Eau Claire (WQOW)- "Wisconsin State Patrol has had an aircraft support unit for over 50 years," says Captain Jeffrey Frenette with the Wisconsin State Patrol.
Law enforcement officers are out on the road this summer and they are getting help from their friends in the air. There are three planes owned by the state patrol. They are based out of Madison, Green Bay, and Eau Claire. The planes also serve another function: they helped catch more than 3,000 speeders last year.
"The officer that is in the aircraft views traffic from above. They can obviously identify vehicles that are in excess of the speed limit so they utilize marks to get time and distance and then they radio down to support vehicles on the road and they make the stop," Frenette explains.
Typically, the planes are only used during the summer.
"We are not just doing speed enforcement. We look for disabled motorists. We look for changing traffic conditions. For example, the incidents that have been occurring with the heat with the pavement bucklings, re-routes, if we have a traffic crash, our reconstructions can use the aircraft for photographing the scene," points out Frenette. "We also have thermal imaging so if we have somebody that is lost, a child that is lost, we can use our aircraft for that."
The state patrol says it's about $120 an hour to keep those planes in the air. Statewide, it spent about $54,000 on that last year, flying more than 450 hours.
