My first Sea King flight was an unbelievable and amazing experience. I had 30 minutes in the aircraft but it felt like 10, but in that 30 minutes, I sat in the main winch bay, sat at an observation bubble window, asked lots of questions, listened into the crew’s radio conversations and even experienced what happens when the engine fails, which was quite thrilling. The best bit was being harnessed up as we looked out of the Sea King’s bay door and being told to look down by placing our heads outside the helicopter.

When we landed there was the chance to look round the Humberside Police ‘copper chopper’ which was very interesting. We found out that last year 398 arrests had be made using the Police helicopter.They have the ability to airlift people from road accidents, capture criminals in the dark with a thermal imaging camera or the normal three band colour camera and VCR. The aircraft carries a P3 processor with a rolling map at a scale of 1:400, Four ranges of radios, including police, rescue, and encrypted channels. A really good piece of equipment for the job it does.

We also got to use the fire hoses on vehicles from the fire section, were shown other pieces of equipment carried on the 6 wheeled Range Rover, including ‘the jaws of life’, the hydraulic cutting equipment. I think this experience was an excellent learning opportunity- to find out about the Police Helicopter, to fly in a Sea King over the Humber Bridge, to find out about the Fire Section on Air Bases and, if you were lucky, try out an immersion suit and not get wet.

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