8 Million Dollar Big Bird

Today, our class FINALLY got out of the classroom and went on our first field trip. Destination? The Maryland State Police Aviation Division. These guys do everything from helicopter rescue to nation wide convict pick ups. One of our instructors, Mr. Smith, is a retired Maryland State Police Trooper, so he took us to this subdivision of his old stomping grounds.

Take a look:

 (Prior to the facility being used for what it's used for now, they used to manufacture planes here for WWII - these are some of those planes.)

 (Though we never got a chance to thoroughly tour this thing, this tuck/bus/rv was intimidating. It's used for hostage situations and things of that nature. EVERYthing they need is in there. As they said, it's a police station on wheels.)

(In the maintenance hangar, this was one of the three helicopters they were working on. This puppy was stripped down quite a bit!)

(Just some light reading, i.e. the helicopter manuals. I didn't see any "Helicopters For Dummies" book in there.)

(We got the chance to see the insides of the 8 million dollar "Trooper 1". Beyond awesome.)

(The ten of us with Mr. Smith)

One of the pictures I CAN'T show you is of one of the returning planes that had in its custody a convict that they had just picked up from Atlanta, GA. They taxied and parked the little plane in the hangar while we were in it and told us that the guy they captured would be getting off that plane. Sure enough, a man bound in shackles and cuffs was escorted off the plane and would eventually be taken to prison ...but not before brought by within a couple feet of where we were. Win.