Call Sign Eagle One

Police Lieutenant Joe Santoro could never have imagined that he would fly an ultralight airplane or be part of a program that would become a world-first for aviation. Lieutenant Santoro didn't even like to fly as a passenger in a commercial airplanes, let alone pilot a single-seat ultralight for police air support. This is the true story of the Monterey Park police department's Ultralight Aircraft Police Patrol Program, the first of its kind in the world. It helped chase down many criminals and ultimately resulted in two Monterey Park ultralights hanging from the ceiling of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, alongside other famous airplanes like the SR-7 Blackbird, the Enola Gay, the Concorde, and the space shuttle Discovery. This story includes moments of sheer terror-engine failures, crashes, and the exceptional courage of our police officers as they trained to become pilots and then fought crime at 1,000 feet in the air.