Unkown non-civil helicopter over Manchester UK - any thoughts?

reply to post by dogsounds


It was quite a while ago that I last saw it because I move from the area, I only remember so well because it looked so smart close up and I really wanted to jump in it and fly away

helicopters can legally fly very low as long as they can safely autorotate down. iirc it is something like 12 feet. But I may be a long way off. I'll say 120 feet to be sure

I have also seen unusual choppers (i live near lake erie in Pa)
Two chinook helicopters and a possible third.

They were heading toward the lake, highly unusual as i live within sight of the lake and did not see them land... i wonder if they weren't headed to canada?

The only time i ever saw anything other than the local lifestar chopper over my house. I wish i had some pictures...


(if anybody cares... there is a man who claims to have been deliberately followed by a black helicopter. he has video, but i could not identify the helicopter)

reply to post by sparta98


Do you have a link to the video anywhere?

It would be interesting to see if it is aimilar to the one I saw.

Originally posted by dogsounds
If anything, yes, it bears the most resemblance to Blue Thunder (the poor man's Airwolf, lol) but the canopy was not quite as bulky as that, it was more flush with the general hull shape.

Interestly Blue Thunder was a gazelle with the canopy changed and a fake gun added. The army gazelles weren't armed as there were scouts for armed Lynx.
There are a few gazelle in private hands and a few private ex-army ones who do airshows. I did read the 8 flight gazelle are rumoured to be used in the anti-terriost role flying over urban areas except the front doesn't match and that's probably no more than a rumour.

I wonder if there is a gazelle out there which has been modifed for some reason.

iirc blue thunder was really crappy to fly. I read it was front heavy so you always had to pull back on the stick to keep level flight. Whereas one of the stunt men who flew airwolf said the bits where the turbos were made the 222 handle better even if the FAA were hard to convince.

reply to post by dogsounds


Hi mate, picked up your thread. I'm on leave in Blackpool at the moment and sometimes all sorts of RAF and Coastguard craft buzz around everywhere.

Manchester will have strict airspace control due to it's airport. I think your helicopter could be carrying out a drill or exercise of some sort as the terror level threat has just recently increased.

The home office was quite secretive about where, when, who and how. Manchester would be high on my list of likely targets for areas likely to be attacked.

Unlucky for you eh haha.

Hope this helps.

Have a look at this link.

www.secret-bases.co.uk...

and scroll down to Islanders Ahoy!


Your chopper could have been doing the same thing.

(my first post, hello ats members)

Hey dogsounds. its funny you should mention this. i also live in the suburbs of manchester (halebarns) to be specific. im sorry im in a bit of a rush so didnt get time to read all the post. but did the heli by any chance make an unusual noise to most other helicopters heard? because recently at night ive heard slightly diff sounds than what aircrafts make, i live near an airport so im used to hearing all sorts of aircraft, but this one seemd to be a little deeper and the vibrations seemd stronger.

however i didnt see the helicopter. it was night, and i was working as usual, but now that uv mentioned this ill keep an eye out next time i hear it mate.

reply to post by .K.K.


Ye - it was quite a "thin" sound. Like, take a normal choppper sound, turn all the bass way down, and remove the whine of the jet turbine. Still sounded helicopter-y, just strangely muted.

That's what piqued my interest when I heard it (I had my curtains closed so did not see it will I went outside to look).

[edited for spelling]

[edit on 23-2-2010 by dogsounds]

Hi there... (first posting!).. Had to reply to this.. especially when I checked the date of your (O.P.'s) post....

I lived in Preston, lancashire for a few years, and would be woken nightly.. (I kid you not) by the police helicopter there. One night when I was already awake, the police chopper left and was replaced by another.... with a higher pitched engine noise, and exactly as you said.. muted somewhat.

Upon going out to check.. I looked up and my first thought was "**** ME!!! Its an anorexic Blue Thunder!!!!!" the front (it was almost head-on and dipped down) was "looking" down the street I lived on, hovering about 40 metres up, and for want of a better description looked for all the world like an old huey cobra gunship minus the stub wings and any visible armament.

When I asked a friend (who works odd hours) if he'd ever seen it, he said he'd seen it a couple of times but not in daylight... He then went on to say that it wasn't kept at RAF wharton nearby, as he'd asked friends who worked there and the only chopper they saw regularly was the police one.

