Hillsboro Aviation has won a contract from the Chicago Police Department to complete a new Bell 206B-3 JetRanger. The JetRanger will complement an existing LongRanger IV that was acquired from the Chicago Fire Department earlier this year and is currently being retrofitted by Hillsboro.

The retrofit will include a two-screen Chelton FlightLogic Synthetic Vision EFIS along with a complete night-vision-goggle-compatible cockpit. Specialist equipment includes an Avalex moving map, two 12.1-inch LCD monitors, a digital video recorder and FLIR pointing system, in combination with a FLIR Ultra 8500XR thermal imager/camera. Additional airborne police equipment will include a Spectrolab SX-5 Nightsun and a microwave radio downlink system.