Spidertracks Customer Spotlight: Arizona Department of Public Safety, Aviation Bureau
For the past 57 years, the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s Aviation Bureau has been providing the state of Arizona with essential aerial services including disaster response, rescue operations, firefighting, and medical evacuations. They’ve been Spidertracks customers since almost the beginning — coming aboard nearly a decade ago when real-time flight tracking for anyone other than commercial operators was just getting off the ground.
Since then, they’ve used Spidertracks to better serve the Arizona public as a government organisation, and they’ve been able to boost the safety of both their pilots and aircraft. We asked Aviation Commander Terry Miyauchi to answer a few questions about the Bureau’s use of our product, and he happily obliged. Read on to see what he had to say!
Tell us a bit about the Arizona Department of Public Safety. What do you do? What customers do you serve?
The Arizona Department of Public Safety (Aviation Bureau) provides a statewide air rescue response capability and regional air transport service that greatly benefits the public, the department, and other public safety agencies. The Aviation Bureau is comprised of four air rescue helicopter bases, a fixed-wing air support unit, maintenance unit, and administrative staff. To accomplish its mission, the Aviation Bureau operates and maintains a fleet of five rotary-wing and nine fixed-wing aircraft.
From four regionally based locations, the air rescue helicopters provide law enforcement aerial surveillance utilizing the latest technologies. The air rescue helicopters and their crews also conduct search and rescue operations and provide helicopter technical rescue services to include short-haul, aerial rappel, toe-in/one-skid landings, and confined area operations.
The Aviation Bureau also provides a wide variety of logistical support to include the transport of vital materials, first strike ‘bambi’ bucket wildland firefighting, aerial photography of critical incidents, and other public safety-related support.
How did you become aware of Spidertracks, and when did you begin using us? What was involved in your decision to become a Spidertracks customer?
We first became aware of Spidertracks more than a decade ago when we were in the market for a satellite tracking system. We’ve been a very satisfied customer ever since!
What Spidertracks features and functionalities are the most important for your organisation, and why?
Although other features have become available, we still depend on and appreciate the basic service of live and accurate tracking.
What would you say are the biggest strengths of the Spidertracks system?
Customer service. Let’s face it: there are different company options when it comes to the benefits of satellite tracking, but great customer service is not always part of the package. Spidertracks has ALWAYS provided top-notch customer service, from the sales end to the service end!
What key issues for your business has Spidertracks helped with?
What was initially sought as a tracking system to hedge against the potential of missing or overdue aircraft has become an invaluable operational tool for us. Not only do we always know where our aircraft are for peace of mind, we strategically dispatch and reroute specific aircraft based on the live tracking. Spidertracks has become an invaluable and primary operational tool for our public safety business.
What some might have initially thought of as a ‘big brother looking over the shoulder’ has undoubtedly become a ‘big brother looking out for you.’ When specific flight routing or altitude come into question, being able to access the historical detailed record of every flight becomes invaluable.
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