Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Air Unit: Longline rescue and air support part 1 | EP 368

Welcome back to the Hangar Z Podcast, brought to you by Vertical HeliCASTS, in partnership with Valor Plus.

On today's episode, we're taking you to California's Central Valley as we visit the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Office Air Support Unit. Joining us are Deputy AJ Nikkel and Deputy Tyler Liburdi, who both serve as pilots and tactical flight officers. 

We'll explore the fascinating evolution of their aviation unit—from its beginnings as a volunteer organization to the professional operation it is today. 

We also discuss long-line rescue operations, the training and proficiency required to perform these demanding missions, and the unit's first successful real-world water rescue. Plus, we talk about the importance of providing support from above and the value of working seamlessly with neighboring aviation units. 

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Thank you to our sponsors Bell, Precision Aviation Group and Spectrolab.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Hangers E Podcast, brought to you by Vertical Helicast and partner with Vertical Valor Plus. I'm your host, Jack Shanley. With me today is the creator of the Hangers E Podcast, John Gray. John, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Jack, good morning, good afternoon, good to see you.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hey, glad to be back. You've been a busy guy getting ready for some important stuff, including the MRO conference in uh Kelowna, Canada, coming up in uh when's that? It's October.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Beginning of October and November. Yeah, on that. I just got back from Kelowna and Kelowna, uh British Columbia is one of those places that people talked about, and I didn't take seriously. They talked about how pretty it was and what a cool place it was. And I'm like, uh, I live in a mountain town. How cool could it really be? But man, what a cool place.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Good.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Uh yeah, that conference is going to be the first week of October, and it's a conference dedicated to helicopter maintenance.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

You know, walk a lot around a lot of the conferences that we're used to, Verticon, AppsCon, and maintenance is an afterthought at all those conferences. So this conference is is developed and dedicated to promoting the the maintenance staff that that makes all our missions possible. So yeah, really cool. It's great to be there and excited for this year's conference.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Well, welcome back, eh?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

It's good uh good to have you back, and uh and we're gonna uh spend a couple hours here with a crew from uh Stanislaus County, California. It's in the Central Valley. We'll talk more about where it is and what Stanislaus is all about, but we're very fortunate to to have uh a couple of people from that unit. Deputy AJ Nickel. AJ, how are you?

SPEAKER_04 1:40

I'm doing good. Good morning. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Good, good. Welcome to the Hanger Z. Yeah, I'm glad I'm excited to be here. Good. And Deputy Tyler Laburdi. Tyler, good morning. Welcome to the Hanger Z podcast.

SPEAKER_05 1:53

Good morning. Thank you. Yeah, excited to be with you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Oh, we're thrilled to have you guys. Was there a cage match to figure out who which two came on from the from the unit? And I that's what I suggested when they when the sergeant said, here's these four names, I go, I need two. Have them cage match or something. So you guys won.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

Yep, yeah, we won. We won. I think it was a maybe a pickleball game or something, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Oh, okay.

unknown 2:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

All right. I hope hopefully it was just pickleball and nobody got choked out just to make it on as cool as that would be. And if if that did happen, you don't want to talk about it, just send us the video, we'll add it to the uh to the YouTube site. It's great to have you guys. And uh it's um it it's interesting. Every unit has you know a unique history, every unit, from the largest to the smallest. And Stanislaus is no exception to that rule. You have a unique history uh for your unit, where you were and where you are. And so I gave AJ a heads up on this because I know I don't want I would never surprise anybody with this question. But AJ, if you could uh give us just a general history and the evolution of the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Air Unit, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Yeah, for sure. Um so I'm not sure on the exact dates uh when everything first began, but it started, they were called the Aero Squadron. Um and it was just a group of volunteers, and they had airplanes, the pilots volunteered their time, and I believe even some of the observers were volunteers, um, and they would kind of like a call out basis. If something major was going on and the department felt like they had the need, then they would give the call out and one of the volunteers would respond out. And then that kind of progressed, and then in 1995, the office got a couple OH-58s from a grant. And then once that happened, then we started mixing in sworn deputies into the unit. And then over over the years, it kind of started um just getting filled with sworn deputies, and it became an actual unit within the department. And then eventually uh Gallo, who is based here uh in Modesto, they had donated one of their old helicopters. So we got a jet ranger, and then eventually a long ranger, um, and then kind of where we're at now. And yeah, so it all started with volunteers, eventually became fully sworn. Um, and so the unit is completely staffed with sworn deputies and full time. So it's been quite quite the evolution.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

And the airframe now? I know we're gonna talk more about airframes and all the mission equipment later, but it's come to what airframe you fly in now primarily. Yep, now we have a 407, uh the GXP.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

Nice. Yeah. Wow. It's been a great addition.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Quite that's quite an evolution right there. And uh I love it. You know, from volunteers and fixed wing to a Bell 407 over over some time, but it uh it it evolved because good work was being done, even by the volunteers at that time, my understanding is. And I love the the Gallo winery uh connection. That's just really cool. You got support. Gallo's obviously a big employer there in in your county, but the fact that they supported uh the sheriff's department and and the air unit with helicopters pretty unique. Pretty unique. That's that's really cool. So, Tyler, let's talk about something that's I think is is fairly unique. One of the missions that your unit has taken on and not that long ago, and you can give us the timing of it, is long line rescue. Uh now, long line rescue is there's there's a lot of air units around the country that don't even know what that is. I mean, they're like, what are they doing? Longline rescue. But you guys took that on, as did some other units that we're gonna talk about that that even helped you guys uh with this. Talk about what longline rescue is and the and the learning curve that it took on that technique.

SPEAKER_05 5:57

Uh yeah, long line, I've heard it also referred to as short haul. It's basically just fixing uh in our case, it's a hundred-foot static rope to uh hooks underneath the helicopter, and then the pilot places the TFO wherever he needs to be to do what it is that he needs to do. Um so we've we've been doing it, the the unit has been doing it for quite a while. Um we got um and AJ can correct me if any of this is incorrect, but uh we we got a lot of assistance from Sonoma County to get into it. They're kind of like the the long line gurus. They are um and they use a 407, so uh the training platform is very, very similar, exactly the same as what we're using now. Uh and I believe we started doing it back um when we got the jet ranger. They were using a belly band uh to long line from the bottom of the jet ranger. And it just kind of evolved from then the two the long ranger was a little more capable. That became our primary um long line aircraft, and since then now we have the 407, which is very capable. Um we have a in our county, we don't really have uh I know a lot of these guys CHP and a lot of other people have access to hoists, which is phenomenal. In our county, the long line uh works out great. We can sit down and and set up and pick people up fairly quickly. We don't have a lot of um the topography here is pretty mostly flat. We have some mountains out in the west west end and we kind of run into the the foothills on the east end, but most of it's flat. Um so we'll be picking people up out of the rivers. Uh we have off-road parks that we uh utilize the the long line system in. We have utilized several times people roll an ATV down a hill or something, we can get get them to an ambulance. So it works really well for us in our situation.

SPEAKER_04 7:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:50

And I think um the learning curve, we've we've adapted a lot from Xenomin County, like I said before, and they're really, really great at it, and we're we basically just mirror a lot of stuff they do. Um so the learning curve, there we have multiple different rescue apparatus that we use. Just knowing uh what situation, what injuries you'd put somebody in one over the other is probably one of the the biggest learning curves, understanding how to put people in it correctly and safely. And I feel like we've done a really good job at that uh as far as training up new TFOs that they're coming on the unit, understanding the correct application for each uh piece of equipment that we use underneath the helicopters.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Wow. Well, Sonoma, we they've been on the podcast. One of our favorite, one of our favorite podcasts was with the Sonoma guys, and they have I agree, they've perfected this. And what a you couldn't have had a better mentor agency than Sonoma County to do the long line. They're they've just they've been doing it a long time. They've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. They've they've they've really worked through it carefully. They're very meticulous, very professional. They've evolved in it. I loved it when we talked to them, we talked to John about how they evolved and how in the beginning it was kind of ooh, you know, what are we doing? And to the point where now they're like, it's like clockwork.

SPEAKER_04 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Uh yeah, we're doing it a lot. And and they mentioned you guys, by the way, um, when we talked to them, that they that they were proud to be part of helping you guys get uh get going in that area and and help you in any way they can. And they're they're very open about uh sharing information.

SPEAKER_05 9:37

Yeah, that's been great.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

So I'm not surprised that you're talking about Sonoma. That's they're great, that's a great unit.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Great unit. As we started talking about this, the the first question that came to mind, I was like, I wonder if Sonoma had a hand in helping you guys develop, which obviously you answered, but that's one of the things I love about our industry is is the willingness to to step up and help other agencies when they are developing a new program, coming up with a new SOP or whatever that might be. And Jack, you guys at LAPD were huge with that. You know, everything that LAPD has that's written down as an SOP is open to anybody who needs something like that. But talk about your guys' experience working with Sonoma, you know, obviously during that initial training period, but what that ongoing training looks like if you guys compare notes and how you guys help each other kind of sharpen the edge.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

We used to do an annual training with them, and we had our whole unit would go up there and we'd spend two, three days just reviewing notes, techniques, and then you know, going into live repetitions. And then unfortunately, COVID hit um and that put the kabosh on group trainings for quite a while. And since then, the the actual in-person training has kind of fizzled out. But like you said, they're very open. Um, every they answer phone calls, answer questions, whatever it might be. They're uh very easy to get a hold of and talk to about anything that comes up. And it kind of reminds me, I like to reach out and try to get that annual training uh kind of re-established and back into it. It was a good, good going up there, and um, especially just the different topography that they have up there versus Stanislaus County. Because we get a lot of mutual aid requests going up to the Sierras and other places, so getting that exposure before an actual call and on a more regular basis it would be would be fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah, we talk about that quite a bit, and a lot of the conversations we have talks about, you know, what we'd call training flights, you know, getting out of our area of operation. So that way, if you if you're working a pursuit or you're working some incident, you kind of already know where some of the hazards are and and what some of the challenges you might face would be. Really cool for you guys to think in advance and and work in that way. Uh Texas, the state of Texas just had their SARX exercise, and and that's an opportunity for all the agencies to come together uh that participate and and work in conjunction with each other, you know, uh simulating a major disaster. Uh with all the fly-ins and all the resources we have in California, that's one thing that we haven't seen a ton of. It would be really cool to kind of see that that concept and and practice start making its way west. Jack, did you get a chance to to check out the Sarx uh exercise?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

I didn't see the the latest video. I've seen stuff from the past though, and it's really impressive. I mean, they they really make it uh very realistic. You know, it's uh the scenario training part of it, very realistic. Multiple agencies, you've got to be able to talk, you've got to be able to uh coordinate, you've got to do all that stuff in the training. Uh it's very realistic. And uh and sure enough, uh Texas uh last year uh had that tragedy. And and it as terrible as it was, and as many lives as that were lost, the response was incredible from aviation. They they did a phenomenal job with what they had available, weather permitting, and it's probably because of that SARX. Yeah, I mean it just is because they all go. Yep. It's pretty neat that they do that regularly.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah, the comms piece of that is I think probably one of the more valuable pieces. Yeah. We we just had a conversation with Glenn Daly, and we were talking about 9-11 and and some of the lessons learned from that. And comms did come up as something that was uh an issue. At some point, you had helic helicopters showing up who were not requested, they kind of self-dispatched. And uh you have these agencies showing up without the ability to talk to somebody, like, who are these people and what are they doing? You know, and obviously in a heightened state of awareness like 9-11, that could be problematic. But you know, just you know, simply responding to a flood situation like what happened in Tennessee when Virginia State uh and the the National Guard were operating in a tight area without the ability to communicate initially. You know, it's so uh those kinds of operations I think are really cool. So cool that you guys have that relationship with with Sonoma and and uh be cool to see you guys uh working together again at some point in the future.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yeah, you know, you know that's just a phone call, you know, and and they'll say, when do you want to come over? It's good, you're gonna be invited. Henry One is just amazing. I remember the first time I watched them operate the long line with uh with a TFO deputy on the end of that line. It was at the ocean in Sonoma, and my jaw dropped. I had never seen that before. I've seen hoisting done, I had never seen that. And the efficiency of it was incredible. They could pluck people out of the ocean rapid fire uh or out of a river, rapid fire. It was incredible to watch. And so I'm glad to hear that you guys still had that relationship because that's a professional great bunch. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, next time we talk to you guys, you'll say, Hey, we got that scheduled with Henry One. Uh we kind of touched on this, but that why the long line rescue is really good. You you mentioned it, uh Tyler, that it's good for stats loss because you can land a lot of places. Get dig into that further. For those that don't know what you're talking about, we're talking about agricultural area in central in the central valley of California. Talk about that. What exactly what you mean about that being able to land almost anywhere to configure your long line.

