for search and rescue. This law applies as well for requesting military helicopters to support a mission. Excepting active duty personnel, they can get it right away. It's not a bad idea per se. Kind of a check to ensure that government assets arent being used frivolously. However, military assets are usually cheaper than the contractors, they tend to inflate their charges because it is "big government".
I went last spring, with the COARNG to search a landfill for a baby that had been murdered. They had an excavator(track hoe) there to dig up the landfill so we could search. They were charging the PD $1000 a day to be there. It ran for maybe 2 hours tops a day. They could have had an identical excavator and operator there from the Engineer company for a fraction of the cost.
The 8 MAFFS (modular airborne FF system) support the entire country. And yes they were all tasked this summer, but not all to the waldo canyon fire. They are the best. Even though they are not truly a Type I apparatus, they are classified as Type I because they are so effective.
Think of all the other aspects that these laws, typical around the country, affect. Like a hurricane. Its mind boggling.
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