
of vehicle it is. Make sure I can tell what it is.
And here we're about a thousand feet.
So with the clouds, it's a little lower than we usually are.
But somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 feet above the ground.
So people aren't really, they're not even going to notice.
They won't even know we're up here, no.
We're going to run into this cloud layer. This ain't going to work.
So we got to get up to 75, and I don't think it's going to happen.
Yeah, I don't think so either.
So let's go to I-25.
Yeah, the weather is kind of coming in quicker than we expected.
And I got to stay 500 feet below this cloud layer. So unfortunately, it's not going to work today.
Let me let our dispatch know.
Any day you get to fly, though, is still good day.
Still a beautiful day, yeah. Amazing this, you can't replicate this, you know.
You never see this on the ground, and...
Oh yeah!
it's pretty special being up here.
So we were heading over to 470, and what we were going to do is
we were going to hook up with a trooper on the ground, who was actually looking for
speeders. Now, your job was to actually identify the car that was X many miles
above the speed limit. How does that actually work? How are you able to assertain
that car A is going faster than, say 75 miles an hour.
So, we have marks that are painted on some designated portions of highway that are determine
by the troop commander. And, in those areas, there big white stripes on the shoulder, and
we have stop watches attached here to the yoke. And what we'll do is,
they're a half mile apart. When it gets to that first mark, I would start my stopwatch.
Okay.
And I would watch that vehicle, and I watch what kind of traveling
behavior it has. Whether it's doing some aggressive driving or something like
this. And once it gets past the first mark, I will get a speed and the clock
does the calculation for me. Yeah, the days of having to do it yourself are over.
Oh, that is nice.
And then, there are four or five marks on the road.
I radio down to the trooper. I stay with the trooper, until that trooper pulls the vehicle over.
I let him know that they have the correct
vehicle stopped. I would turn around and go try to measure another one's speed.
It's saturating. It's hard to do it first, but once you
get the hang of it, it's really pretty easy.
So, how many stops can you make in say an hour or two?
A couple hours op., we could we can stop, you know, 15 to 18 cars
Wow!
in that location. Where me on the road, it would take me all day to stop you 10 cars.
With all the traffic, air traffic, around here,
Yeah
especially 172s, 182's
Yeah.
unless you're really looking for the CSP underneath the wing.
Yeah.
You're never going to know.
No, and, you know, we don't just do this here. So, you know, in the middle of nowhere you
might be able to see us, it does say CSP under the wing, but probably not.
And you're not expecting
Oh, heck no.
You're not expecting somebody in the air to be
measuring your speed. But we do this every day, so we're definitely out there.
Well, you know, I am definitely one of those guys who has said, "Oh speed check
by radar," looking at the sign, "Yeah, sure."
Well, I'm going to have to lay off the gas from now on.
We appreciate that. We
prefer that way
prefer voluntary compliance. But, otherwise, we have to write you a ticket and try to teach you that way.
Already
with Trooper with
I'm Nate Reid, and I'm here with Matthew.
Yeah! Yeah! And we're out!
Well, Trooper Reid, the weather didn't really
cooperate, but it was still an awesome flight, because, hey, you're flying around and
Yeah
there's nothing ever bad about that.
Right.
Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun.
Thank you, Matt. Thanks for coming along.
And thank you guys for tuning in to this
really cool episode of Behind the Wings and our awesome Colorado State
Patrol Air section. Question or comments make sure to put them on
YouTube or Facebook, and we will answer them in short order. Thanks guys.