SPEAKER_05 15:29

So the way that we we do it uh when we do a long line rescue is we have to go, we spot the victim first, right? We fly over, uh, we use our our camera, the TFO spots the victim. The pilot identifies the location nearby that we can set down and configure the aircraft. So we don't fly around with it ready to go for the rescue. We have to we sit down, uh, we get out, we have to take the pilot's door off for him to operate the long lane. He's leaning out with visual contact on the TFO the whole time he's on the bottom line. So we take that pilot door off, we stow it, we have to get the bag out with the rope in it. We hook it up, we put our harness on, we do our safety checks between the TFO and the pilot. Um, we'll hook up our comms equipment and then we go. It can be more challenging if if you go up into uh more mountainous terrain trying to find a place where you can land a helicopter. It obviously it's not impossible. You may might have to fly further away from your victim. Where here in the county we've landed a hundred yards from where we're gonna be picking somebody up, hook up the helicopter, and we're ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

When you said you hook up your comms equipment, talk about that for a second. What what equipment are you talking about?

SPEAKER_05 16:39

Yeah, we're using uh the Axnes ICS extension system, which is phenomenal. It was a game changer for us to get that. Um I talked with those guys. I talked with um uh Marcus from Axnes at um I believe it was Apscon several years ago. I was honestly, I was probably trying to get a free t-shirt or something, right? And I walk up to talk to this guy. Uh I say, hey, you know what's going on? What's tell me about your stuff? And I was really impressed with with the capabilities of what they could do. So I went through the process to get um that equipment for the county, and uh, we've been using it ever since. We still do hand signals for everything, obviously, but I can talk to my pilot just like I'm talking to you right now on the end of the line, and it's it's phenomenal. So there's just a base station that goes in the helicopter, and I have a little box on my vest.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

You're not the first to bring that uh piece of equipment up uh that's been on the podcast. Miami Dade comes, fire air rescue comes to mind, uh, where we talked about it specifically and how it is it, you said it. It's a game changer. Situational awareness was something that came up in the conversation with Miami Dade. They said the pilot's situational awareness of of having you know, knowing what's going on uh with that person at the end of that line. You can see it and you can have hand signals, but do you really know everything? And you don't, but now you do because you can just say what you're thinking. Hey, this isn't gonna work. I need to, I need to go, you know, 20 feet right or whatever. And it's instant. It's not trying to get their attention and pointing and all that stuff. Great. That's good to hear. AJ, tell us about back in 2023, the the first long line rescue that you guys did. Tell us about that incident a little bit and and if there were any takeaways from that that uh that carry with the unit today.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that was the uh um one of our first uh water, actual water rescues that we did. And it was in March. There'd been some heavy raining raining here, so there's a lot of flooding going on. The rivers were all overflowing, moving pretty rapidly. You have a two-lane highway out in the country, and one car veered into the other lane, sideswiped a truck and knocked them off the road and into the river. Fortunately, the two occupants they were able to roll down their windows and swim out, but the river was so high that they were actually in the middle of the tree um holding on to it, which was now the middle of the river due to all the flooding, and they couldn't be reached from the from the side from the from the banks. And luckily, it happened. I want to say it was around 8 a.m. or so in the morning. Um we usually work 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. Then this happened to be on one of our training days, which we come in at 7. And one of our guys, one of our pilots was driving in and he heard the broadcast on the radio, so he called us at the hangar and was like, hey, we got a rescue going on. Um and so we did our pre-flights, loaded our gear, and and flew out there. And yeah, it was uh we got there, I got the camera on them and could immediately see they're just clinging onto a tree, middle of the river. So you know, any moment they could lose their grip. So we didn't even do a full orbit, just saw them and then landed. And luckily, there's a pasture just right on the other side of the freeway, the little two-lane highway, set up and we're able to go do the do the rescue in there. And this, speaking of axnies, this was pre-axnes. And so I had a radio with me, but uh once I got in the water, that wasn't working. Um, so it was just hand signals in the water. I was the TFO at the time, and when the pilot put me in the water the first time, the current was way stronger than it looked visually, and it so it just blew me right by him. So kind of reset, reposition, put me back in the water, and I was able to get onto the tree right next to where the two victims were. One of them was in pretty rough shape, and the other victim was like, hey, take him, take him, he's he's hurting. So it took a while, just very slow methodically with uh using a horse collar or the rescue strop to get around him. Um, and then we're able to get the first victim out. It was maybe just probably like 15 yards from where they were in the river to the side of the road where the ambulance and fire was waiting. So we'll just set him down. And then right when we were about to pick up to go get the second guy, a fireboat had made access in there. So they were actively working on getting the second patient out of the water. Yeah, it was uh it was definitely quite the rush uh getting in there, and um, everything happened so quick. I ended up we have water gear, uh, you know, wetsuits and everything like that. But once we got on scene, we saw how kind of immediate it was. Uh myself and the pilot talked about it and made a decision just to go in in flight suit and boots and helmets, stay hooked up to the helicopter and just uh get the job done. Which hindsight, you know, maybe on the way out there could have been prepping getting wetsuit on while we're in route. Yeah. But everything was just happening so quick that didn't happen. And but we were able to able to get the first patient out. He had a broken femur and was hypothermic. Um so we were able to get him out, get him some help quick, and then the fire got the other guy.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

So hypothermic, broken femur, that's life saving right there. I mean, if he stays out there much longer, that's not gonna go well.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

It was very cold. Uh the shock hit me as soon as I sat down. In the water of oh, all right, deep breath.

SPEAKER_05 22:02

Man, I was I wish I was wearing a wetsuit.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Yeah, that was a bad choice. So so you mentioned the websuit wetsuit and how maybe you could have done something different. So it happens again today. The flag goes up today for flooding and it's cold and you know, whatever. What do you what does your unit do differently, or what do you personally do differently if you know you're gonna be on that line?

SPEAKER_03 22:29

Yeah, so now what we would do, TFO would just hop in the backseat uh when we take off from the airport. We have full controls back there. We have a dual TFO station in the back as well. Yep. So we would hop in the backseat, you have access to the radio, the camera, and you could be changing while we're while we're in route. Uh because the 407, there's zero room up front, and we fly dual controls, so there's no way that's happening up front. So yeah, now anything that's you know might be potentially in the water, especially during the winter or anything, we're going in route in the backseat if we're not already up in the air. Yeah, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yep. Yep. Any were there any other uh things out of that particular uh rescue that that changed anything uh procedurally or communication-wise? I mean, obviously you mentioned that that actions comes later, but anything else come out of that rescue that you changed?

SPEAKER_03 23:18

One thing that we did do with our rescue strop, we had it just fixed, both ends just fixed on the bottom of the line. Now we put it on a carabiner. So in that situation, we can take one end out and kind of uh fish it through underneath their arms and hook it back up instead of having to go up and over their head and get one arm through at a time. Because that made it very difficult. It took quite a bit of time getting that over his head while trying to maintain control. Um so that was uh one other thing that uh that we changed as well. So in that situation when someone's holding on to something, we can just slide that horse collar underneath their arm and get it in position instead of having to have them remove their grip.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

You you talked about in that incident not having Axnis and and you know some of the limitations that came as a result of that. Talk about you know that incident as compared to today and having that ability to communicate. Uh it's fairly obvious, but talk about the benefits that gives you as a as a rescuer and as a as a aviation asset.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

So in that particular incident, the first time I went in the water, like I said, the current just kind of took me, took me right by him. I was able to grab the tree, but now I essentially became a victim myself just holding on because the current was too strong. The pilot recognized it, but I wasn't able to communicate with him besides just give him the up signal. He picked me up and having the radio, he thought I was gonna be able to talk to him. And so he was I could hear him saying, Hey, like what's going on? What do we need to do? Where do you need me to put you? And I was trying to key up, but the water interference, whatever's going on, it just wasn't working. And so, you know, just change of plans and pointing until eventually, you know, he kind of figured it out. And whereas now, I would like as Tyler mentioned, I can just talk, like I'm talking to you guys right now, be like, hey, current took me, let's reset, set me, you know, a couple more yards towards the bank so I can kind of basically float into their position instead of going right by them. Um and it would have just been instant. Whereas there's definitely when he picked me back up after the first attempt, there's definitely a little bit of time where we were just sitting there and he was trying to ask me. I was trying to communicate with him, figuring out what we're gonna do, and all that would have would have been solved uh if we had axes at the time.

unknown 25:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

That game of shreds is is much different now. You know, you don't have to Tyler's not looking down, be like, what? You know, to talk about Tyler, when you're looking down, seeing AJ's signals, what was running through your mind and and how you were interpreting what he was saying?

SPEAKER_05 25:42

So it was actually a another pilot on the unit that was flying him that day. Uh, but talking to him after the fact, it sounded like they had to there were some issues they were working through, right? They had this super dynamic situation going on, and then on top of that, Nichols holding on for dear life, trying not to get swept down the river, trying to commute trying to communicate to Tony, who was the pilot at the time, um, where he needs to go. So uh I couldn't imagine being the pilot trying to figure out like, what are you doing? You just look like you're holding on. Hey, would you do something down there? It's like, man, I'm still just trying to live here. I'm cool up here. I'm just hanging out.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

I can actually turn the heater off. I'm a little I'm a little bored. It's toasty.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

AJ's freezing his uh when we talked after, yeah, he had mentioned that you know he he initially he recognized pretty quick that first one spot wasn't gonna work. But then I having the radio on me, he assumed I was gonna be able to respond to him. And so there's probably three times where he was like, Hey, hey, Nickel, what's going on? Like, what do we need? What do we need to do? And I'm trying to give him the hand signals, but he's expecting kind of a verbal response, which would be better in that instance. And then he caught on, like, okay, something's not working. We can't, we don't have comms, and then so let's focus on what he's doing hand signal-wise and regroup. But was the comms issue water related? Uh, I believe so. And also uh 800 radios versus VHF, we were kind of out in the country. The high power lines were right on the other side of the um highway as well, which uh we've had no issues with with guys on the ground, those affecting the 800 channels. Yeah, so I think uh a combination of factors, not sure exactly which one it was, but for some reason the the radio just wasn't working that day.

unknown 27:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Isn't it amazing? Well, when we talk about incidents and technology, you you look back and you go, how did we do it without this? You know, I mean, you you think about especially like navigation comes to mind. You know, current TFOs that are using moving maps and go, how did you guys do this with just that book? It's like, well, we we did it. It just wasn't as efficient and and it was harder and more time consuming. But in the end, we could get it done. But in this case, you you look at it and it's it's amazing that you're able to communicate with hand signals and get the job done. But having that system is just it's almost uh it just makes it so simple. You know, you just talk. Hey, hey partner, take me up two feet. You know, because what if he's looking in at a gauge when you're telling me, gotta get me up two feet, you know, right now. There's so many variables. Just being able to communicate that that's a great product. Aren't you glad, Tyler, that you came across that at one of the conventions, you know?

SPEAKER_05 28:34

It's uh it's made the whole long line situation so much safer for us.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

So And you're not alone. We hear that a lot. They're going, I found this at a convention or I was at VAI or Abscon. Thank goodness we have this now. That's what everybody says.

