When officers on the ground request a helicopter, Fairfax One can be overhead within minutes. Behind that response are aircraft inspections, weather assessments, crew briefings, air traffic coordination and extensive training.
Andrew Edgerton, chief pilot for the Fairfax County (Va.) Police Department’s Helicopter Division, grew up flying airplanes with his father. After college, he worked in telecommunications supporting government customers and used the money he earned renting rooms in his house to learn how to fly helicopters. He later worked as a flight instructor and news helicopter pilot before joining Fairfax County.
The department’s six pilots are non-sworn, uniformed professional staff members. They work alongside sworn tactical flight officers who are cross-trained as paramedics, allowing the division to support law enforcement operations and emergency medical transports around the clock.
Below, Edgerton shares what a typical shift looks like, how crews manage weather and restricted airspace, and why humility and teamwork are essential in police aviation.
What does a typical day look like for you as chief pilot?
A typical day for us here at Fairfax County Police Helicopter Division: We’re 24/7, 365. Always available, always operational. We have four shifts, and we change out roughly at about 5 a.m. And then the day shift ends at 1730. The night shift pilots and crew will come in at 1700. We have like 30 minutes of overlap that’s built in for us to do a shift change briefing, any issues with the helicopter, anything we need to touch base with.
For instance, I’m on day shift right now. I will come in and touch base with the oncoming pilot. If there are any issues with the aircraft, I’ll touch base. We have an in-house director of maintenance who is responsible for our aircraft and makes sure all inspections are up to date. He does a daily inspection on our aircraft, as well.
As the pilot in command, I do my pre-flight inspection. And after that, we do a simple crew briefing on whether there are any expected missions or any type of demos or displays that we have to go do.
We are reactive and proactive. We are reactive in the sense that a dispatcher from our public safety communications can call us on a hotline, and if there’s a need for the airborne law enforcement asset, they will call us, and we will respond accordingly.
But we’re also proactive. We listen to the police radios in the base here. And if we hear something where we think we can be of assistance, then we’ll go ahead and get ahead of it, go ahead and launch. If it’s cold out and the helicopter’s in the hangar, we’ll get ahead of it, start moving.
No day is the same. Whether it’s weather, a really busy day, or people coming in and out managing the fuel system and working around the hangar, every day is definitely unique and very different.
We fly a mandated patrol on day shift and night shift. And when we’re out on those patrols, we do our best to go and assist the officers on the ground, even if it’s just a simple case, if we can be overhead and help out.
There was a white paper that was just recently written that an airborne helicopter asset or aviation asset is almost the equivalent of four extra cruisers and law enforcement personnel on the ground. We are a true force multiplier.
We also support the Fairfax County Fire Division. If we are needed for a medical transport, we are available in that aspect.
Our crew makeup is one pilot and two sworn tactical flight officers who are cross-trained as paramedics as well. If we’re on the proactive side of our mission set, if we hear something and maybe they don’t need us, we’ll just go fly anyway and see where we can add on and be a presence.
Because you never know when the next critical event is going to come out. If we can already be up in the air, then timing is a huge advantage for us.
In the video below, Edgerton offers an inside look at a typical day with the Fairfax County Police Helicopter Division, the operational challenges crews navigate and his advice for officers interested in pursuing a career in law enforcement aviation.
What are the biggest operational challenges you face?
Fairfax County is just to the west of Washington, D.C., and I like to joke that we literally have every weather phenomenon out there. We have thunderstorms, we have tornadoes, we have hurricanes, we have blizzards. We’ve even gotten an earthquake here and there.
Weather is a unique challenge. I think we’re really lucky in the sense that there are six pilots here who have excellent judgment capabilities. We do not push weather. There’s no reason to go take a multimillion-dollar helicopter and three crew members out on a critical situation in bad weather to potentially make a situation even more critical.
Sometimes, officers on the street don’t understand that, but that’s okay. A lot of times, we will go talk to them: Hey, we couldn’t make it. I know the sun was shining down at Mount Vernon, but we had a layer of fog over the base, and we couldn’t make it. We apologize, but we’ll get you next time.
It’s nice that we don’t get that pressure to fly. We manage that out. All pilots here, I think, average about 5,500 hours of flight time. We use that. We’ve been doing it a long time. And we don’t push the envelope as far as it comes with weather.
Maintenance as well. We have two aircraft. If there’s something wrong with one of them, then we can switch into the other aircraft. We try to keep the second aircraft up and available in case we do find something that would preclude us from flying in the duty aircraft. Having a director of maintenance on site to be able to troubleshoot and diagnose any issues as they arise is very helpful.
One of the bigger operational challenges is we are right next to Washington, D.C., which is arguably some of the most restricted airspace on the planet. Our base is within the Class Bravo surface area of Dulles Airport. And then we routinely operate in what’s called the FRZ, the flight restricted zone, which is a 15-mile ring around DCA, Washington National Airport.
