Flight Design CTLS: Sheriff wants more eyes in the sky

 

Tulare County Sheriff's Flight Design CTLS aircraft, with the call sign, “Sheriff One,” which the county purchased in 2001. The department plans to order a second plane, an updated model which will include air conditioning, which the current plane doesn’t have. That forces the pilot and passenger to wear cooling vests on hot days.

 (Photo: Submitted )

Since the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department purchased a new plane in 2011, the tiny aircraft has gotten a lot of use, from searching for suspects on the ground, spotting marijuana groves and finding an Alzheimer’s patient who wandered away from home.

Despite the single-engine plane being in the air up to eight hours a day, five days a week, Sheriff Mike Boudreaux wants his department to have a presence in the air every day and covering more of the county.

To that end, his department is preparing to order a second Flight Design CTLS-model airplane for about $256,000, and the department could be flying it in four to six months.

But before that happens, the Sheriff’s Department will hire a civilian to be the primary pilot of the department’s current plane — referred to by its call sign, “Sheriff One” — and Boudreaux said he wants to hire a second pilot once the new plane arrives.

“I’m looking at ‘civilianizing’ the Air Unit and getting it off the ground,” Boudreaux said this week following the Tulare County Supervisors’ vote on Tuesday to authorize hiring of the first civilian pilot at a salary of $61,196 a year.

The department is freezing a vacant deputy’s position to pay the pilot’s salary, Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Watson told the supervisors on Tuesday.

Currently, Sheriff One is flown primarily by retired Sheriff’s Sgt. Dave Williams, who now works as a reservist for the department.

“But as a reservist, I can only use him so many hours a year,” said Boudreaux. Two civilian pilots fill in when Williams isn’t available to fly.

The Sheriff’s Department also operates an “aero squadron,” a group of civilian pilots who can be called out to fly their own planes when extra aircraft are needed for emergencies.

In the past, the Sheriff’s Department had a lieutenant and a sergeant who were pilots and flew Sheriff One, as needed, but their salaries are higher than what the county is budgeting for a civilian pilot, and those deputies may be of better use working patrol or investigations than flying, the Sheriff said.

Plus the civilian pilot will fly with a deputy in the passenger seat, an observer who can testify to what he or she sees, write reports and coordinate with deputies on the ground while the pilot focuses on flying, Boudreaux said.

He added that he plans to have a small group of deputies who divide some of their work serving as observers.

With two planes, the department can have one plane in the air while the other is on the ground for normal maintenance, Boudreaux said. In addition, one could focus on patrolling one end of the county while the other focuses on the other end.

Having “eyes in the sky” to watch over a crime scene or search area can improve safety for deputies, and it has been particularly helpful in spotting agricultural crimes, Boudreaux said.

“Having that second airplane gives us that force optimizer,” he added.

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