SPEAKER_05 28:50

Yeah. Did you get your free shirt? I did.

unknown 28:53

I did.

SPEAKER_05 28:53

I did, good.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Good. Well, maybe I'll send you another one, you know. I mean, this is a great example of of that product being practical and uh how it would have changed that particular rescue. And ha have you have either of you had incidents since then, whether you're at the pilot or at the end of the line where you have the access now, and and you went, wow, thank goodness, because this would have been impossible without this, or this would have been much more challenging. Can you either either or both of you think of an incident?

SPEAKER_05 29:30

Actually, yeah, one comes to mind the pilot that I work with uh and I went to a river rescue and a woman's uh inflatable popped and she was like right up underneath some brush, and we could we could see her from the helicopter, but where she was, she was like up underneath the brush, right up against the bank, and then there's a tree overhanging that. So our concern was if we set up for the long line, were we gonna be able to get me up underneath that tree far enough, or am I gonna be able to swim to her? And we sat down just on the opposite side of the trees, just up the bank. I hooked up the axnies and I told them, I said, what I'll do is I'll just walk down the bank and I'll communicate with you if I can if you can get the rope here, I'll have you pick up. Or if I think you can get the rope to me, I'll have you pick up, swing around the tree, and I'll hook up and uh we can we can take her back out that way. We didn't end up needing to do that. I just walked down and found a a way for her to walk back to where we were. I just had to wait out into the river a little bit, get a hold of her and bring her back to shore. And we just ended up loading her up by having the communication where we're I'm physically separated from her. I can't see him, I can't give him hand signals, but I could say, uh, yeah, okay, we're good. Pick up and bring me the rope, or no, we're I'm gonna walk her back to you or whatever. So it just made it a lot more efficient.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah. AJ, any any that you can think of?

SPEAKER_03 30:48

Yeah, we had uh one of our off-road parks, uh ATV had kind of rolled down into a ravine, and I was the pilot on this time. And going in there, uh we kept um being down the ravine, it's a little deceiving from the air, you know, like all right, how tight is that? Can we fit? Is our rope going to be long enough? So we you know shot a little kind of a practice approach, checked the right all decimeter, like, okay, we're good, we should be good and everything. But just having that extra reassurance when we're actually going in, doing the rescue, the TFL on the bottom line can just look up, hey, rotor disc is clear, or hey, sidestep, half rotor disc to your right, to your left. Um, and just having that verbal confirmation from an outside source that, hey, yeah, rotor system's good, you know obstacles in the way, it's just very helpful.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

I I think the the operational, the mission environment makes it so obvious how many benefits come from having the accident system. But you know, think about just ground runs at at the hangar. You know, your maintenance staff is is out looking at you know, leak checks or whatever, to be able to communicate and not be tethered to the aircraft with that, you know, with that cord is huge. Or firewatch when you're starting the aircraft. You know, I'm always watching the tail, making sure uh no citizens walking up on the back of the aircraft. And if they do, you know, you you have limited ability to communicate with your pilot what you're actually trying to accomplish by preventing them from walking into that tail rotor. So uh just so many benefits that come from that system. I I wonder often why it took so long for a system like that to become so prevalent, you know. But very thankful for for what it offers, the situational awareness that it offers our air crews today. It's really cool. Yeah, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Yeah, the what the why didn't I think of that head heads, you know, because it it just seems so obvious. Why why was this not invented much sooner? I mean, uh but they did, and it's out there now, and it's helping crews worldwide be safer, more efficient, more effective. The list goes on.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

In addition to the accent system, I know Dallas Avionics has a has a uh similar system. Uh I don't know how it compares to the Axcent system. I think uh there's some some differences, but uh there are other systems out there, uh, but just that uh those systems alone are are are gold.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

You know, so communication's everything. Yep. It's it's everything in the TFO job particularly. If you uh don't have good communication, you're in you're not doing you're ineffective. If you don't have good communication skills, you're ineffective. So you put the technology with a good communicator and it's gold, you're gonna be better off in every way, no matter what you're doing, whether you're chasing a bad guy down the freeway, or you're doing a rescue, or you're doing firewatch, it doesn't matter. The communication between pilot and and TFO, TFO and pilot, rescuer, paramedic, whatever the situation is, is so vital.

unknown 33:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

We highlight that need for the ability to communicate so much in that TFO role, whether you're a pilot, a TFO, any any member of the air crew. And then we talk about the UAS environment and and how critical it is for those folks to understand in the same way how important communication is. But it seems like that they're just not exposed to the level of communication that's required in in the airborne environment in the way that we are. So I think for the folks who have the combined aviation programs with the UAS operations, they have that leg up as far as understanding the level of communication needed to be effective in what you're doing. For those folks that those UAS operators that are essentially handed the that that 107 thing. That 107 107 and uh and a drone and say go do this without any you know understanding of what it actually means to communicate effectively from the air and and what you're envisioning. Man, that's tough. You know. So it is.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

It's coming around though. And I I'm pretty sure I drove through uh I was driving to Modesto from Bigster and I was coming eastbound from the five on the back roads to get to Modesto for a wedding. A wedding with somebody that you guys know. And uh I was going there and I think it was just after this rain event. And I'll never forget that. There were roads still closed back there, and there was water everywhere. I mean, in the flatland, there was water everywhere. Places that had probably had never had standing water ever. They have feet of water. It was bizarre, wasn't it? I mean, it was a very unique situation in uh central California there.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

Yeah, it was it was pretty widespread. Like you said, just complete orchards, farmland, just completely underwater. I mean, every river was ten times its normal size. Um, I mean, that's probably an exaggeration, but everything was just way over. And yeah, it was it was like three weeks straight of just nonstop rain, which doesn't happen here. So when it does, yeah, the ground's not ready for it.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

It's funny you say the orchards because that's what looked the funniest. You'd go by these orchards and there's water, you know, up the trunk of the trees, feet of water, and it just looked bizarre. You know, you couldn't even see the bottom, bottom of the trees. And there were all sorts of closures. We had to weave and dodge uh around things, and there was, you know, it took longer to get there because of all that water. But it just shows you, you know, you think about you think about Modesto and Stanislaus County and go, wow, do you do Swiftwater Rescue? Why do you have to be prepared for that? Well, there you go. That's why. Because it can happen. Yeah, it might happen annually, but you got to be ready for that. And that that will, it can and will happen again, and you guys will be back and uh doing the same thing, maybe in the same place, you know. Yeah, uh interesting. Being prepared. Yeah, Tyler, let's go back to you and and you're gonna give us the the overview of Stanslos County to start. You know, how big is it, where it is, the populate, whatever you want to tell us about Stanislaus, and then followed up by the department about your sheriff's office and tell us about uh how many personnel and give us the give us the reader dye reader's digest version of all that.

SPEAKER_05 37:03

So Stanislaus County is just about smack dab in the middle of the state. We're about I'd say an hour and a half or maybe two hours drive, pretty much directly east from San Francisco. So we're pretty central. The county is just over 1,500 square miles. Uh and I think we have about 550,000 population, the entire county. The biggest city is Modesto. Uh, but most of the land mass is agriculture, like we've been talking about. It's a lot of trees, a lot of almonds, a lot of walnuts. We have um uh we have three rivers that run through Stanislaus County, a couple reservoirs and lakes, but most of it is orchards. If anybody's driven through here, they know when there's Stanislaus County because you're seeing a bunch of trees.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

So that's right.

SPEAKER_05 37:44

Uh our agency is so we have uh roughly 200 sworn uh deputies and various multiple specialty assignments. So they've got to spread out all over the place. There's people like us that are assigned to the air unit, and we have uh mounted unit with horses, and uh we have uh special vehicle operations team, which is uh the boats and dirt bikes and jet skis, and then all the multiple detectives, divisions, and so there's there's a lot going on. It's a good agency to work for.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Oh yeah, it's got a great reputation. And so some people are gonna be surprised by what you one thing you just said when you said two hours 200 personnel. 200 personnel and they have a Bell 407.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Yeah, you're very fortunate, but it's because the the people of your county, uh the voters, and as well as your leadership uh takes crime fighting and search and rescue and all these things very seriously. They always have, as long as I can remember, um that county and Modesto too has always taken those things seriously. So there you go. It's a it's an important, an important element of that crime fighting tool is that air support, no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

In my unit, we talked about uh time savings a lot. How the aviation unit saved ground personnel, time and area searches is a good example. When I think of your guys' area of operation, the agriculture area for for example, the amount of time you save ground resources from having to search for folks in a wide open area search is is gotta be unreal. Is that a a stat you guys keep track of? Like time savings, time saved for for ground personnel?

SPEAKER_05 39:32

Um I don't think the actual time aspect of it, no. It might be something we want to look into. Actually, that is a good idea. Uh, but we do we we monitor like when we do an area search or or what we do and we document everything on video, and we are searching or orchards frequently. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

That's that's kind of some challenging angles to work, you know, trying to get that camera in the right spot. But yeah, I think those open area searches are are gold. There was one pretty wide open area in Ontario that that I thought of that in particular a lot. It was, I don't know, 30 or 40 acres, and you know, naked eye at night, you couldn't see anything moving around in there. Obviously, you throw the infrared over there and within a minute or so you've located anything, including rabbits that that are running around in that area. So, you know, as a as a law law enforcement asset, being able to locate those folks and direct ground personnel into that, gosh, the the the time saved just for that one incident alone is is huge. Now extrapolate that for you guys over the the the course of your county. That that's that'd be interesting to to figure out, but really cool.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Yeah, orch orchards are interesting, like you said, John, the angles and everything working them. Uh you know, the whole San Fernando Valley in LA used to be orchards. I mean, I've seen pictures of it, you know, black and white pictures from back when Tony Weber got his uh you know days when he was getting his first flight 100 years ago. Uh but now there's like one orchard in the whole San Fernando Valley. I can I can picture where it is. And I never had to look there, but I remember flying over it regularly and going, that would be interesting if somebody's tight in those orchards. The angles that you'd have to get, it's possible, but you guys are good at that. You guys have become good at that because it happens so frequently. What percentage? I I don't want to put you on the spot, but what percentage of status loss is orchards? Do you do you have a guess at what percent it is?

SPEAKER_05 41:32

It would be uh a hundred percent a guess if I if I'm just guessing it's a hundred, you know, it's all a guess. Yeah. But I would say it's got to be at least I don't know, sixty percent, seventy percent of the county is covered by the city.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

That's what I thought you were gonna say. Oh yeah. I mean it's it's amazing. It's amazing. You like you said, you know when you hit Stanislos when you're driving on the 99 there, or you know, it you just know because the orchard's just boom, and it just is constant, unless it's until you hit urban modesto. You know, it's just orchards everywhere.

SPEAKER_05 42:02

So you know where the city of living ends because that's where the tree starts.

SPEAKER_04 42:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

That's a great training environment for for new TFOs, you know, uh seasoned TFOs, just because of all the angles you've got to consider and and camera. Talk about how you guys utilize that if you do as a as a training grounds, you know, whether it's just for the TFOs or in conjunction with canine or or what that might might look like for you guys.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

For training, it's uh we have a it's about an eight eight to ten week uh training program for new TFOs. And yeah, the orchards, the wide open areas, they I think that gives you the biggest challenge. Uh one, like you said, the search, finding the angles. You might just get a one glimmer of heat uh through one little open area of a tree, and now you kind of drill down on that, work with your pilot to find different angles to get a better view. Um, and then the communication. Some of these orchards are hundreds of acres large, and so now it's okay. We have coordinates, now how to grow uh coordinate ground units to where that person is. And that that's probably one of the uh maybe even more difficult than searching the orchard itself is trying to communicate with their location in those wide, wide open areas where there's no roads, no houses nearby. And so it's uh definitely gives a good environment to for training. We have worked with canine in the past, you know, just uh they do their search, we do our search, and you know, train more in kind of urban environments um around Modesto and businesses and that kind of stuff. Um but it's definitely gives uh the new new trainees a good good grounds to hone their communication abilities and critical thinking, even if use the spotlight, don't use the spotlight. It if you put turn the spotlight on, now that suspect's playing your orbit and making it even harder for you. But you guys on the ground can see where the spotlight is and know where the guy's at. So that there's a lot of variables there that definitely um uh makes you think and keeps everything very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

I think about being a new TFO and working a call, one that comes to mind I wasn't new at the time, but I'd imagine it'd make being a new person challenging was on a golf course and there's trees everywhere. And the ground unit's trying to key us into a certain area to look for something. And he's his his way to describe where he was is I'm by the tree. I'm like, there's trees everywhere here, pal. What tree are you talking about? So I'd imagine, you know, for you guys, I'm sure there's a lot of deputies that say something like that. You know, and now the new TFO or the existing TFO is like, okay, well how do I how do I key in on on where that that deputy's at? With all the experience you guys have doing that, is there any methods you found as far as communication wise that have been useful in in guiding folks in? What we hear a lot is hey can you guide us in?

