King County sheriff’s new Guardian One helicopter ready to take flight

SEATTLE – A trio of King County sheriff’s deputies tasked with flying a new Bell 407GXi helicopter from northeastern Tennessee to Renton, Washington, last month experienced an anxious moment when they thought they were about to be stranded in the New Mexico desert.

“We landed almost out of gas, with 30 minutes of fuel on board,” said Deputy Tony Mullinax, one of the pilots assigned to the sheriff’s Air Support Unit who made the trip.

Then two massive U.S. Marine Corps transport helicopters touched down to “hot fuel” – that is, refuel with their engines running – while en route to Yuma, Arizona. “They landed and got topped off first.”

After minutes of “feverish planning” to figure out an alternative, airport operators “managed to save 100 gallons for us,” Mullinax said.

The deputies’ four-day flight from Bell’s service center in Piney Flats, Tennessee, ended Sept. 22 at Renton Municipal Airport, where the Air Support Unit is headquartered in a rented hangar. But their journey was really the culmination of an 18-monthlong scramble by police chiefs, sheriffs, county officials and state lawmakers to secure funds for a much-needed patrol helicopter that’s widely seen as an important regional asset.

“All of us in King County knew we needed it,” said state Rep. Bill Ramos, a Democrat whose 5th Legislative District covers a large swath east and south of Issaquah. “Once we get pieces of equipment like this, people share them as needed. It’s what first responders do.”

The push for a new helicopter

Responding to calls for patrol support – pursuing fleeing vehicles from the air, searching for suspects trying to hide from police and using long-range cameras to read license plate numbers – accounts for the bulk of the Air Support Unit’s 600 to 800 flight hours per year. But the unit’s pilots and tactical flight officers are also called on to conduct surveillance for ongoing police investigations, security checks around ports and search-and-rescue missions for lost hikers, children and vulnerable adults.

Although the Sheriff’s Office requested $2.7 million toward the cost of the new helicopter in early 2023, the state kicked in $1 million, with King County paying the remainder of the nearly $5.5 million price tag. More than $1 million worth of police equipment was stripped from the old backup patrol chopper, a 1973 Bell 206 that was retired in February with 25,000 flight hours under its rotors, and reinstalled on the new one.

It’s the first new aircraft purchased with local taxpayer dollars since the Air Support Unit was created in 1991, said Chief Jeff Flohr, who leads the Sheriff’s Office’s Special Operations Division, comprising air support, SWAT, K-9, marine rescue, search and rescue, bomb, airport firefighting, crisis negotiation and King County Metro and Sound Transit units.

The remainder of the air support fleet – a 2008 Bell 407 patrol helicopter, a training helicopter, and two 1970s Hueys used to transport teams of deputies and in some search-and-rescue missions – were either military surplus or bought with federal grants.

Where the old 407 is the “original analog aircraft,” the new one is fully digital, said Mullinax. The biggest difference between them is that the new helicopter is capable of flying under Instrument Flight Rules, allowing for flight in foggy conditions using instruments to navigate and maintain altitude, with air traffic controllers responsible for making sure pilots don’t run into any obstacles.

FAA regulations require such helicopters to be equipped with autopilot, which isn’t required on choppers that fly under Visual Flight Rules, where it’s solely the pilot’s responsibility not to crash into anything.

“We’re not limited by weather the way we were,” Deputy Ernie Brent, a tactical flight officer, said of the new helicopter. “We’ll be able to go to a lot more calls.”

The new helicopter can seat up to five passengers, but given its mass gross weight limit of 5,250 pounds – with the aircraft itself weighing 3,500 pounds and a full tank of fuel weighing 950 pounds – it will realistically only carry one or two passengers, along with the pilot and tactical flight officer in the cockpit. Even with the unusually high number of annual flight hours required of a Guardian One helicopter, it’s expected to be in service for at least 10 to 15 years.

It was Flohr, the special operations chief, who mustered support for the big-ticket purchase from dozens of federal, state, county and city law enforcement agencies across the region, who all wrote letters to state lawmakers last year emphasizing the vital aid King County’s patrol helicopters – known collectively as Guardian One – provided them over the years. He in turn credited King County Executive Dow Constantine with giving the green light to fast track the new acquisition.

The urgency to replace the retired backup patrol helicopter, which once flew tourists over the Grand Canyon, was a result of the condition of the main Bell 407. Running on a rented engine that tends to leak oil, the 2008 model’s air conditioner broke this summer. As of last week, the helicopter had 1.6 hours of flight time left on it before its required servicing, and 0.6 hours of that time was needed to fly it to Olympia, where Northwest Helicopters, the maintenance and repair company long used by the Air Support Unit, is located.

More needs on the horizon

The old Bell 407 isn’t the only helicopter in need of some TLC.

In May, U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier, a Democrat whose 8th Congressional District includes portions of eastern King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, requested $2 million from the appropriations committee next year for upgrades to one of the two Hueys in the King County Sheriff’s Office’s fleet, known together as Guardian Two.

The money would be used to upgrade the transmission, rotors, electronics and avionics because in its current state, the Huey has diminished stability, lift and hoist capabilities.

“The project is a good use of taxpayer funds because it will ensure the King County Sheriff’s Office’s ability to conduct rescue operations throughout the state, respond to major disasters, and transport SWAT and specialty police units to high-risk situations,” Schrier wrote in a letter to the committee’s chair and ranking member.

Helicopters in action

The King County Sheriff’s Office’s Air Support Unit is the only full-time, rotary-wing law enforcement unit in the state, Mullinax said.

The Sheriff’s Air Support Unit even has its own YouTube channel, where its members post videos of some of their rescues and police operations. The most recent video, shot from Guardian One in September, shows the hunt and eventual surrender of a man accused of attacking two people with a hatchet in Puyallup.

The front of the helicopter has what’s known as a forward looking infrared sensor, equipped with two daytime cameras and one infrared camera that captures body heat, attached to it. The YouTube video flips between cameras as the helicopter crew watches the man struggle through heavy brush on the south bank of the Puyallup River, transmitting his location to Puyallup police officers on the ground.

“We’re about to make contact. We appreciate your help, Guardian. Thank you,” an officer is heard saying in the video that has racked up 24,000 views.

“Guardian One, copy,” comes the reply.

Before his trip to Tennessee with Deputies Keith Potter and Josh Sweeney, Mullinax helped find a woman who was picking mushrooms near Lena Lake in Jefferson County when she got separated from her party. She ended up spending the night alone in the wilderness.

Brent, the tactical flight officer who rode shotgun on that mission, made a recorded message that played on a loop through the chopper’s public address system as Mullinax piloted over the area.

“Some hikers signaled to us (pointing to the woman’s location). We flew back and picked up some search and rescue volunteers, dropped them off, got gas, and then picked them all up,” Mullinax said.

Because Guardian One and Guardian Two are considered regional assets, Mullinax said the Air Support Unit provides aid anytime they’re able to do so – and doesn’t charge any police or federal agency for the help.

Last week, in a hangar off West Perimeter Road in Renton, a mechanic with Northwest Helicopters worked to fix a clogged oil filter on the new Bell 407GXi.

Two Bell officials were on-site along with technicians from SHOTOVER Systems, a Colorado-based company that developed the augmented reality software used in Guardian One’s mapping and navigation systems, to work on the helicopter’s final configurations.

The equipment was paid for with grant money. The Sheriff’s Office paid for the custom mounts, wiring and other accessories installed by Bell.

“There’s so much good that’s coming out of this piece of equipment,” Flohr said of the new Bell 407GXi and its expected impact.

“It was a little emotional to see it fly in the other day, to put my hand on it after so much pushing.”