Springs puts police copters up for sale, pilots on the ground

The Colorado Springs Police Department has lost its wings.

In a decommissioning ceremony Tuesday, the department bid farewell to its Air Support Unit, one police budget line on a list of many that were cut because of projected city budget shortfalls in 2010. After 13 years of service — the most recent of which carried a constant question mark about the unit’s survival — two helicopters are for sale, and three helicopter pilots will go back to ground patrol.

“With this decommissioning, the Air Support Unit joins a growing list of services and units within CSPD that are no longer in operation. We in the police department are frustrated and sad to witness our declining ability to provide the quality of service one should expect in one of America’s top 50 cities,” Chief Richard Myers said. “But our job is to prioritize.”

The Vietnam-era helicopters, OH-58C Bell Jet Rangers built in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were donated to Springs police in 1995. The copters have logged more than 13,000 flight hours responding to nearly 28,500 calls for service.

The unit responded to natural disasters such as wildfires, critical incidents, vehicle pursuits and missing children. It also performed surveillance for parks and open space and utilities infrastructure and flew the perimeter of Colorado Springs Airport checking for security breaches.

Between the aging fleet’s maintenance worries and three years of scrounging for funding, the helicopters’ demise has been a long time coming.

“We all knew we were in a race here, to see what was going to ground us first: running out of money or wearing out the aircraft,” Myers said. “The aircraft won.”

Tuesday, Myers emphasized that the city is losing a “force multiplier” and a tool employed by half of all cities the size of the Springs.

“The Metropolitan Colorado Springs community is only going to grow, and its demands are only going to increase,” Myers said.

As recently as two years ago, the department was searching for money to buy a new helicopter, which would cost about $3.5 million.

Now, it is looking to sell its two 40-year old choppers to a rancher or another city looking to start an air-support unit, said Sgt. Dan Lofgren, the unit’s former supervisor.

The asking price is $350,000 for the two of them.