SPEAKER_03 44:48

Do you see me? Can you guide us in? And when the orchards are that thick, if you move the camera at all, you're gonna lose them. You're not gonna be able to find them again. So we'll we'll constantly have our guys, you know, train especially training UTFOs, keep the camera on the suspect, look out, head out the window, have them hit you with their flashlight, and you have to be able to orient yourself. You know, utilizing NVGs when it's at night so you can see the layout of the land. And something new that we've started the roll out is what three words. I don't know if um you guys have heard of it. So basically the entire globe has been covered in a 10 foot by 10 foot grid. In each grid section is assigned three words in a certain order. And so if you have the what three words location, it puts you in a location in a spot that's within a 10 foot by 10 foot area. So we're trying to get that rolled out onto patrol. We've been using it with uh fire on the rescue side along the rivers and everything and the last one we got just a couple days ago it was put us right where the victim was they're um stuck on the side of the river and it was exactly right where they were and so that's able to integrate into shot over so they have you can search by the what three words and or put a point on the map and get what the what three words names are. And so that that's once we get that fully rolled out to patrol and everything I think that's gonna be a game changer especially for the orchards. I vaguely remember another agency talking about it might have been King County talking about the what three words but that's something that I'd never got a chance to work with really interesting that that's a a tool and it's genius you know pretty cool yeah we we happened to be on the phone with Sean over doing some other uh stuff with our system troubleshooting and he's like hey you guys got some time and and just like started spitballing all the different features and stuff uh that they have he's like you guys heard of this and we're like no like what what is it and he showed it to us I downloaded the app on the spot and was like this is this can be useful. I could immediately see um how that would be helpful and yeah so far it's worked great with fire we're trying to train all um you know there's some time for training get all the patrol guys and sergeants on board and understand what it is but I think once it's fully up and everyone's using it and I think it it's gonna help quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

The name of it sounds like a board game. Like no play that game before you know a while back we had Clay Lacy on the podcast and he talked about a a training uh that he does with some of the newer TFOs. Essentially he'll blindfold the person on the ground and then the the person standing in an elevated position whether it's on a balcony or a stairway above him has to talk those those folks on the ground through a essentially a maze that's on the ground. And I just saw uh within the last couple days I think it was Kings County in Washington was was doing that. They had a video of that on social media. Did you guys happen to see that? No I haven't seen that yet but I'll definitely check it out. It was pretty cool. It's a really effective way to to to dial in that that level of communication I thought it was cool. I don't know if they got that from Clay's conversation on the podcast or somewhere else but but it really I thought it was an effective way to to try and figure out how to effectively navigate or or help somebody navigate on the ground you know without them being able to see. So good on you Clay.

SPEAKER_01 48:08

It's not easy it ground to air air to ground communication is unique and anybody doesn't understand that or doesn't believe that they haven't done it. It's just very unique and it takes some practice and some time and some good teaching and some good mentors and and some good technology. And you put it all together and it it it can be done very effectively that's that's really cool. Let's let's switch back AJ to from the county now to to your unit to the air unit.

SPEAKER_03 48:40

Give us the detailed uh description of of your unit you know mission equipment airframes personnel all that good stuff okay yeah we um start with airframes um so we have the Bell 407 GXP that we've talked about um we still have a long ranger an L1 um that we use kind of as our backup now and we also have a Cessna 206 uh that we use for surveillance missions and to supplement on patrol if there might be something else going on maintenance both helicopters are down or whatever it might be. And then also have a Cessna 172 um that we use for pilot training for new pilots for them to build their time and everything with mission equipment on the on the 407? Yep yeah so we have tried us our best to standardize the equipment across both helicopters and the airplane so we you utilize shot over with an MX10 uh camera we have macro blue monitors on the 407 we have the uh luminator uh searchlight it's called the Orion we have the uh onboard systems hooks for the rescue hooks PA Siren and yeah we have that dual station set up so for training it comes in handy the trainer can sit in the back and take controls if they need to uh for the TFO and the same setup in the long ranger as well same spotlight everything and then the Cessna has the same camera shot over obviously no searchlight or PA or anything.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Wow that's that's a good call you can throw a TFO in any airframe and they're gonna be comfortable and know what they're doing and current and all that good stuff. The Long Ranger has a rear station as well? Yes it does. Nice yep wow that's great.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Is the idea for your pilots to be dual rated in both uh rotorcraft and fixed swing or how does that work?

SPEAKER_03 50:33

Yeah so all our pilots are uh eventually once they've complete their training are dual rated commercial instrument and fixed swing and uh rotor craft very cool um and pilots right now we have seven six trying to think six and a half I guess uh so we have two full-time pilots and two full-time TFOs uh so we cover seven days a week working a seven on seven off schedule and then outside of the four full-time guys we have six part-time unit members and by part-time they have their regular assignment whether it be patrol detectives and then airsports collateral so they uh help cover vacation trainings if we're sick calls that kind of stuff and then just to stay proficient they're they come out ride as a third man so they'll they'll come out and even if both full-time crew members are there they'll TFO or they'll fly to stay proficient and current and the full-time guy will kind of sit in them back and help out as needed. All the pilots can also TFO uh all but one so yeah all but one which is we joke he's still the TFO trainee so yeah he he came on and he had prior experience from the military so he came on and just joined straight as a pilot but all the other pilots are homegrown started as TFOs and then eventually moved on to the pilot side.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

How often do you guys as a pilot hop into that left seat?

SPEAKER_03 52:02

Myself I do it about uh I don't know maybe a couple times a month and which is not enough to stay proficient. I still find myself fumbling through everything. But uh yeah it's uh a a decent amount I'd say um and most I think like like Liberty he's full the full-time TFO so he gets he'll he'll hop into the right seat when you know when there's an option or um availability there. There's a chance to to mix and do both and pretty much everybody except the one guy is able to TFO or fly. We do that's a good thing to have yeah we do have three guys that are just TFOs. So we had two new members join recently actually take back three one of our four I mean one of our sergeants sorry trying to keep track of everyone four guys that are only TFOs and the other six are combos.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

Gotcha gotcha really cool you guys have the the fixed wing and rotor crab platforms. You know we had John Neelson on the podcast not long ago and talked about the benefits of the fixed wing programs which are undeniable you know the just time on on on station alone is huge. Talk about your guys' experience having both platforms there's a time and place for for each one for sure. But talk about uh some of the advantages that you have of of having both.

SPEAKER_03 53:22

For the fixed wing uh we use that primarily for surveillance missions. Um working with our specialized units, drug units um whatever it might be and you know we can with the MX10 we can fly 4500 5000 feet no problem and still get a decent picture and in the 206 no one's really going to know you're there. And like you said Tam on station we can do five push in six hours if we're close close by home. And so being able to do those on although we dread them sitting them and flying them it is it is a useful tool to have to be able to uh to fly those missions. Um and then yeah the the helicopter is it's just patrol is just built for an helicopter being able to have the spotlight um just the presence alone um you know helps the spotlight the PA just all the different tools that you have on the helicopters uh makes it the the perfect uh choice for patrol you can get it done in the airplane and it works it um definitely you can do the job there's just a couple less tools that you have at your disposal.

SPEAKER_05 54:28

Our patrol guys have become uh used to the service that we provide out of the helicopter so if they call us to a a loud party or something like that they get pretty bummed out when we show up in the airplane and they want the PA in the the the spotlight yeah that's funny that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

What about uh mission profiles? Go down the list of of all the we we we've touched on a whole bunch of them but are there any any that we haven't talked about yet any mission profiles?

SPEAKER_03 54:57

Uh yeah so we uh we mentioned the long line we also do AUF for aerial use of force um started that a couple years ago we did uh dabble in uh fire suppression using the Bambi bucket for a little while but we know no longer do that just the 120 gallon bucket on the 407 versus all the firehawks and everything you're you're just not doing anything and our primary mission is patrol so that's always going to take priority uh if we get a patrol call versus fire um especially if there's other aircraft they're working the fire already those two and then I think that's kind of it for you know we do the surveillance missions um and then patrol is our our bread and butter.

SPEAKER_01 55:40

Any SWAT insertion types training any or that you guys are prepared for?

SPEAKER_03 55:44

Yeah we'll do that we'll do the uh we we just call it the SWAT rope you know four hookup points along the rope we'll do that we train just inserting them from the back of the helicopter as well uh kind of up in the the foothills and mountains on in West County we train with the canines uh we have a harness and everything if we needed to put a canine on the bottom of the one line as well or just deploy from the backseat of the helicopter if they will work with our call our SVOU or like our lakes um our lake our special vehicle unit that works patrols the lakes um so we do helo casting and that kind of stuff into the reservoirs or anything you know if you need an immediate help if you might not have the time to set up that long line but if the TFO is in the back has their PFD on and everything and you can go help someone out in the water immediately then we do train to do that as well. Wow cool for your uh aerial use of force are they inside the aircraft or out on benches inside the aircraft inside uh yeah so we have sliding doors on the 407 so we we just slide open the back door and you utilize axnies for that as well uh we have bump bump helmets and everything with that set up and yeah it works great we have the harness the tether inside the TFO tethers up with their harness and sits on the same side as the pilot um fly our profiles that way.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Nice. Yeah. John, anything else about the the unit that we want to touch on before we go to the next step here?

SPEAKER_00 57:12

No I just I think it's cool and and challenging for you guys to have such a kind of a broad mission profile between uh the helicopter and then also the fixed wing platform as well uh you know as a pilot and as an aircrew always something to kind of uh brush up on is as far as skills because you know AJ like you said that TFO seats that's a perishable skill so whether you're actually flying the mission or you're working as a TFO there's a lot of a lot of things to consider and be proficient at. So that that's that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 57:39

Yeah. And we do a we have a training day every other week um so twice a month we have a full unit wide training day. So we constantly doing long line doing other things um because you know you might you never know if you're gonna be the pilot or the TFO uh if it's a call out you might end up being the TFO that day and so you you know you need to be still need to be proficient with everything yeah to try to stay on top of it. And yeah for the the AUF um kind of like how with Longline reach out to Sonoma uh Tyler was one of the few guys from our unit that went to Texas DPS um so I don't know if he wants to touch on that at all.

SPEAKER_05 58:16

We went there to kind of help please do Tyler tell us about that absolutely I'd love to that's a that's an impressive organization. They uh yeah we got to go down there me and a few other guys from the unit uh they sent us down there when they wanted to kind of kick off our AUF program just to kind of take notes to see you know the pitfalls to avoid and equipment to look for and spent um a week down there with them out in uh West Texas at this big old ranch they go train at and uh I thought it was really impressive that they pretty much shut the unit down for a week they send every TFO goes to this training everybody gets recertified and it was about the most professional thing I'd ever experienced as far as uh the training I was the airborne training uh it was it was uh remarkable they just the um the complexity of everything that they got going on they got scenarios over here and and they're uh it's a very dynamic situation I was very fortunate to get to go there and we basically just uh copied a lot of their uh procedures um their training protocol um uh how you have to certify as a shooter and a pilot and uh and we just kind of roll it into our agency we even used a lot of their um policy and and made it fit our situation so so your GFOs are are the shooters uh same as their so do you so when you launch there's a rifle in the back?

