Found these pics online,
Guessing its mid to late 1980's when they still carried revolvers ( checkout the old school bubble gum machine roof lights, 80's era Trans Am and Mustang interceptors, also notice his 80's era Tom Sellick porn stache... .... we all wore them back then lol) , IIRC the dept transitioned from the 28 to the model 66 at some point but can't remember if old timers retained their old model 28's and Pythons.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/56/50/63/5650631a45c9f29c929bab4c1108f556.jpg
was in FHP's hiring process in 1988 when they still wore straw stetson hats and cream brown polyester uniforms, Can't recall if the duty rig was issued or personally bought, seem to recall basket weave but cant remember.
Iirc in 89 starting pay for a FHP Trooper was around $15k (I was making the same salary as a full time city ocean lifeguard)
,starting pay at the FD at that time in comparison was $25k , also FHP considered the take home car a taxable benefit, can't recall how much but wanna say in the $3k-$4k range so you paid tax on that benefit IIRC.
Back then Florida still had a seperate Marine Patrol like in the tv series Flipper, had an app in there as well but those jobs were very hard to land, they wore grey polyester uniforms, drove K5 Blazers and had their own boats, my buddy worked there and said he had to write a certain amount of traffic tickets and turn those in at an office in Tallahassee once a month, he said hed get in the right lane and drive 55 mph from WPB to Tallahassee and write his quota on the way up because most speeders saw the blazer and thought ...oh he's a water cop I can pass him at 90mph.