But we’re able to get over a lot of those operational challenges by having excellent relationships with our air traffic control partners in the Dulles Tower and DCA Tower. The airspace is a challenge. We did have a catastrophic incident here a couple of years ago. We’ve been working through them, working with our partners there to ensure that we are conducting operations as safe as possible.
That’s one of our operational challenges. Weather is one of those ones we work through. If we can go, we’ll be there. If we can’t, it’s just one of those things.
We go by the rule: three to go, one to say no. If any one crew member has an objection, we will discuss it. We do flight risk assessments before every shift. As the potential threats change throughout the day, we’ll update those in brief. It might be: Hey, we got a thunderstorm coming at 2:00, probably want to have the hangar doors open and helicopter put away before then.
It’s just very fluid and dynamic, and we do our best with risk mitigation. A lot of that is sitting around the table in the ready room and talking it out. If we can find a way to do it, we’ll do it. If we can’t do it, then we’ll put a pause on it and then figure it out later.
In this video by Lloyd Horgan of Vertical Plus, Edgerton gives an exclusive look inside the Fairfax County PD’s Bell 429 platform.
What skills are essential for success as a pilot?
I would say number one is personality. I spend more time with my fellow pilots and my fellow flight officers than I do with my family. We spend a lot of time together. And when we come in for a weekend shift and the weather is 1-mile visibility and a 400-foot ceiling that we’re not flying in, we spend a lot of time together.
Personality—being able to sit in a room with someone for an extended period of time and be able to get along—is huge.
The next thing is what I would call humbleness. When I was training here and learning how to fly the mission profile as a young pilot here, I went through some extremely humbling debriefs on some things. And you need to have thick skin.
None of those debriefs are personal or anything, but when equipment and lives are on the line, you have to get it right every time. We look for that person that can take criticism, that can take constructive criticism, obviously, but can take that and learn from it, put it behind them, move on and improve.
Those are two big traits we really look for in our pilots as well as our flight officers. Obviously, we debrief stuff on the pilot side, but our flight officers, whenever we have a critical law enforcement support mission, even the medevacs, debriefing what we did well, debriefing what we didn’t do well, what we could do better on, and that goes on the law enforcement side as well as the medical side.
And even if it’s a patient care thing where the paramedics are discussing it, we are involved as pilots as well. Just as a total crew, even though we may not have any impact on the medicine that’s going on in the back of the helicopter, but we do those debriefs as a crew.
In the podcasts below, Edgerton joined The Hangar Z Podcast to talk about his journey into aviation and law enforcement.
What does it take to keep your skills sharp?
We conduct internal trainings here. I’m a certified flight instructor in helicopters. We have two other pilots here that are also those.
I do what’s called a line check every year, where I just go fly with whoever the pilot is. It’s more of a discussion of: What are the procedures at this hospital? What are the procedures at that hospital? How do you work in Dulles’s airspace? How do you work in DCA’s airspace? And it’s my job as a chief pilot, as these things change, to make sure that that’s disseminated out to my pilots.
We do line checks. We’re all instrument rated here; we’ll do instrument proficiency checks. The big threat is an inadvertent IMC encounter. That’s basically flying into bad weather, like clouds and everything. That’s a big threat. We practice an inadvertent instrument procedure. And we conduct that every year.
We do an NVG, night vision goggle, reorientation every year. And then probably the biggest thing is all of us go down to Fort Worth, Texas, to the Bell Helicopter Training Academy once every year.
We fly the Bell 429. If you’re lucky enough to join our unit and have Bell 429 experience, you’ll just go to the recurrent class. If you don’t have any experience, we’ll send you down to a 10-day initial class where you’re learning systems, emergency procedures.
They put you in the simulator, which is great, run you through a bunch. It’s all scenario-based training. The simulator’s great because we can press pause, discuss, move forward. It’s an excellent tool for us.
I’ve got one pilot down there right now that we’ve just hired who’s down in his initial class and really enjoying it. I’m going back down for recurrent in September. Bell Helicopter does a great job of keeping us sharp on our skills to operate this aircraft safely.
What is a common misconception about your role as a pilot?
One of the biggest misconceptions is that aviation, and specifically helicopter aviation, is such a specialized subject matter field. The average person does not understand what goes on behind the scenes of: All right, we have a robbery down in Station 2, and we believe we have the subject in the wood line. Start me a canine and start me a helicopter.
And magically, 8 minutes later, this helicopter appears overhead, and hopefully we can assist the officers on the ground.
What they don’t understand is what goes on behind the scenes of ensuring that there’s fuel at the facility, the fuel is clean at the facility, that the hangar door works at the facility, moving the aircraft in and out. We don’t let the aircraft bake in the sun. We don’t let it sit out in the cold because then it’s just wear and tear.