SPEAKER_00 59:44

Yeah Okay gotcha we we modeled our airborne use force program after theirs as well you know if you're gonna model after an agency they're they're the one that you want to model it after uh it's kind of a hybrid between them and and what ended up being San Bradio County Sheriff's Aviation programs, uh Airborne Use Force program. Uh very very robust program there as well and then uh we had an outside trainer come in and and do the initial training which I thought was really good. When you guys think back through the inception of that program talk about the benefits of of looking at that outside training and and maybe any advice you might have for an agency that's wanting to adopt that program today.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:20

I think a hangout for us was like getting to the the policy and writing the policy and scared to write this and make sure we cover that and going to somebody like Texas having somebody that says hey this this is how you want it worded for this reason this is how you need to set the situation up or the the the unit up to do this to protect ourselves and then understanding that the level of training to maintain proficiency is pretty high. So if if you're at an agency that's not super supportive about you training a bunch and running through a lot of ammo um it might be it might be pretty difficult. We do we do quite a bit of shooting out of the helicopter if you think about that situation it's about as dynamic as it's gonna get for an aviation unit you're gonna be under a lot of stress and you want to know that you're gonna do it right. It's definitely not for every agency I would say that it's um you got to kind of weigh the pros and cons, the the risk versus reward there and see if it fits your agency but for us it makes a lot of sense um we actually had an incident that kind of sped the process up a little bit. We didn't have the area use of force in place yet and there was a situation where it would have been necessary to use so for us it it kind of spurred things along well. But yeah I would say just if if you're in an aviation unit and it's something that you're interested in doing I would say kind of feel out the level of support that you're gonna have for the training aspect of it before you commit to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

That is an important point that doesn't come up often.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:09

A lot of other stuff comes up about this topic but I love that you brought that up Tyler because you're either all in or you shouldn't be in. Right. Because it on aerial use of force that is the way it is if you're not if you're gonna say oh yeah we're gonna trade for it we're gonna have annual uh shoot no no you you shouldn't be doing it it needs to be regular training we we did it once a month and we changed it to twice a month because that's how we sold it. If you want to approve this and if we're gonna do it we want to really be proficient at it. Because let's face it you schedule two training days a month for every month. Yeah you know a quarter of those are going to get weathered out. I mean you know with with wind or whatever uh you know in SoCal not not a whole lot of other things but wind. And you know we knew that but we dedicated ourselves to twice a month plus some uh some additional scenario trainings that that came up and it was for that very reason that that you brought up Tyler that you've got to be current proficient confident and otherwise you shouldn't be doing it. And the other thing that I've always stressed with aerial use of force is crawl walk run. You guys did it right by going to Texas DPS and and seeing that and seeing that okay these guys have have been training for this for a while not as long as San Bernardino San Bernardino's been was way ahead of their time in this area uh way ahead of everybody else but they went through the crawl walk run already so go to them you know and and see what they're doing especially since your TFOs are the ones with the rifle on the back I mean that's perfect. Ours were SWAT guys you know takes a little longer you can't respond as quickly. That's the negative of the SWAT guys. The plus of the SWAT guys is they really shoot good you know compared to the average uh you know I went from canine where I had monthly eight hour 10 hour training days of shooting every month religiously for five years to air support where it didn't all I had to do was qualify you know my handful of times a year. My shooting went downhill dramatically so that's the benefit uh uh of having the squat guys but you guys as DPS has have dedicated it to the point where you say well we can do it because we're gonna let these TFOs shoot a lot otherwise you shouldn't be doing it. I'm so glad that that you brought that up Tyler that's that's a really important thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:44

We were talking to Father Time also known as Tony Weber at VAI that's too that's too Tony Tony would love you. That was one of the things that we talked about we were talking about you know training for specific mission sets and he said if if your agency is considering adopting a mission a new mission no matter what it is you know don't look at just the cost of investing in the mission equipment itself look at the cost to support the ongoing training that that will be involved in that airborne use of force is huge. Because it's not just the the ammo and the rifles and and that that you're paying for it's bringing all the the part-time TFOs in on those annual or not annual but on those on those training days so it's increased cost for personnel and everything else. So I I agree with you guys it's a huge point make sure that your agency is willing to support that financially and time wise. You know a lot of agencies don't want their air unit being tied up in training all the time. Well sorry but we gotta be we got to train to be proficient if you want us to do these things. So it would never fail for us. We'd put ourselves out of service for training and a pursuit would kick off or something would kick off requiring us to to to leave and the watch commander would always be yelling for the air unit, you know so but it's that's what it costs to do business. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:55

Aerial use of force is high risk, high liability I mean That's a given. Even if you do it great. It's high risk, high liability. And so if the department wants it and they say, okay, that's approved. We want you guys to be able to have that tool. It's got to be all in. It can't be, well, okay, it's sure. We'll we'll do that. Uh we're gonna have um once a month or twice a month, and they go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah. No, and you shouldn't be doing it. If they're balking at what it's gonna take to do it right, it shouldn't you shouldn't be doing it because somebody's gonna get hurt or somebody's gonna go go to prison. You know, there's it's it's a really uh a challenging topic. You know, it's it's not it's not for everybody, like we said. That's that's a good conversation. So let me ask you, Tyler, you you mentioned what was the biggest takeaway from DPS when you were there observing that initial that first time. What what did you walk away with other than the things you talked about, or maybe it is one of those things, that that you walked away and went, wow, we gotta make sure that we do that.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:01

Honestly, it was just what we're talking about, how big of a deal it is to be allowed to shoot out of your helicopter and how seriously you should take it. Yeah, going to it, I was thinking it was kind of like a lot of other things, like long line, oh, we gotta train it and this and that, but it's kind of its own thing. Um, and it needs to be how how frequently, just like we're saying before, how frequently you have to train it and how seriously you have to take it. I didn't anticipate that going into it. So leaving there, I realized that we kind of needed to mentally prepare ourselves to take on that big of a role.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:34

Yeah. Good. We we were just in on the Blades of Alor tour in Florida, Broward County, when we went to them, we actually met them for the first time in the middle of the Everglades uh at their airborne user force training day. That's where we hooked up with them, and it's out in the middle of nowhere in the glades. Great place, great place. They had vehicles, buildings, all sorts of stuff. They had moving, moving targets behind a bear cat. I mean, it was very professionally done. And they were qualifying. I mean, they were doing the qualifying runs, and everybody, everybody was doing them. Pilots, TFOs, you know, everybody was was uh getting their quals done. They took it very seriously, and it was we were impressed. Yeah, it was a fun day too, wasn't it, John?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:18

Yep, yeah. Uh the last point I'll talk about as it relates to everybody used to force is is what you brought up, Jack and Tyler, you did as well. Uh having the the pilot and TFO both qualify, especially for you guys, because you're you're switching roles. But even if you don't, I think the benefit of of having your pilot qualify allows your pilot to understand what position you need to put your shooter into to get a good site acquisition. You know, understanding what you know what the different airspeeds mean as a shooter versus just as you know in the front control in the aircraft.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:49

Uh so I thought that was huge. Uh we we did that. I I think that was recommended by uh Mike Peck, who who led the the training program that we were part of. But talk about from your guys' perspective that thought and that benefit of of having the pilot and TFO both qualify.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:05

I think the as the shooter, it feels really good knowing your pilot knows exactly what he's doing, right? And having run through that or kind of rehearsed it over and over hundreds of times, uh, knowing he's qualified, he knows exactly where the helicopter needs to be for you to get a shot off. As far as crew resource management goes is great because then I don't have to I don't have to explain to him, hey, we need to be 20 feet higher or 50 feet close or whatever. He knows we've done it so many times, he can shoot that profile over and over and over with his eyes closed, and I'm just in the back to you know get rounds on target. Uh so it the reduction in the communications, having to tell him, hey, slower, faster, whatever, once he's dialed, it's a lot safer, obviously, because we're not talking while we're trying to do other dynamic things. Uh and it uh it's just like anything else, right? It's like a sport, the more you practice it, the better you get at it. So having the pilots have to be qualified to do it, not just assuming because you can fly a helicopter, you can go, you know, shoot these profiles. Because some of them are pretty dynamic.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:12

And trusting your pilot to be able to put you on target uh in in the safest manner possible is important.

unknown 1:10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:19

AJ, you want to add anything to this?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:21

Uh yeah, I was just gonna I was thinking, you know, if you're shooting on the ground, it's you have the rifle, you're shooting, you're aiming. Where in the helicopter, it's your pilot, you're relying on your pilot to put you in the optimal position and give you the chance to put good rounds on target. So he's controlling your your ability essentially to be effective. And another thing for us, I think it's helpful is that all of our pilots also qualify not only as the pilot, but as shooters also. So everybody on our unit can be a shooter, and I think that helps even a little bit more because they they've been the one uh with the rifle understanding what's happening and what what affects your shots and round placement and everything else as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:01

Here's here's something that we've John and I have talked about a couple times with people where one of the other benefits of your tactical flight officer being the shooter is the is the communication on the navigation as well as where that target is. You as a SWAT, as an experienced SWAT sniper out on that bench, and we had we used the benches. On the scenario training days, there were some challenges there. We're trying to explain to them, you know, I'm the TFO or I'm the I'm the co-pilot in this case. I can see the bad guy. I'm looking at him and and an urban environment. Or sometimes not so not urban. And I have to explain to that sniper where that guy is. Pilot and TFO, we do that all day long. That's what you do. I'm explaining stuff. Okay, bring it around, partner. I'm at he's right here, you know, one block over, blah, blah, blah. Explaining that to a sniper that's not used to being up all the time, you know, five hours a day, that can be very challenging. Some were good at it, uh, some struggled with it. Whereas the two of you, doesn't matter which one's flying, which one's shooting. You're used to talking about where something is and to pinpoint it. Give us your feedback, talk about that for a second. Tyler, start us off. What do you think about it?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:24

That's actually that's actually part of the reason that we uh made the determination to that the TFOs were going to shoot, because we feel like it's it's easier to teach somebody how to shoot out of the helicopter than it is to teach somebody that can shoot all the helicopter side of the house kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:41

Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:41

Um we already know the the safety issues with the rotor blade. We don't want to shoot through the rotor blade, we know where we can and can't shoot. Like you said, we know the lingo. We have the the communication skills already built between you and the pilot. So it's it's easier to get somebody qualified on the rifle than it would be to train somebody with the rifle how to ride in the helicopter and communicate communicate.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:02

Interesting. AJ?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:04

Yeah, I think uh yeah, the communication, like you said, everyone who's behind the rifle is knows how the helicopter feels, how it moves, what it does, how to talk and communicate with each other. And then back to the training aspect. We're we're a unit, we can train with ourselves kind of whenever we need to. Once you start bringing people in from outside, bring the SWAT guys in now, what's their availability? Are they gonna be able to come train with us? And then the response, okay, now we need where are they? Can they respond? How are we gonna pick them up? Where are we gonna meet if we needed to deploy? So all those kind of factored into our decision of I think to keep it in-house and safety and everything was kind of the leading decision there.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:44

Good. Good it's a good fit for you guys. It is for all the reasons you gave. Really is. It's uh it's a smart way of doing it. I think you guys got got into it in the right way too. You know, that very good. This is a good conversation on this.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:59

