COBI Bell 429 Police Set 26630

COBI's Bell 429 Police is a 1:48 model built from 254 blocks, 24 cm long, in police markings. A new cockpit part was designed specifically for this set. All markings are printed; the set contains no stickers.

The helicopter is not there to chase anyone

A police helicopter almost never catches the car it is following, and it does not try to. What it does is remove the reason for the chase.

From 500 metres up, an observer with a stabilised camera and a thermal imager can follow a vehicle through turns, under trees and into a driveway without the driver being able to see or hear which way to run. Cars on the ground can then be positioned ahead rather than behind. Most forces that put a helicopter over a pursuit instruct the ground units to back off, because the dangerous part of a pursuit is the police car, not the aircraft.

Thermal imaging is the other half of it. A person hiding in a hedge or a garden shed at night is invisible to anyone on foot and obvious from the air, which is why a large share of police helicopter hours are flown looking for missing people rather than for suspects.

In the COBI range

Part of the Action Town range at 1:48. Set 26629 is the Bell 429 as an air ambulance, and 26627 the Bell 407 in coast guard markings.

Specifications

Pieces: 254 · Scale: 1:48 · No stickers
Model dimensions: 24 × 8 × 16.5 cm (9.4 × 3.1 × 6.5 in)