I'm so glad someone from another area has seen it, and unfortunately, rather glad i'm not the only one having the damndest time trying to I.D. it, althuogh I would say the Augusta looks quite similar....

I will be keeping a close eye on this and similar threads, as one of the strangest aspects for me, was the fact that the police chopper "left",or was "called off... My brother is in the met (london metropolitain police) and said (as far as he knew) that a police chopper would stay in a search, till "whatever" was found, or had to refuel....

Please keep posting pics, and any theories as to why the police seem to have been "called off", as it has been bugging me for ages, I live in south east essex now and actually miss that damn police chopper!!!! it's a bit boring round this way to be honest!!!

if it was quite quiet i Know it had these

www.wired.com...

Originally posted by dogsounds

But from what I read the Gazelles have all been retired. So now I am stumped. If it was military, why use a retired craft and why have no markings or inignia at all? If police, the same applies. If civilian, the above still applies but can you even buy ex-army hardware like that? And if civil OR military, why would it be stopped dead over a suburban area?

Just to let you know the Gazell hasn't been retired from military service. It is still in use by several regiments of the Army Air Corps.

Have a look at the AAC Website and see if anything matches.

I seen a helicopter like the second picture you provided today. We have numerous air ports in my are. People love to fly on their free time.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel

Just to say..... I found it!!!!! (the mystery chopper I saw in preston, that is!)
It turns out a guy from the Lytham St Annes area, just south of blackpool airport had bought a "de-militarised" huey cobra... that is, it had the nose replaced with the nearest civilian version (minus the cannon) and had the stub wings removed.
It turns out that yes, as long as a flight plan is filed... you can fly pretty low, and pretty much wherever you feel like in a chopper (he was following a SAT-NAV down the M55 into Preston FFS!!!)
MANY thanks to "big phil" for doing a "proper sherlock" for me

pete.

I'd go with a Eurocopter AS.350 Squirrel. The Royal Air Force uses them quite extensively for training.

Well, it's been, like, a LIFETIME since I put the original post up, but I remembered it and thought I'd check out any new replies.

Thanks for your suggestions, all. Sadly, I still to this day haven't found anything that quite matches it, not even the description of the kitbashed Huey. @petethepikey - what you describe sounds familiar, maybe it was the same?

And I know what you mean about missing the noise. I'm so used to it (and all the noise from Manchester airport) that I don't really hear it consciously, until I am away from home and it is noticeable by its absence! It's funny, people who are not local say to me: "How do you sleep with all the aircraft noise?", to which I reply: "Huh? What noise?"

So, I am still clueless as to what it may have been. I'll probably never know for sure now; memory of it is too faded to be objective. I'm sure it was probably nothing too sinister, although you never know. But after all this time I still haven't found a match. There's a lot of ones that have similar parts - some of the Augusta military craft have similar back-ends but the fuselage ad canopies are all wrong. I wish it would come back so I could try and get a image on my much more reliable iPhone (I had a Nokia before, which was frankly rubbish, and dead at the time).

Ah well

It will be one of the Eurocopter EC 120/135 series.

Eurocopter UK has a maintenance facility in Chester, not far from Manchester.

Originally posted by justwokeup
It will be one of the Eurocopter EC 120/135 series.

Eurocopter UK has a maintenance facility in Chester, not far from Manchester.

Eurocopter EC 120/135 series. ? might be true.

reply to post by dogsounds


To the OP, Could this be simmaler to what you saw?




If it is similar, then I have an answer for you. It belongs to a fellow who flys from the Liverpool area, and it is a reproduction of a American Movie prop, called "Blue Thunder" It was a movie made in 1983, and "starred" a helicopter called Blue Thunder. It is a modified French-made Aérospatiale SA-341G Gazelle with a lot of bolt on parts. It is painted in a Matte Finish Navy Blue Paint Scheme and does have reg. numbers, they just are painted in Matte Black on the tail, which gives it the apperance of "ghost numbers" that are very hard to see if you arn't at the right angle. The helicopter has a very distinctive tail rotor sound and a very non-typical main rotor sound due to the cockpit flats and angles.

As for what he was doing over your home area and at that alitude???? the only people to know that are him and the Manchester ATC.