When when we launched our program, the the training that we initiated, we had one of our SWAT snipers go through the training with us, and our thought was we'd we'd plug him in when possible. So the thought being, you know, execute a high-risk search warrant or some other pre-planned event, we could bring that sniper with us who's you know obviously very capable behind the rifle. So he went through all the training with us, and the first pre-planned event that he that he flew with us on, he had a really hard time picking the target up, which was in the backyard of a residence. The TFO and the pilot could pick the that target out clear as day, but the sniper had a hard time. And the reason I bring that up is you know, we're used to acquiring our target visually from the helicopter, whereas if you're not used to that, that could be really challenging. We've acquired that ability over a lot of uh a lot of hours, thousands of hours of spinning in circles looking at something that's that's either moving or stationary on the ground. Uh so I think that additional part of it is is a good reason why it's good to have a TFO who's used to you know seeing that visual uh element from the helicopter.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:02

I've said this a thousand times because I did it a thousand times with ride-alongs cops in the back seat. Hey, where do you live? They give me the address and we take them there. And they can't pick out their house. Okay, that that just proves to you that they're not stupid. They're they're experienced coppers, but they're now you know at about hundreds of feet in the air looking down. It's a completely different visual. You guys know what the first time you went up as a brand new TFO, so do we. It was hard. I mean, it was hard to orient, and some people never got it. But I was amazed at how many people they'd say, say, Well, there's your there's your house. They go, No, that's not it. How many kids do you have? Three. They're all in the backyard waving to you. Oh, there's your wife. No, no, no, no, no. And we I mean, we actually had that happen all the time. So that's a good example of what we're talking about. You know, once you're once you've been an air crew member for a while, man, it's it's a no-brainer, you know. Whereas now you bring somebody up that's on that helicopter occasionally and you're gonna expect them to find somebody in a backyard, it's an it's not really it's an unrealistic expectation. I think. Um think about and all you have to do is think back to the first uh month you were in the helicopter as a brand new TFO. All of us. Wow. Could you could you do it the first month? No, not consistently. You know, but now you can because of experience, training, uh, technology, all those things put together. This is really um I'm glad that we went down this path because we haven't talked about it in a while, uh this topic in a while. And and it was great that um you got the ball rolling there, Tyler, with mentioning that you gotta be all you know, you gotta dedicate yourself or you shouldn't be doing it. So wow, time is flying by. Good conversation on aerial use of force. We'll we'll definitely come back to it. But uh let's let's we gotta get to you guys. We gotta get to you guys and uh uh find out more about who we've been talking to for the past hour and a half. Uh AJ, let's let's start with you. All right, let's tell us about yourself. Where where'd you grow up? How do you ended up in law enforcement, and then what drew you to the aviation side of law enforcement?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:27

Yeah, so um I was actually born and raised here in Modesto and went to ended up going to college, getting a business degree, but did an internship and realized that desk job just wasn't gonna cut it. Bored out of my mind, can't sit behind a desk all day. Law enforcement had kind of always been in the back of my mind. So I was like, well, I realized this isn't gonna work for me, so let's go give that a shot. Applied to a few spots and Santa Sauce uh was kind of the first one that came through. And so I went to the academy. Um that was back in 2014. And one of my one of the guys I went to the academy with, so he after being a couple years on, he ended up joining the Air Sport unit um as a TFO. And then a year or so after they had another opening, um, and so he gave me a call and he's like, hey, uh, you know, we have this opening. I think you know you might be a good fit. You should come out for a ride along and check it out and see if it's something you'd be interested in. So I went and as got in the backseat, was ready to go. As soon as they just started firing up the helicopter, just started the engine. I was like, I was sold. It's like, all right, this is cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:34

Um and I was hooked. My wife was with me at the time, and she she looked over, she was like, Yep, he's gonna do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:40

That's a good story. It's amazing how that happens, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:44

Yeah, yeah. Maybe it hadn't like I knew we had an air support unit, hadn't really crossed my mind to like apply or do it or anything really. And luckily he gave me that phone call, and yeah, I was hooked immediately. Applied, was fortunate enough to get selected, and um now I've been on the unit for about eight years.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:02

So they stage that helicopter there just for for new recruits and they come through and they fire it up.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:09

Yeah. But yeah, so it's uh yeah, I started off as a TFO, and then after a couple years of being a TFO, went and got my uh fixed swing private license. And then I was fortunate enough with timing. We had uh another pilot that was there that had just retired. So that kind of opened the door for me to quickly move through the the training on the pilot side of things. So after being in a TFO a couple years, ended up finishing my certifications for both fixed swing and rotor craft. We were started off, uh the unit was just a collateral assignment. So it was we'd work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Mondays, and pretty much everyone on the unit would pick a day that was their overtime day. So you either you had a normal shift and you worked Friday, and it was all an overtime, every shift. And then when COVID hit, uh we ended up, they wanted to make sure that air support was kind of during the first the hysteria of it when it very first started. They wanted to separate air support from patrol just to make sure that you know the helicopters and everything would be available if needed. So that was kind of our foot in the door full time. After that, we went back to patrol for about six months and then we were able to get back in as a full-time unit. So I went back full-time and I've been full-time air support since. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:24

And you were correct me if I'm wrong, first full-time TFO?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:29

Yeah, first lucky enough we're full-time TFO, yeah. So nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:33

That's a good thing to have under your belt. The first full-time TFO. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:37

Yeah, we started off with just one crew for about like a year and a half or so. We got one crew full-time. I mean, so we we worked Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then our everyone else would cover Mondays and other days um on overtime, and then we're able to work our way into um getting that that second unit there and being seven days a week.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:00

Nice. That's a good, that's a good, good story to travel through that. Uh was there any I know you said you were bored at a desk, but what was there any law enforcement influence? Was there something media, TV, relatives, friends? What what what made you say, I don't want to be at this desk, but I'm gonna go that route? Was there something specific?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:23

Uh no, I wouldn't really say anything specific, just growing up, uh, you know, just seeing uh, you know, seeing police and deputies out and about, just running code three as a kid and seeing it and you know, thinking that was cool. And had a couple of my friends' parents were uh in law enforcement and um just kind of like hearing the stories of what they did and everything going on, just it was kind of always just um was in the back of my mind. But going through school, I was just saying, okay, go to college, get my degree. That was just kind of like autopilot for me. And then when I realized that that just wasn't gonna cut it, I was like, okay, let's let's go back to this other interest and see what it's all about.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:02

That's cool. That's good. Tyler, same thing. Give us your background.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:07

Spent most of my life here in California, kind of here in the valley, lived in Tracy and Mantica and Modesto, and was interested, kind of similar to what AJ was saying, just as a kid growing up, it seemed like law enforcement would be a cool job. I was always interested in it. Uh I first started trying to get into it in 2008 when the recession hit, and then nobody was hired. So I went and uh worked in the electrical industry actually for uh several years, did some other things, and then people started hiring again. And I applied to a few different places. I applied to uh Stanislaus County and Stockton and Tracy and a few places, and Stanislaus County was the first one to get back to me. So they um they put me through the academy and been here since 2015. So uh and it's been great. I worked patrol, uh did some different assignments, worked the boat unit. I worked with uh AJ uh at in in a contract city uh prior to him going to the airsport unit, and uh they had an opening coming up and he actually told me about it. Uh asked me if I was gonna put in for it. I really hadn't thought much about it, but the more I looked into it, I thought that'd be a cool assignment. Um went and put in for it, did the testing, and uh uh got selected and I've loved it ever since. It's been my favorite assignment by far. Oh yeah. A lot of fun. Uh but then um AJ was actually in the pilot succession program when I got selected for the unit. Uh, and he was kind of coming to the end of it. So he's almost done with all of his endorsements. And the uh supervisor of the unit at the time uh hit me up and said, Hey, you know, your next in line of seniority for the succession program, if you want it, you just have to go get your own private pilot's license. Uh and I never like any other kid, right? I always thought aviation was cool, but I never thought about it seriously as a career, right, until he said that. I thought I could actually go get a pilot's license. So I went and uh uh maxed out a credit card and paid for a bunch of flight lessons and and then they uh they took over and then they sent me to the commercial school and instrument school for both fixed wing and rotor craft. And it's uh definitely been the best decision I've ever I've ever made. It's been amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:34

No doubt. No doubt. That's great. Um was uh was again, I'll ask you anything specific where the law enforcement uh you said early on you you wanted to do it, but the the recession hit. What what was the influence back then?

SPEAKER_05 1:24:51

Uh was there a person or an event yeah, I had a friend that was in law enforcement and I went and did a ride along with him. Yeah. Uh and I loved it. Just being up, we were up all night just going to crazy calls and chasing people. And I was like, this is a cool job. I want to do this.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:09

And I and I will note that good for Stanisloss. Both of you said, Well, I applied a few places, Stanislos got back to me first. Yeah. Well done, Stanisloss. Uh that note to self uh departments that are pokey and slow. That I I mean, John, how many times have you heard that you know over the years where people say, Well, I just was waiting for I applied to three places. The first one called was this department. And it it's funny how often it's the same departments that you hear. And the ones that don't get you are the ones that take forever, you know, and ridiculously slow. I mean, slower than a California vote. I mean, we're talking slow. Um, you know, election counting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh yeah, good, good. That's interesting that that happened to both of you at different time frames, you know, uh that uh you both uh got called first. Well done, Stannis loss. They did it right.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:05

Something you brought up, AJ, that I thought was interesting was how COVID was kind of the launching point for the full-time unit. That's I've always been interested in in what COVID's done both positively and negatively, you know, as it relates to society. That's the first time I've heard, you know, that was the kind of the launching point for a public safety aviation unit. You know, that's pretty cool. Uh I'm I'm sure that uh the county is beyond happy that they decide to go all in on a full-time unit.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:34

Yeah, yeah. So they we'd we've been pushing for it for quite a while, but just could never you know get get that decision made to you know get through now, you're taking a body away from patrol and everything else, and just couldn't ever make it quite make it happen. We're collecting all the stats, trying to do everything that we could to show the justification, the need was there. Um and then yeah, COVID hit and with all the OES stuff and everything else and the and the hysteria of it when it all first happened. Uh yeah, they wanted to make sure that uh the air crews and the helicopters would be available if needed to supplies or you know, whatever it might be. And um, so they made a decision to pull us off of patrol. Um we were quarantined from each other. Uh so each crew, we had two crews. Once one crew finished their work week, then the whole office would get cleaned, and then before the other crew came in and everything else, the whole the whole craziness of it. So thankful I missed all that.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:34

Oh God.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:36

But yeah, then that that got us there seven days a week, and then patrol started realizing how useful we can be, yeah, um, when it even if it's not the weekend. And so we're there, you know, you never know when crazy stuff's gonna crack off. So we were there seven days a week. People started getting used to us being there, being available, able to call us to go fly this or do that anytime they wanted. And so we there was a brief period where we went back to patrol. But it was with it was kind of with the understanding that once the you know the the next shift change and next cycle starts, that then one crew would be going back full time. Yeah. Um and then once we got that first crew, it's just a matter of time for waiting for staffing and everything else to get the the other two bodies there. Wow. But yeah, luckily it it kicked it off and they got used to us being there and then they didn't want it to go away.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:27

So a a positive story about COVID, John. You got it. You found one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:34

It's interesting with command staff, they always talk about justifying, you know, oh, we can't we can't give you a body because you know patrol numbers are low. But you know, what they fail to realize is that aviation is a for force multiplier. And so while you might be giving one body up, you're getting much more in return because of the service that that are providing. Uh Lieutenant Aaron Kelliher from Chino PD really described that really well in his justification for their airborne public safety program. But yeah, interesting that that that's the kind of the thing that launched your guys' program. Pretty cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:06

