British JetRanger owner Joel Tobias regularly blogs about flying his JetRanger, and it’s great to read stories written by such an enthusiastic private pilot.  However, as he leads his readers through night training exercises, a sense of alarm was raised in a recent missive:-

“there were no emergencies, but we did become involved in a mini drama over Westhoughton when a couple of local’s decided it might be funny if they targeted us with their shiny green lazer pen. I reported the incident to MCR [Manchester] ATC and they advised the GMP ASU [Greater Manchester Police Air Support Unit] who scrambled into the air to identify it. I orbited around a few times advising them of the position and then left them to it. They are taking a very serious approach to these incidents now with a zero tolerance policy. Quite rightly so too. Our trip/training was otherwise uneventful.”

We are very pleased that his flight ended safely, and that the local police unit took his report seriously.