Please help identify aircraft

I'm always interested in things in the sky (including ufos), but I really don't know much about particular types of aircraft. So I'd like to know what this plane is, and I'll explain why I'm curious, if you'll bear with me.

Last weekend 5/16 at about 2 p.m., I was watering my front lawn and to my shock an extremely low-flying, large plane flew right in front of me. I live two blocks away from the 210 freeway bordering the San Gabriel mountains in Los Angeles, and it looked like the plane was tracing the freeway westbound. It was so close that I could easily see the letters and numbers along the body of the plane. But here's where my curiosity really got the best of me--underneath the nose of the plane, under the cockpit approximately, there was a large, circular, greenish "thing". I circled the area in question on the photo below. I'd never seen anything like it.

About 10 minutes had passed, I was still standing there watering, and low and behold, it flew past again, exactly at the same low altitude and heading!! Needless to say, at that point I decided it was time to get my camera. It never made a low pass again, but I spotted it in the far distance, circling around and around. It kept circling closer to my house until finally it flew directly overhead, which is the picture you see below. I took a bunch of pictures but this one came out best. I took it on maximum zoom.

The only other detail I can think of is that it was really very quiet for a large plane. Both low passes took me completely by surprise because I couldn't hear its approach. So I'm curious what kind of plane this is and what that thing was attached to it. Thanks for reading.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9830e6672b6a.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/bedaf64d6866.jpg[/atsimg]

Hmm...that looks like Lockheed Orion, surveillance /antisub plane?

think i saw somewhere that they are used in firefighting too nowadays



[edit on 25-5-2010 by zoomer72]

Originally posted by zoomer72
Hmm...that looks like Lockheed Orion, surveillance /antisub plane?

[edit on 25-5-2010 by zoomer72]

Zoomer nailed it, it could also be the Aries version the EP-3.

[edit on 25-5-2010 by Silverado292]

Looks a bit like a lockheed L-188 Electra,not sure whats hanging off the nose its to hard to see from photo,could be camera or radar dome.

P3 Orion
www.globalsecurity.org...

Its a sub killer aircraft.
www.globalsecurity.org...

Wow, that was quick, you guys are good. Why the heck would a sub-killer be flying all over LA though? And why so ridiculously low? I mean this thing was over and back under the tree line is like 10 seconds.

reply to post by yuefo


Training exercises, looking for fires, looking for growing operations, testing equipment. Watching you water the lawn and take pics of it, ahaha.

I found it...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e5bf62a07cff.jpg[/atsimg]

www.aoc.noaa.gov...

From the way it was circling around all over the place, I'd guess it was testing the air maybe?

reply to post by InvisibleObserver


Yeah, and he was probably taking note of the weeding that I never get around to.

The P3s are used outside of the military due to their long range and efficiency by the NOAA as Hurricane Hunters and storm tracking planes as well. due to their radar capabilities.

So just perhaps it was surveying the air/weather in the area in which you viewed it.

Why at treetop level ? ....young hotshot pilots most likely.

It's a P3 stationed out of Point Mugu just south of Oxnard..in my opinion. Although it's technically Ventura County, it's a 30 second flight from Point Mugu until you are actually in L.A. County, just over the hills towards Thousand Oaks or around the bend towards Malibu and you are already there. I was stationed there when it was more of a test and evaluation squadron than it is now, but my money goes to that.
Actually, you can Google Earth that base and see P3's on the ground even.
Our crew here on ATS can identify aircraft quite quickly by the way and being that the P3 is so distinctive, it's a hard one to miss.

Have a great day,
Mondo
"VX 4"

[edit on 25-5-2010 by Mondogiwa]

Yuefo-

I have seen these planes a couple of times in the past year. I believe they are surveying the damage from the Station Fire. I noticed that north of the 210 close to Lake View Terrace area there was another small brushfire that weekend (I was coming back through the Sepulveda pass and as I got closer to the 118 I saw the smoke).

**never mind**

[edit on 5/25/2010 by clay2 baraka]

I saw two of thse flying over Pasadena on Friday May 14th. I thought that it might have had something to do with the census, like measuring city boundaries and taking pictures and stuff since it looked like they were using downward pointed radar. I'm glad someone caught it on camera! My co-workers falsely identified them as AWACS. I knew they weren't because of the bulge on the bottom. But I didn't argue since I didn't know what they were. Thanks for enlightening me!


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

reply to post by RicketyCricket


If there was a fire that weekend it would make sense, although after making two passes (or perhaps 2 different planes) at near treetop level, that wasn't all they were doing. Also, all my observations of it and my photos were taken south of the 210, so I dunno.

reply to post by yuefo


My recent observations have been from old town pasadena looking north to the hills. They seemed to have been well above tree top level when I saw them, but again, the first was immediately after the Station Fire. Since then I've seen them flying around the same level as Cessna's et al.

The smoke was viewed from the 405 Northbound coming out of the Sepulveda pass and followed to the 118 east. I lost sight of it after I hit the 5. I dont know if any of that helps or is even necessary.

Believe it or not but military and civilian pilots do fly just to fly....... practice and training. In the military you have to fly a certain amount of hours to keep your certification. Just because you see a military or civilian plane flying does not mean that they are up to some grand scheme or that something is going on. Ever live near an Air Force base??? We fly out aircraft all day, that just fly around for a few hours then come back and land or practice their approaches (touch and go's)

reply to post by Reign02


I'll buy that. Makes sense. Seeing a low-flying plane like that with unusual apparatus just made me very curious. I was happy with the help of ATS aviation folks to be able to solve the mystery of what I was seeing. I still wish I could have gotten a photo of it when it flew tree-top. That was impressive!