I'm glad you mentioned Aaron. Aaron, if you're listening, we're calling you. You gotta remind me. I mean, Chino, they just launched their their program in the past two months, yeah. I mean, with their Bell 505. And uh Aaron worked hard ten years to get that program off the ground. Uh off the ground. See what I did there? We we gotta get Aaron on here to tell everybody his story. It's incredible. So what this this brings me into my next question. Um be because uh you know, support uh from above. Your department's had two sheriffs in a row now that is very air support supportive. I mean, very much so. And and I was telling Tyler before we came on, uh AJ, that I actually texted uh Sheriff Christensen the other day and said, Hey, I'm having a couple of your old guys on here. And uh and I said, Tell me g give me something to work with here uh about the air unit in Stanislaus and how important that was to you. And typical Adam, he sent me five paragraphs and and it was just so uh complimentary uh of the work that uh was done for all those years and the work that's being done now. He's been gone for a while now, and he's still so proud of that unit. I can't even tell you. And he's genuine. I mean, Adam doesn't blow smoke. And uh he just said we we realized how important that was early on. And he said, as a share as the sheriff for that time, I was all in. We we gotta keep this rolling and keep it moving and keep it evolving. And then Sheriff Durst comes in and he just takes it to the next level and keeps that support going in a big way. I want you to both comment on that about how important it is to have the person at the top being supportive of air support and what that means to your unit.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:09

We've been very fortunate. Um, like you said, Sheriff Christensen, Sheriff Dirksey, both super supportive of the air support unit. I think they they both realize you know the value that it provides and they they want it to be there and be available. And aside from that, also um they under um they kind of treat us as a regional asset. And you know, because we're we're right in the middle of two CHP bases, Fresno and Auburn. There's not there were for a long time there wasn't very much air support in the valley. And so we we would go all of our neighboring counties, and it was kind of a no questions asked. If someone calls asking for help, we're gonna go, we're gonna go help them out and respond. And so it's uh it's it's game changer. With uh county supervisors as well, getting the funding, um, being able to, you know, acquire that the 407 a few years ago and everything, the county, our administration, everyone is extremely supportive of the unit. And without that, I don't you're you're gonna struggle. Just the cost, the budget, everything else is it's gonna be hard to keep one going and be effective as well.

unknown 1:32:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:18

Tyler. Like we were talking about before, Jack, that having uh admin like ours that's so on board with us doing it is a huge deal. I mean, we're the typically aviation units are one of the smallest or small smallest or smaller units in the agency and typically cost more than just about everything else. So having an admin staff that understands the value that the air unit brings it is huge. And we've been very lucky. But the last two sheriffs they've they've understood that the importance of keeping the the aviation unit intact and uh what we can provide for the county.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:58

Uh we're not I mean, they're they're really good about they don't limit us on flight time, they they let us assist other agencies, so they like not just our agency, but the agencies around us benefiting from the assets.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:10

No doubt. Uh that's great. I mean, we we chatted before about this, how there are plenty of places in this country where the sheriff changes and the air unit goes away, or it gets uh cut dramatically. So you guys are very fortunate, with Adam and and uh Sheriff Dursey. I mean, he to have that support and uh and keep you guys going so that there continues to be an evolution. That 407 was a big, big one. I mean, that was a big game changer for you guys, and uh I was so thrilled to see that happen. That's great. Um we're gonna talk about um Modesto for a second. Modesto is the largest city in Stanislaus County. You guys covered that for years from the air, your air unit. And then uh not that long ago, Modesto PD uh started an air support program with a fixed wing. And it's they're they're gonna be coming on the podcast very soon here. It's a great story how they how they did that. I want to talk to you guys about the cooperation between the two units. So, Tyler, uh talk about the relationship with uh the fixed wing program at Modesto PD.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:23

We have a uh good working relationship with those guys. It's a good bunch of dudes over there. Their hangers right next to ours, so we're always walking back and forth until we're stealing sodas out of the fridge all the time. So uh it's good. And um the coverage now is is good, right? So there's a lot of times if we're down and we hear them landing for fuel, we'll jump in the helicopter and go up. So we're trying to keep we work to keep an aircraft burning fuel at some point during the day, right? So we're not there's overlap between us and them. Uh and we jump on each other's calls all the time. We don't uh we don't hesitate to help each other. So if I hear that they're getting hammered in their city and and calls are coming out and they're on a something priority, we'll go take calls for them and they do the same for us. So it's been it's been really good to have them up. I think I mentioned to you before that there's been a couple uh instances where we're chasing a car, they're chasing a car, and the other airship isn't doing anything, and they want to get in on the action. So you got two aircrafts chasing one vehicle, so you get whoever comes out of that car and leg bails, you got a a pretty high probability of of taking them to jail.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:28

So very high probability. That's great. That's good. AJ, anything to add to that uh relationship and cooperation between the two units?

SPEAKER_03 1:35:38

It's been a great addition um for our area as well. And you know, like Tyler mentioned, if we're on the ground and a call comes out, it might be a sheriff's office call, they can they can go get on scene first pretty quick, and then we can go relieve them and let that air support, you know, that coverage is there quick. They're not having to wait uh for our response time if they're already up, and vice versa. And I can mention handling calls for each other. We don't we we're listening to their radio, we're listening to our radio, multiple radios, and we don't really discriminate on whose call is whose. If we hear a call that's worth going to, we're gonna go, um, yeah, whether it's sheriff's office or not. And they they act the same way as well. So it's yeah, yeah, it's only been beneficial to everyone having multiple units up, more coverage. Yeah, and the pursuits are huge as well. If you know we're in the helicopter and we're getting low on fuel and they can take over in the fixed wing, or vice versa. They could be you know coming to the end of their flight and we can go help take over. Like it's it's uh it's only only beneficial, and yeah, it's great to have them right next door. So get to get to work together pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:44

That's important. That's so important. I think most units do that, but not all. We've heard some stories over the years of units that don't have that cooperation and and uh relationship. That's cool that you're next to each other. That doesn't that way you can grab your stickers and put it on their aircraft. You don't have to walk real far. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:03

That's never that's never happened, Jack. I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:05

John John was thinking that as soon as as soon as you guys said, Oh, they're right next door in the hanger next door. John's going, oh, stickers. Yeah. They probably put stickers that you just walk over there.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:14

We've never stuck stickers on.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:17

I'm sure they've never done that to you. Oh my God, we live over there.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:23

Uh the pranks that happen. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:27

The time's flying by, man. We're talking about modesto and uh you know they're new, you know. Like I said, they're gonna be coming on. And uh AJ, you'll be shocked to know that I know the following Modesto, water, wealth, contentment, and health. I've known that phrase since November of 1983 because one of my classmates, you who I think you probably know, Pete, uh also known as Van Diemen, uh my entire academy class knew that phrase because we and we hammered him about it all the time. He said it one day, and we said, Oh, we're never gonna let you forget that. He'd get done speaking on anything, and we'd go, water, wealth, contentment, and health. Uh the arch, the arch. So that's my connection to Modesto. So yeah, yeah. Tyler, most impactful incident as a member of Air Support. And by the way, I always add this impactful is defined by you. It's gonna be an incident that you take to your to your dying day and you'll remember it uh in air support.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:36

There's a few calls that kind of popped the front of my mind. There's one specifically, it was um victim calls in saying that her ex is breaking in the house and he's armed with a gun. Um, we were airborne and we headed that direction. That's in the south part of the county, so it's a considerable flight to get out there. By the time we got there, they had already left. Her child was still there, a juvenile was still in the house, said that she was taken by I don't know if it was the child's father or just an ex-boyfriend or whatever, but he took her. And they didn't know where he went. But where his position in the county is no surpr it's not surprising. It's flat out there, and there's only like two or three main ways to get out there. So from where we were over the call, I just pointed the camera south because we came from the north. Uh, we came southbound up to the call. I I pointed the camera to the south and I picked up uh heat signature running between the orchards. I could see it flashing between the orchards. So I knew this car, you could tell it was moving pretty good and it was putting off a lot of heat, so it was working pretty hard. So I just had the pilot head that direction. Got close enough, identified the car as possibly a suspect's vehicle. We're under IR, so you can't, you know, absolutely identify it, but it matched. So I start getting units going that way, and the guy is working his way to our South County line. He almost makes it to the South California line. He comes to uh a bridge where they had these big concrete barriers up. The bridge was closed due to the flooding, and uh stops, gets out of the car, snatches her out of the car and starts dragging her across the bridge. And I remember thinking afterwards, like if we hadn't found the car, identified where he was going, what was he planning on doing with this woman after he got out of the car and going across the bridge? We were able fortunately, we were able to get units there, got him in custody, nobody was injured. Bad guy went to jail, so it all ended well. But that one stuck with me because it's the understanding that us being on scene and being able to get the cops to where the bad guy was doing the bad thing at the right time worked out great.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:50

How far how far do you think you were when you first got that glimpse in the of the heat source at the orchard? Probably ten miles, twelve miles.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:59

Oh so we were it was just a it was just a black dot, a heat source, black dot. So he was already he had been gone for several minutes by the time that we arrived on scene.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:10

That is awesome. That is really cool. Uh outstanding, Tyler. Well done.

unknown 1:41:20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:20

It's it's horrible at times for us to quantify the value of an aviation program. Yeah. But that that that incident you just talked about, I I think it'd be hard to argue that it wasn't a life-saving incident.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:34

You know, had had aviation not been involved, if you were relying just on ground, ground uh, you know, patrol patrol officers to respond out there, the their response would have taken a long time and the suspect wouldn't have been in the location that they were looking for. It would have been, you know, assuming that he was going over the bridge with malintent, which I'm sure he wasn't going there to do something nice, it would have been a recovery at some point days later. You know, but yeah, but the fact that you guys were airborne, which is a huge part of that by itself, picked up the target, worked the ground units, coordinated everything, gosh, that that sh highlights the value of an aviation program. It does. In ways that many can't talk about, you know. So kudos to you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:17

Let me ask you this, Tyler. Another follow-up. How far was the suspect when you first saw that blip going through the orchards, how far was that from the original location of the call?

SPEAKER_05 1:42:30

So we were we were about we were on scene over the house. So he he had made it about 10 miles from the house.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:37

That's so you had, I mean, you're seeing him from 10 miles, and the fact that he was already 10 miles away goes back to what John just said. How is Patrol gonna find him? There the answer is luck. The answer is you can do anything. Uh, and it's just luck. And whereas with technology from the air, it's not luck. You go, okay, it's been a while since he left. I'm gonna scan out here. There's only a limited area, it's flat. I can work this. Yeah, bam, there's something. And it leads to the arrest. Oh, that is that is that it just got even better. Uh, the fact that he was that far away from the the house. Because we all know cops show up, you know, robbery just occurred, and everybody shows up to where the robbery was. And it's like, well, the one place we know he isn't is where you guys are all pulled up from, you know, here. I mean, yeah, let's start out here. And and uh people go, they drive fast when they leave crime scenes and they're gonna get far, far away. Ten miles. I mean, fantastic. Great job, Tyler. Great job. AJ, most impactful incident in air support. Go for it.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:46

I was initially gonna say the uh the water rescue that we had already um talked about, but uh another one that comes to mind. That was the coldest. The coldest, yeah, exactly. The coldest, yeah. I think I uh I think for that our pilot snapped a picture of me afterwards and we landed, and I'm in my soaking wet flight suit. So I'll make sure to send that one to you guys. Oh, please do.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:08

Soaking wet.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:09

Please do. I got back to the hangar. I probably dumped out about a gallon of water out of my leather boots.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:13

Oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:15

But another one that comes to mind is it started off as just another motorcycle pursuit. I started in locally in Turlock. Um, ended up going all the way down 99 into Merced, around the city of Merced for a while, uh, which is about see about a 20-minute flight, uh some miles and trying to probably like 50 miles or so down 99, down to Merced, then all the way back up into our area. And then it started going out west out towards uh Patterson and the mountains that um where we border with Santa Clara County. And by this point, we were pretty much empty on fuel. And so we ended up headed back to the airport, um, hot fueling and getting back up there. But before we were able to get back, he had been weaving through it's uh Del Porto Canyon Road, and it's I think it's a highway 160, and it dumps you off um on the other side of the mountains, like in Santa Clara County, and I think one way you can go up into Livermore. That CHV had lost him at that point, so we were up there, we're just looking, checking the roads. You know, it's at this point, I think it was like 4 a.m. Um, no other cars on the road, we're just not seeing taillights anywhere. We probably searched for another 30, 45 minutes, just checking everywhere, seeing if he pulled off to the side of the road or anything. And we can't find them. We finally we just we go UTL until CHP, they're like, Yeah, we can't find them either. We're everyone's getting ready to just kind of drive back down the mountain, back into the valley. And we're flying back, and I just as we're flying back, I'm just kind of scanning the road back as we go, and I saw the little little tiny glimmer, something that just looked off, and I was like, huh. And I didn't say anything to the pilot yet, but I kind of just zoomed in with the camera a little bit, but then he kind of noticed that something caught my attention. So then he banks a hard left turn, and sure enough, on one of the hairpin turns um on that canyon road, he had just gone right off the side, and he was maybe 15, 20 feet kind of, and probably 15 feet like off the road, down an embankment, and trapped under his motorcycle.