And it’s not just getting into a cruiser, turning the key to the on position, putting it in drive and going. You’re always trying to stay one step ahead of what’s going on. Can we get to that area because Dulles is landing, and we don’t want to be flying underneath airliners?
It’s all these pieces that folks don’t understand of what goes into just a simple request for an air asset. But the good thing is we’re good at it. We know how to do it, and we want to make it seamless for the officers on the ground.
We want them to snap their fingers and have us show up and let us do all the hard work and behind-the-scenes type stuff. That’s the service that I aim to provide here.
Can you share a memorable mission that illustrates the impact of the helicopter division?
A couple years back, we were assisting another jurisdiction within the county. There was an individual who had abducted someone and was a clear threat. They had pulled their vehicle over onto the side of the road, and multiple officers were approaching.
And right as Fairfax One got overhead, the individual had their window rolled down, and there was a firearm on this individual’s lap. And the officers were approaching the vehicle, and our flight officer quickly got on the radio and said, “Individual has a gun in his lap. You all need to back off now.”
They all clearly backed off. I am convinced that the helicopter division saved some officers’ lives that night. That was a really critical, very impactful piece on how we can help our officers on the ground.
One for me personally was we had a request for a medevac just about a mile down the road here for an individual that had crashed on his motorcycle. We medevaced him to Fairfax. He ultimately lost his leg, but he’s alive because of us.
He’s come back and visited us a couple of times. A lot of times, it’s just a patient in the back, and we don’t know what happens to him afterwards, but we went and visited him in the hospital as he was recovering.
It turns out he had just purchased that motorcycle and was driving it home for the first time when he got into this accident. He had a young son. His dad’s still around because of us and the excellent care that my flight officer paramedics provided.
I really like that one just because we still keep in touch to this day, and he’s thriving and doing well. It’s very special when someone has been through an extremely traumatic, life-changing experience to still want us there. We were there on that person’s worst day.
For us to be included, there’s no doubt in my mind, whenever he comes and sees us, that he’s reliving his worst day. And we genuinely appreciate that and him including us in his life. And it’s been really great to see him thrive and still be a great dad, and they’re still with us.
What are the most rewarding aspects of supporting officers and the Fairfax County community from the air?
I’m stealing this from Army Aviation. One of the sayings in Army Aviation is “above the best.” We at the helicopter division are above the best. We’re above the best officers in the country, and we’re above the best community in the country.
The citizens of Fairfax County are super supportive of our program. The officers are very supportive of our program. When we go out, we are a force multiplier. It’s not necessarily whether I catch someone.
Let’s just call it a missing, endangered person with dementia or Alzheimer’s. That’s one of our bigger mission sets is, as the American population ages, we have a lot of these aging illnesses associated with it. You got a missing loved one, and we’re looking all over, and we can use technology to clear it.
If they think they’re on this golf course, I can clear a golf course in two minutes. And that keeps an officer from having to go and drive all around that golf course — that could take an hour. We’re able to be that force multiplier.
And we’re above the best. And when we go and find someone in our FLIR camera and direct our officers to go apprehend that suspect, it’s not about us. It’s about them. They’re the ones that are doing the work, that are doing the actual catching. We’re just up there providing an assist.
I’m super lucky. I do genuinely believe I fly above the best officers in the country and above the best, most supportive community in the country.
What advice would you give someone interested in becoming a law enforcement pilot?
It goes back to what I said a little bit earlier of being humble. My suggestion is always — and I tell this to folks that are looking to become pilots here, those openings are few and far between, or someone that wants to be a flight officer up here — come visit us. Come hang out. Come sit in the ready room. Come get to know the people. Make sure you understand what you’re getting into.
It is a career that needs total dedication, total seriousness, an application of judgment. And you got to be humble. You got to be able to sit in a room with a lot of Type A personalities and everything.
But go knock on doors. Go ask questions. We love to talk about what we do to other officers, to other pilots. PR relations is a huge piece of what we do. We do a big fly-in at the Udvar-Hazy Center, where I think we had 6,000 visitors to the helicopter one year. We reach out, and we love talking about this stuff.
Everyone’s here for a reason because they have a passion for aviation and serving the community. My suggestion is to go to the unit, knock on the door, ask questions. Ask questions at other agencies. There’s about 300 law enforcement agencies around the country.
But I ask questions all the time to other agencies when I don’t have the solution to a problem. Let me go ask someone else. Maybe they’ve dealt with this before. But that’s my suggestion right there.
The challenges we have here are not unique to Fairfax. All the other aviation units, law enforcement aviation units in the area, they have the same challenges that we do. It’s nice to be able to talk to other pilots, talk to other chief pilots, talk to other medics, talk to other flight officers. It’s a small, very tight-knit community.
