Safety Reigns in New Orleans: ALEA Hosts Its 41st Annual Conference and Exposition

When the annual conference of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association (ALEA) convenes tomorrow in New Orleans, conversations of its 3,500 members will focus on public safety.

• How to keep it front and center in every operation when there are so many, often conflicting, demands.

• Where in times of diminished budgets to find funds for needed education and training.

• Who has best practices to share, particularly in maintaining vigilance and staying sharp.

We won’t be at the show ourselves, but will have a bit of a virtual presence. Our hot-off-the-presses rotorcraft edition of FlightSafety International’s Training Matters will be at the show. One of its most interesting articles talks about night-vision goggle use and training.

Collaboration Lights the Night

FlightSafety has teamed with NVG-training-leader Aviation Specialties Unlimited to offer simulation-based NVG training. While this training is initially starting at FlightSafety’s Learning Center in Tucson (in the world’s first Level 7 FTD), it will expand to FlightSafety’s other helicopter Learning Centers. Even if you’re training on a Eurocopter AS350 FTD, your NVG training can be done regardless of your helicopter type or mission. It certainly beats training in your helicopter – which restricts you to training at night only, limits the emergency and abnormal scenarios you can train for, and diverts the aircraft away from its primary mission – enforcement.

We applaud FlightSafety, Aviation Specialties and ALEA for their efforts to keep the public safe. As members of said public, we sleep easier at night knowing you guys are on the job. And wearing your night vision goggles.