Page 47 - John George Blair

Between 1962 and 1964, the UK's first police helicopter trials took place in the
county of Durham, utilizing Brantly B-2's from British Executive Air Services (BEAS),
who were the UK Brantly distributor.

While BEAS were responsible for supplying aircraft and pilots, it seems as though
they called upon other Brantly operators to assist in the contract, including Helicon
Air of Darlington. This was a business owned by Alistair Craig (brother of the
television actress Wendy Craig). One of the pilots flying for Helicon Air, was
Canadian Dick Dorman, who was accompanied on the very first trial flights by
Sergeant Jack Blair, who performed the role of observer. Jack would later be dubbed
Britain's first 'heli cop'. His only equipment was a 35mm camera, a portable two-way
radio, and a pair of binoculars.

In the1960's, many financial transactions were made using cash, resulting in large
sums of money being transported by road or rail, and which, as the Great Train
Robbers proved, were highly vulnerable. As a result, the Durham Brantly’s were
tasked to a variety of traffic monitoring duties as well as, specifically, providing
'airborne escort' to cash-in-transit vans.

Consequently, during the two year trial period, there were no cash robberies from
vehicles in Durham or North Yorkshire. The cost of the helicopter was £17, 10
shillings per hour, and which was shared between the Home Office and the Durham
Constabulary.

Perhaps because of its success and low cost (equivalent to running two patrol cars),
the Home Office employed a helicopter to police the growing M6 traffic in the west of
the country. This however, proved more expensive, resulting in the Home Office
allocating funds from the Durham trial to subsidize it. As a result, the Durham trial
was grounded in 1964.

In 1967 Home Secretary Roy Jenkins came to Durham to lay the foundation stone
for the new police headquarters at Aykley Heads. The Chief Constable at the time,
Alec Muir, thought it would be an idea to convince the Home Secretary of the
benefits of police air support, and so the Home Secretary was flown from Teesside
Airport to Aykley.
For inflight entertainment, the Chief Constable had laid on a dummy bank job, which
involved the helicopter giving chase to a hijacked security van along the A689. The
Home Secretary's response to this demonstration was to state that “As an
operational tool, the helicopter may have great potential in the police force”.
However, no further Home Office funding was received by the Constabulary for the
use of helicopters.

In 1989 the Northumbria Police began another helicopter trial which was so
successful that, in 1995, the three North-East Constabularies joined forces to create
the North-East Air Support Unit.