The Fort Wayne Police Department Air Support Unit (FWPD ASU) is a ten member specialty unit for the City of Fort Wayne.The Unit was formally created on June 29, 2017 with the signing of PD17-2006. Annual flights for ASU have continued an upward trend since the unit’s inception. ASU has continued to develop a close working partnership with the Fort Wayne Fire Department’s ASU team, including the sharing of communications across teams.Their main mission is to assist our Emergency Service Team(SWAT). In that role they perform over-watch with live video to assist the team commander with such things as warrant service, hostage and barricaded subjects in addition to pre-raid surveillance.
Their secondary missions are a mix of the following applications. ASU assists the Fatal Accident Crash Team (FACT) with 3d modeling with the use of Pix4D programming. They also do search and rescue for missing people with the use of a FLIR(thermal camera). Lastly they participate in community events throughout the year as part of FWPD's Community Oriented Policing(COPS) program. At those community events it is their goal is to educate the young people that there is more to policing than just uniformed officer doing patrol duties. The ASU involves areas of technology, science and engineering along with the law enforcement aspects.
If you would like to schedule the Air Support Unit at an event or activity, please click on the link below to submit your request. Please keep in mind that requests for personnel and equipment must be done at least four (4) weeks ahead for scheduling purposes. We will do our best to make it happen but things do come up that may cause a cancellation. If your request comes inside the four weeks it may not be honored.
Important: The City of Fort Wayne Municipal Code Section 96.30 requires that drone pilots notify the City before any flights. Please click HERE to learn more about the Fort Wayne Drone Ordinance. |
Please visit the Air Support Unit's account for more details on their community activity.