unknown 1:46:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:20

Um, CHP had multiple units that had driven right by him going up there searching, and no, he's down the embankment, no one could see him. And so just kind of wondering like what would have happened if we never found him. He's pinned under his motorcycle, injured. It was 4 a.m. Like he would have been there all night. Would anyone ever have found him? Would he have able to then get get up? Um, you know, just kind of what what would have happened if we didn't happen to find him down there? Yeah. And that coupled with the two-hour-long pursuit that preceded it, and then to cap it off of that, it's uh it always kind of stands out as one for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:00

That's a good one. That's a really good one. Again, life saving, probably. Probably you're trapped under a motorcycle and you're nobody finds you. Maybe they don't find you even the next day. I mean, right? I mean, nobody's looking for them. Right? It could have been a long time. So that's that's a good one. And again, technology and it would have been easy for you to stow the hand controller, sit back and say, Take take me home, partner, and sit back and fly back to the hangar. Yeah. No, no, you didn't do that. You were you were scanning for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:36

Yeah. Especially at the end of a long pursuit, right? You're mentally tired, uh, two-hour flight, you're you're you're ready to go home and and and de stress, you know, but you stayed engaged. That's that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:48

That is really good. Two good ones. Man, those are saving lives, save the life of of that that woman for sure, and save the life of of a bad guy, I might add. You know? Uh people just don't realize uh what what we do. You know, the the average the average citizen uh just has no idea what uh how much great life-saving work is done in many different ways. It doesn't have to be plucking somebody out of a river to save a life. It can be other things on the law enforcement side. I mean, it's it's one of the reasons John created this podcast because he recognized that these stories aren't being told. I mean, uh people just don't realize what law enforcement aviation does and the benefits of it. And so that's been a big goal and hopefully we're we're uh continuing to succeed at sharing those stories. Two great stories, yeah, no doubt. Yeah, but in the in the couple of minutes we have left, let's uh let's talk about two two things real quick. The future of air support at Stansaws County. Tyler, why don't you run with that first? And uh what do you what do you think? What is there something on the horizon that maybe you want to share? Or what what what's if if you were the king for the day, what it would be? What however you want to approach that, but what does the future look like?

SPEAKER_05 1:49:08

Oh man, if I was king for a day, we'd have we'd have a whole fleet of 407 stuff. Yeah, baby.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:12

Um we'll be thrilled with that, by the way.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:15

Man, Jack, I think uh I think our air unit is in a good spot and I see us going in good places. So I think we're we're more driven. Uh we have got a really good group of very dedicated driven guys. Even the overtime guys, when they have a chance to come in, they show up ready to give 100%. Um, they're all go-getters. We're we're training more than we have ever trained. I think we're doing things safer than we've ever done it. So I see I see the unit going in a great direction. I feel like we're just getting better and better.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:44

Good. AJ. I agree with uh everything Tyler just said. I wouldn't say there's anything that's actually on the horizon or in the works for things, but you know, maybe work towards eventually replacing the the 78 Long Ranger with another 407. So That way when one's down, we have the exact same capabilities. Um, I think that would be the next big um game changer for us. Um that's obviously that cut a lot of money and and everything goes into that. So hopefully, you know, a few years down the road we can something can get into the works. But yeah, I think we're we're in a good spot. We're in a moving in a good direction. And I don't really see anyone getting too complacent. And so it's uh it's everything's going good.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:28

Good. Well, that's a that's a good goal. That's what I thought you would say. You know, get that second 407. That'd be great. Uh no doubt about it. And it it sounds to me like you guys are doing a wide variety of such good work that it's gonna come. It's gonna come. You keep documenting what you're doing, you keep getting the word out, uh, social media, you know, you guys do that, you know, getting that word out and getting that support, and you got a good sheriff, you know, we'll see what happens. But we're we'll wish the best for you on that. AJ, I'll go back to you for this final thing. And Tyler, you can add to the anything you want to tell us about this too. There's an air support association that that you listed on uh some information that you sent me. And it's a 501c3 that that supplements some funding for training and things for your unit. Tell us about that association and what it does for your unit, how it enhances you guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:24

Uh yeah, I think so. When it it first started, it was definitely as you know, an enhancement for training, equipment, and everything. You know, when budgets are tighter, not full time, you're trying to get by, initially starting. Now we're very fortunate, like we've talked about already, the support that we have. We have a great budget, we have state-of-the-art equipment. Um now we're able to utilize the that 501c3 to help give back to the community. Nice. So we work quite a bit with our canine association. Um, and one of the big things we do every year is the a toy drive near Christmas. And we'll fly Santa Inn and you know, deliver presents to kids and go around um with the canine association and other department members to the crisis homes and deliver presents and everything during the holidays. So that's one of the one of the main bigger things that we do with the association now.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:17

Very nice. Tyler, anything to add on that association and benefits for your unit?

SPEAKER_05 1:52:22

I guess if anybody wants to see it, they can find that SC SD Air Sport. Right, Nicole?

SPEAKER_03 1:52:29

Yeah, on Instagram. Or air101.org.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:32

Air101.org.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:34

Yep. Nice. Um but yeah, and we're and with that, we're able to have uh, like you said, social media and propose through use it as our association. And uh with approval, obviously, we're able to make you know the videos and kind of showcase the work that we're doing on the unit and do that on there and um highlight videos, rescues, um, other things that are going on. So it helps just the interaction with the community, they get to see what we're doing, you know, what even just what the camera looks like, the flare camera and all that. And um it's a it's a good asset to have. John, you want to follow up on that topic?

SPEAKER_01 1:53:09

And you love this topic, and I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:11

You guys keen in on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:12

No, I heck yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:14

I I met you guys a couple years ago at one of the AppSCON uh events, and and I've been following you guys ever since. Your guys' social media presence is great. You know, we talk about uh the value that social media brings, whether it's community engagement, transparency, internal, external recruiting, uh, or marketing. Uh you guys have done a good job of that, you know, and I think it's really important for agencies to to look at what you guys have done and try and model that for what they're doing. The 501c3 is interesting too. That was something that that I was trying to get accomplished and implemented at my unit, and they're still trying to do that. It's it's no uh easy task. It's a lot of work, but the benefits that come from that are huge. You know, there's a lot of goals that we had in developing that and getting that status uh allows you a lot of unique opportunities like what you guys are doing with for the community. So whether it's through social media, you guys are recruiting the next generation of police officers, TFOs, and pilots through that, or whether it's through the the toy drive and you guys showing up and being a part of that, it's really cool to see you guys engaged in the community. As we talk about uh some of the obstacles that a lot of agencies face when it comes to the uh successful funding of the program, uh part of it's political and part of it's monetary. But you guys have been able to tackle the political side through all these different avenues, which is really cool. You know, these all play a big role in in uh the community's desire and and and willingness to support a program like this. As if it you tomorrow got a new sheriff uh and they said, Well, I don't know if I want to have an airsport unit. I'm pretty sure you'd have a long line of folks from from the county and from the the you know the overall citizen group within within your area of operation that would say otherwise, you know. So you guys have done a really good job with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:05

That's important. That's important. An example, John. We were talking about them earlier, Sonoma, Henry One. They've gone, they've had periods where there was discussions among the county officials to uh this is too expensive. And the public came out of the woodwork to support them. They would line up people that whose lives were actually saved, and they would come to the commissioner, county commissioners' meetings and say, I'd be wouldn't be here if it weren't for Henry One. And I mean, it was amazing. All the great work they were doing, and they still had to battle a couple times. So it it goes back to you know, always selling yourself and and and showing people what you're doing so that if that day comes where somebody says, uh, we're gonna do this or cut that, you can show them what you what you've been doing. And how do you argue with that? You know, uh when you're saving lives, you can't put money on that. So great points.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:07

Jack and I will be running uh a short class talking about social media and internal and external marketing. And if you know, I'll definitely utilize and promote your guys' social media content as as part of that. You guys have done a good job.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:20

Very good. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:22

Yeah, it's uh we got we're lucky to have we have a lot of good community support and we don't hear too many negative things. Um everyone loves the helicopter, and I think like you mentioned the social media and being able to see what we're doing is a big part of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:36

Dogs and helicopters, dogs and helicopters.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:40

All right. Well, John, uh any closing thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 1:56:43

So when we talk to you guys, what you guys remind me of is is uh kind of like Nashville PD. You know, Nashville uh came into existence a long time ago and have gradually improved their their operation to where they've become an essential part of their department's operations. And it seems through talking to you guys, you guys are now an essential part of the operations of of your county, uh at least as it relates to law enforcement and search and rescue. And that's been done, you know, while the existence or the program's been in existence for a while, you guys in six years of a full-time program have done a lot. So I'm excited to see you guys develop and you talk about what's in store for the future of your agency. Based on what we're talking about today, it seems like uh the political willingness to spend money on additional aircraft and resources for you guys is gonna be there because of the result, the product that you guys that you guys make. A lot of agencies are getting away from the flying club mentality, but you still talk to them. They're still out there, you know. But you guys are not that flying or that agency that sits back and just watches things. You guys actually make things happen. So uh kudos to you guys. Uh it's been uh an honor to talk to you guys. Thanks for taking a couple hours out of your day to talk to us and and share your stories and insights. It's been really cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:57

Yeah, thank you for having us. It's uh been a good time and yeah, it's just thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:03

Well, I'll I'll just close this out here and and say uh here's another example, John, of a small unit making a big difference in their community. We we we touch on that. And the last time that we really stressed that, guess who? Henry one. You know, it it's that's a s another small unit making huge differences. So keep up the great work. I this is this is wonderful. We love uh we love talking to to these uh the the units like yours that that keep doing great work. They don't have this huge fleet, they don't need it. They they they're getting the job done with what they got and they're dedicated, they're professional, and they're hard working, and uh the community is seeing the benefit, and the sheriff is seeing the benefit. So great, great job. Uh and I want to thank you too for both being on. I gotta thank Kyle Christensen too. Kyle was my first text. I said, We got to get a hold of Stanisloss and see if we can get a crew. And so I got uh Kyle's uh number and texted him, said, Hey, get this ball rolling. And he referred me to your sergeants who referred me to you guys. Well, he gave me four names. You guys had the cage match to decide who was got in, you guys won, and we want video of the chokeout. But I'm so glad that it all worked out. But thanks, Kyle, and thanks to your supervision for for cooperating with us to uh to get the both of you on the podcast to share your stories and share your unit story, and we're thrilled to profile it and share it with all of our followers and listeners and people that watch. Tyler, AJ, thank you, thank you for your time and uh keep up the great work. Thank you guys. I appreciate you, Chuck. Thanks, John. Yep, thank you. John, it was fun. And like I said, we're gonna follow up with the Modesto PD in the near future, uh, which is which will just dovetail onto what we've started here with Stanislaus. And in the meantime, uh we've we're keeping at it. We we appreciate everybody that's listening and supporting us, MHM Publishing, uh, for everything they do uh for us, all of our sponsors, all of our listeners, we really appreciate it. Keep keep watching and listening and and commenting and and giving us a thumbs up and a share, and we appreciate it. So uh with that, we want every all of you out there to stay safe, and we will catch you the next time on the Hanger Z podcast.