Reed and Malloy start their shift at a bar where a drunk woman is threatening everyone with a gun. Other cases involve carjackers who happen to steal a car with guns, and a death of a mentally challenged man which looks suspicious.

On Reed's suggestion, Mac arranges for him and Malloy to spend a few days on air patrol so that they can get a feel for what air patrol can or cannot do in assisting ground patrol. If this pilot test is successful, other ground units may also take shifts up in the air, much to some officer's chagrin. Upon their arrival at the helicopter station, they learn that they will be in the air with an old ground patrol friend, Officer Lou Walters, and Officer Chet Mills. Their first call is a heist at a wholesale jewelers located in a high rise complex downtown, the perpetrators still somewhere in the building. Malloy wonders if they can not only patrol the exterior of the building, such as the roof, but also do visual checks in windows. He soon gets his answer. They are then asked to assist in a ground patrol call in an apparent homicide, where the perpetrator left the scene in an identified vehicle. Air patrol takes up the search for that car, based partly on some past information Malloy is able to provide. Just as they land for their meal break, they are called back up into the air, this time in two 'copters, to pursue a stolen light plane that almost collided mid air with an incoming Boeing 727 at Burbank Airport. However, before the two units can pursue the stolen plane, they first have to locate the stolen plane, with only the vector from air traffic control providing a general direction. The rest has to be done visually.