It was the first time that a helicopter was used for dedicated traffic monitoring purposes but the city is no stranger to choppers. The Capital, which hosts the republic day parade, is surveyed by choppers from the Union Ministry of Defence in the run up to the function. Choppers were also used to assess the ground situation for the CWG in 2010. As far as police aviation capacity is concerned, there is a gap between Delhi Police, which can hire helicopters but doesn’t have any, and other forces around the world such as Los Angeles Police, which has a fleet of 25 choppers to go with dedicated SWAT teams always ready to step in whenever there is an emergency.