Talk:Sussex Police Air Operations Unit

Requested move

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Closed as Move. Final title can be discussed and changed without prejudice. - BilCat (talk) 05:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

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Hotel 900 → Sussex Police Air Operations Unit — per WP:Notability (aircraft) (an essay), articles about individual helicopters are hardly ever notable. This article is really more about the Sussex Police Air Operations Unit[1][2] a Specialist Unit of the Sussex Police. The helicopter is simply a tool the unit uses to provide services to the people of Sussex in cooperation with local ambulance services. It could very well provide the same service with a different type of helicopter and a different callsign, hence the basis for arguing against the notability of the article based on the helicopter itself. The Air Operations Unit stands up to notability much better than the helicopter alone, removing the probability of WP:AIR contention to the article's existence, as well as allowing expanding of the article should the Air Operations Unit procure another helicopter or a light fixed-wing aircraft, or even change the callsign. --Born2flie (talk) 11:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC) Born2flie (talk) 11:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support article on unit is more appropriate, some other ASUs have an article for example Chiltern Air Support Unit. A callsign or single helicopter is not really notable on its own.MilborneOne (talk) 11:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - I appreciate the reasons for the move, but i originally created the article here, rather than at Sussex Police Air Operations Unit, becuase of the dual police/ambulance role it performs. I appreciate that the police are the lead service, but it does perform operations for both sussex police and south east coast ambulance. The operations unit is also generally known within the force and ambulance service as 'Hotel 900' and even in the Sussex Police website it's referred to as 'Hotel 900 (H900) - the Sussex Police Air Operations Unit' and as per WP:COMMONNAME. On that basis, i wouldn't object to expanding the article to include more about the unit as a whole. OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 12:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

• Support - This article does not make the notability guidelines for an individual aircraft at Wikipedia:Notability_(aircraft)#Individual_aircraft so it should be either merged into an article that does of else AFDed. Also the article title is very ambiguous. The callsign "Hotel" is used all over the English-speaking world as a generic tactical callsign for "helicopter". For instance all Canadian Forces helicopters operating on Army radio nets use "Hotel". This means that few people are likely to find it at this title. - Ahunt (talk) 13:20, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support. What exactly makes this particular bird or callsign notable? The objection about this having a dual role is not material to the discussion. The simple fact is that if this is part of a police unit, then it is part of a police unit. I really wonder if the bird can be notable while the unit is not notable. Personally I think that air units in many areas are by definition notable. If a unit has a single bird, that can distort the importance of that bird since it gets all of the calls. It is really the unit that is notable. Also by classifying the unit by a callsign of an aircraft should be avoided since it hides what the article is really about, or should be about. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:05, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• The dual role is not unique, in fact, it is very common in the United States, where many regional law enforcement agency air units also provide a measure of EMS support for rural areas. Also in many of those cases, even though the aircraft program provides EMS capability, the pilots are often primarily law enforcement officers, and the program is managed by the law enforcement agency, rather than by an EMS entity. An example is the Aviation Section of the Suffolk County Police Department (New York), which also uses an MD Explorer for MEDEVAC services while being flown by law enforcement officers. --Born2flie (talk) 03:48, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Just one of the useless bits of info but the air traffic callsign is actually Police 37, Hotel 900 is just used on the police networks. MilborneOne (talk) 08:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually that tends to support my contention above that even if the article subject is notable by itself (which I don't think it is) that the article is incorrectly named. Wikipedia:Naming conventions refers and states that the article should "Use the most easily recognized name", which wouldn't be its police net callsign. Regardless I haven't seen any argument presented yet that shows that this should be a separate article. There are many hundreds of similar aircraft around the world, particularly in North America, and none are notable aside from a brief mention in the article on their operator agency. - Ahunt (talk) 12:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

• To many people "Hotel 900" sounds like a place to get a bed and a meal, not anything police-related. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Like Motel 6! - Ahunt (talk) 11:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Constable

In the Ops bit we currently have this:

"Hotel 900 was crewed by a pilot, a Sussex Police air observer, who was a fully sworn constable (or sergeant) and a paramedic seconded from South East Coast Ambulance Service, who was also trained as an air observer."

Now about that bit: "fully sworn constable (or sergeant)" ... I am not very good on police jargon but I have a suspicion that this may be a slight mess. From what I remember, a fully sworn constable is any police officer. That is, a DCS is also a constable, because they have been sworn into the office of constable and still occupy it. It is, I think, an office not a rank. So, to me - and I am the first to admit that I may have got it wrong so please do NOT jump on me - the bracketed "(or sergeant)" muddies the waters because it could have been someone in any rank. My guess, for what little it is worth, is that if we want to say it's a real copper then FSC is right but if we are trying to say they could be one of two ranks then constable or sergeant is right. If I'm right ... could we reword to clarify slightly??? Best wishes to all DBaK (talk) 20:08, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Yup, I think you are right. - Ahunt (talk) 00:45, 11 February 2017 (UTC)