Tell us about Officer Don. Does he really fly and make reports from the sky or is he sitting somewhere and viewing traffic cameras? I used to see the traffic aircraft but I don’t any more. What is the story?

Officer Don is still flying.

From the Herald-Leader archives

LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER
DATE: Wednesday, November 12, 2003

page E1
Edition: Final
Communities

EYE IN THE SKY

‘OFFICER DON’ EVANS KEEPS WATCH OF CITY ROADS IN HIS NEW HELICOPTER
By Jim Warren, Herald-Leader Staff Writer
A helicopter is tracking Lexington’s traffic tangles once again, for the first time in more than 15 years.

“Officer Don” Evans, who has been doing airborne traffic reports on Lexington radio for several years, recently switched from a fixed-wing plane to a two-seat Robinson R-22 helicopter.Evans, whose daily traffic reports are carried on Clear Channel radio stations and WLEX-TV, uses a plane on good-weather days. But he says the helicopter allows him to fly low and slow in poor visibility that would ground a plane and to hover over accidents scenes to gather crucial information for his listeners.

It’s the first time a traffic reporter has used a copter in Lexington since the days of Leslie “Capt. Tag” Veal, Lexington’s first flying traffic reporter. Veal charted the city’s traffic woes for WVLK radio from the early 1970s until shortly before his death in 1987. WVLK and other Cumulus Broadcasting stations in Lexington now carry traffic coverage by airborne reporters John Wesley Brett or Brad Munson, who use an airplane.

In addition to traffic tracking, Evans uses the helicopter to make personal appearances at service stations, school programs and charitable events for sponsors Shell Oil and Pepsi-Cola. Recently, for example, he flew to Southern Elementary School for an evening science program in which students could climb into the helicopter and learn about flying.

Evans, a Lexington police detective, pilot and broadcaster, says the copter also comes in handy when police need a friendly eye in the sky. He has used it several times this year to spot cars that had been stolen or were fleeing from accident scenes, then alerted officers on the ground.

In one recent example, Evans interrupted his regular afternoon traffic report after hearing a police call about a possible assault in Veterans Park. Breaking away from traffic tracking, Evans zoomed over to the park, spotted the supposed victim and directed officers on the ground to his location. The case proved to be a false alarm, but it illustrated a helicopter’s advantages, Evans said.

“In an airplane, we might have been able to spot that person, but we wouldn’t have been able to get low enough to give any significant details to the officers on the ground,” he said. “Searching on the ground could have taken hours for those officers, but we managed to clear the call in a few minutes.”

With the explosive growth of commuter traffic on Lexington’s streets since the pioneering days of Capt. Tag Veal, rush-hour traffic coverage has become an essential service for Lexington radio to provide, says Robert Lindsey, operations manager for Cumulus Broadcasting in Lexington.

“When there are no accidents and traffic is moving smoothly, you can live without it at that particular moment,” he said. “But once there is a problem, it becomes very important for people who need to know where the problem is and how to get around it. And that’s what we provide.”

As for the “advantages” of a helicopter, Lindsey says his traffic reporters are in the air about 4 1/2 hours a day, compared to about 2 1/2 hours a day for Evans.

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