For almost 60 years, the Kansas Highway Patrol has protected the public from the sky.
It’s helped hunt down fugitives. It’s helped search for missing seniors and children. It’s rushed needed blood to hospitals.
The Highway Patrol relies on a fleet of five aircraft, some of which are aging and aren’t always the most reliable.
One plane is 41 years old. Another is 21. Two planes lack the infrared heat cameras needed to search at night.
It’s an emerging law enforcement issue confronting Kansas lawmakers in 2020 as they balance the many state needs, ranging from corrections to child welfare to health care.
The Kansas Highway Patrol is seeking about $15.8 million to replace three of its five law enforcement aircraft, including the 1978 and 1998 Cessnas as well as the 2005 Bell helicopter.
The aircraft would be replaced with two helicopters and one airplane.
The Highway Patrol is also seeking about $7 million to replace the 2001 King Air executive plane, which shuttles the governor and other state officials across Kansas.
Almost 19 years old, the executive plane has cost the state about $188,000 in unscheduled maintenance in the last five years.
It’s the longest the state has kept an executive aircraft. The plane was down 106 days for maintenance from September 2018 through August.
While there is no lifetime limit on the planes, they will demand more maintenance as they log more flight time, said Highway Patrol Capt. Jason Vanderweide.
“The more hours it has on it, the more stuff is going to break and the less reliable it is,” Vanderweide said.
“When you’re in our kind of business, you need something that’s going to be operational,” he said.
The money for the aircraft was among $400 million in supplemental and enhancement requests submitted to the governor for the fiscal year 2020 and 2021 budgets.
Last session, the Highway Patrol brought a request for the aircraft to the Legislature, but it failed to get much traction because it didn’t go through the budget process from the outset.
Some lawmakers were wary about the request last session and still think it could be a hard sell with the state facing so many needs, even with revenues expected to flourish.
“There are other things that we need to address that, I think, are more pressing than replacing aircraft,” said Republican state Rep. Troy Waymaster, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Waymaster particularly showed little interest in replacing the executive aircraft for state officials.
“I flew on the executive King in July,” he said. “It’s a pretty nice aircraft. I haven’t really been convinced of the reason why we need to replace that.”
Republican state Rep. Shannon Francis, chairman of the Transportation and Public Safety Budget Committee, said the Legislature needs to look at upgrading two of the older law enforcement planes.
However, Francis said he needs to wait to see the governor’s recommended budget before he can fully evaluate the request for new aircraft.
“One of the important things we’re going to have to look at is what the agency’s priorities are, what the governor’s priorities are and try to balance that with the resources of the state.”
The Highway Patrol’s aircraft, which are stationed in Topeka, Wichita and Hays, serve law enforcement agencies around the state.
A majority of the KHP flights originate with other agencies. The Highway Patrol supported more than 100 different agencies from January to August this year.
“The Highway Patrol’s calls are only a small fraction of what we do,” Vanderweide said.
“Most of our calls are assisting our public-safety partners,” he said. “A lot of these agencies don’t have the budget and the personnel to support aircraft, so we’re the only game in town.”
However, those planes are not always ready to go on demand.
The KHP told lawmakers earlier this year that it wanted its planes to be operational 80% of the time.
For the first 10 months of 2019, two of the Highway Patrol’s five aircraft met that benchmark, including one right at the 80% mark.
Last year, two of the patrol’s law enforcement aircraft met that mark as well.
However, both of those planes were classified as only “partially mission capable” because they lack the infrared camera technology.
One aircraft, a 2005 Bell helicopter, was lost for all of 2018 and until last May because of a hard landing that occurred when the aircraft’s tail rotor clipped a hangar two years ago.
The oldest aircraft — the 1978 Cessna — was not operational for 30% of the first 10 months of 2019. Last year, it was out of service 19% of the time, KHP data shows. It has flown about 7,700 hours.
The 1998 Cessna, which has recorded about 5,650 hours of flight, was out of service 42% of the time last year when mechanics replaced an engine. It was down 12% of the time over the first 10 months of this year.
“We’re going to either have to spend money for upgrades and new equipment on old aircraft and we’ll end up with the same reliability, or we’re going to have to update the fleet,” Vanderweide said.
The aircraft face other issues as well that hinder their law enforcement abilities.
Two planes lack the infrared cameras that allow law enforcement to search at night.
And the infrared cameras on two of the other planes are now outdated.
KHP estimates it will cost about $900,000 to install new infrared cameras and a mapping system on one 2012 Cessna and another $600,000 to upgrade the cameras in the other Cessna.
The equipment may be as important — if not more so — than the aircraft, Vanderweide said.
“If we don’t have the mission equipment, it doesn’t matter what we’re flying, we can’t do the job,” he said.
Republican state Rep. J.R. Claeys, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, thinks something needs to be done to upgrade the state’s fleet of law enforcement aircraft.
“Updating the fleet is long overdue, with maintenance becoming more costly for the helicopter and old fixed-wing aircraft,” he said.
Claeys suggested that it might be more beneficial for the Highway Patrol to lease the planes instead of making an outright purchase.
“It appeared to make more sense to do leases,” he said. “The maintenance is less expensive over time, and we roll out of them without having outdated aircraft.”
