The Police in California’s Disneyland city of Anaheim have put the oldest of their four helicopters up for auction on the internet, whcih ends on 17th June.  A 1989 build MD500E N1607A with over 20,700 airframe hours has been put on the PublicSurplus.com website with a starting bid of $150K.  The City expects $600-700K proceeds from the sale, which will be put into the city’s general operating fund.

Anaheim Police have moved on to use Eurocopter AS350B2 as their primary platform, with two in their fleet – N226PD and N326PD.  A further 2000-build MD500E N1726B remains in the fleet to cover for maintenance of the 350s, although its lack of payload obviously makes it their least-preferred aircraft now.  The apparent delay in selling the older 500E has been due to the length of time to complete the newer 350B2, which has been registered to the City since February 2009.

In March 2010 it was announced that Anaheim Police were cutting their flying hours by 25% from 60 to 45 hours a week – see HeliHub.com story

See auction details here.

Jeremy Parkin – HeliHub.com