Victoria Police Air Wing's three Leonardo AW 139s have collectively logged 10,000 hours in the air, ranking them at No.1 in law enforcement around the world.
StarFlight and Victoria Police celebrated the milestone this week with a function at the air wing's Essendon Airport base.
The aircraft, which are fitted with advanced infrared cameras and mapping systems as well as object detection software, were delivered to the air wing by StarFlight Victoria only three years ago.
In that time, they have flown 30,000 missions leading to 3000 arrests, covering more than 1.1 million nm in the process.
“The contribution these helicopters and the support team behind them, make to Victoria Police Air Wing’s capabilities is incredibly significant,” said StarFlight Victoria Director Ashley van de Velde.
“StarFlight Victoria is proud to have delivered what has proven itself to be the best example of a multi-role police helicopter fleet anywhere in the world.”
For every flying hour, five hours of engineering manpower is required by the team which works on various aspects of helicopter engineering including structural, mechanical and avionics.
Around 50,000 engineering hours have been clocked up, including 34 heavy maintenance inspections and eight modification requests.
There have been 50 main tyre changes and a total of 1090 litres of oil used for the engines and gear boxes.
Prior to standardising on the AW 139s, the air wing operated a mix of Aerospatiale/Eurocopter Dauphins, an AS350 Squirrel and a Eurocopter EC 135.
The AW 139s are able to seat three times as many people as the other helicopters, which enables Victoria Police to rapidly deploy specialist police to regional areas when a major incident occurs.
StarFlight was created by Australian companies LifeFlight and the Linfox Group, providing logistics and support to the aviation industry.