Mysterious low-flying plane circling over Marietta

Mysterious low-flying plane circling over Marietta

mdjonline.com

MARIETTA — A mysterious low-flying airplane that repeatedly circled over Marietta for four days in a row last week has two residents scratching their heads.

...

The Saffolds said front desk staff at McCollum Air Field in northwest Cobb told them that they had received complaint calls from other residents, but had no answers about the plane’s purpose.

“The McCollum tower said they knew what it was but they weren’t allowed to say what they were doing,” said Ardice Saffold.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Even though this event took place over a week ago, this is my first hearing about it.

I wonder what was the purpose of this plane buzzing the area? Evidently McCollum airfield knew why it was there, but aren't saying.

The article said it was a white four seater passenger plane. With that information in mind you'd think it wasn't some highly classified top secret mission.

One would think they would prefer to use a helicopter if police reconnaissance was their goal.

Could it have been the police testing out an airborne traffic ticketing device? As if they need anymore ways to give us speeding tickets!

Anyone have any idea why this plane would exhibit this strange behavior and why the airfield couldn't comment?

mdjonline.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Is it drug crop maturity time of the year . Here where I live we get helicopters at that time of the year , but maybe they can use planes for larger areas with that device that can tell crops by the folige colour difference .

Whats this about airborne tickets ? Are they ticketing planes for flying too fast .

I don't know the first thing about aviation as I am no Pilot, but I have 2 questions.

1) How much fuel can a plane this size hold?
2) Is there any law that says a small civilian plane, can or cannot, fly around in circles? Must you always have a "destination" when in the air?

Could it be a tax assessor? I've seen them flying in Oklahoma looking for new buildings and such.

its a dhs surveillence program.

its not just marietta, its everywhere they just installed smart meters. (california/oklahoma)

they have a whole fleet of cessna's that moniter entire neighborhoods, ive been watching them watch me now for over a year.

google CELLDAR.

reply to post by Anusuia


California uses planes to write speeding tickets frequently. Or at least they did before the bottom dropped out of their entire state budget structure. I'd listened to them a few times as a trucker when crossing the Mojave desert between L.A. and the Arizona border. The plane would run far above while the ground chase units could sit completely out of sight and off a ramp of the highway. When the plane spots one, they radio down estimated speed based on travel between painted spots on the highway (Look close..some of those lines are there for specific reasons along the shoulder) to the ground units along with color, make and model.

I used to run a scanner to pass the time while crossing the country and it paid to flip it on when aircraft seemed to be doing odd things near the highway. It was always something half way interesting...In this case, knowing the CHP had a fixed wing aircraft saved me a few tickets I'd imagine.

Saw this plane while in Marietta for work. I saw it from a distance but I remember it because I thought it was gonna crash. Other than that it doesn't seem that it's too much to this story.

Lockheed Martin has a production facility there. The plane you saw is probably some new prototype in testing. Or even just a common aircraft you are not familiar with that they happen to make.



****EDIT

CELLDAR is a bit of a misnomer. The idea that it tracks any object passively is not true. It works by triangulating your cell phone’s signal between two or more towers, or in the case of only one tower they can get you to a specific cell which looks like a slice of pie with the cell tower at the center. This does not however have the ability to track anything other than the cell phone. It can’t for instance track a car.





****EDIT

Or as pointed out, it may be doing the "Birds Eye" view things for google maps, or one of those types of things.

Nasa flying low over cities to measure airpolution

Perhaps it's this?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Thats sick I gotta say using planes and cars for speeding tixs . But then you have people touching up other people in public places ...so what can i say to all of this except its sicko .

reply to post by Mikeyy


Typically the authorities like private pilots to have an iternerary, flight path, purpose for burning fuel, etc but if this was around a small airfield without alot of traffic you wouldn`t really need any of that. As long as there was no traffic in your immediate area you can get away with just circling and manuevering alittle. Guy i used to know had a re-conditioned P-51, and used to put her thru his air show routine over a small town.

Fuel capacity would vary depending on the size of the aircraft. Its usually not as much as one would think, they have to try and keep the weight down.

Originally posted by majesticgent

Mysterious low-flying plane circling over Marietta

mdjonline.com

MARIETTA — A mysterious low-flying airplane that repeatedly circled over Marietta for four days in a row last week has two residents scratching their heads.

...

The Saffolds said front desk staff at McCollum Air Field in northwest Cobb told them that they had received complaint calls from other residents, but had no answers about the plane’s purpose.

“The McCollum tower said they knew what it was but they weren’t allowed to say what they were doing,” said Ardice Saffold.

(visit the link for the full news article)

When someone mentiones a single engine 4 seater my mind automatically goes to a Cessna. Everyone has seen these little things with the overhead wing and usually a non-retractable landing gear. Sounds like it was just a private pilot flying his plane, probably just bought it and was flying it around getting the feel for it. The reply from the airfield is typical when alot of people are calling in to complain. They get sick of all the people asking so many questions while they are trying to do their job so they come up with the easiest explanation. Guy with the P-51 i mentioned had alot of complaints to the little tower at the field and they used to tell people we dont have any idea what he`s doing. Buzzing the town is kindof the thing to do now. Everyone loves it. Keep in mind only about a 1000 people live in the 20 mile radius so its not real populated.

reply to post by Anusuia


What device is that?
I've always heard that they discovered large crops of pot because pot plants give off a higher heat signature than most trees and etc.

Originally posted by Anusuia
Whats this about airborne tickets ? Are they ticketing planes for flying too fast .

I guess I could have worded my intent a little better. I meant that airplanes circle around and alert radio ground units about speeders to pull them over and give them tickets. I doubt that's going on here, but you never know.

Originally posted by choppedbrisket
Could it be a tax assessor? I've seen them flying in Oklahoma looking for new buildings and such.

Could have been a tax assessor, but I would think that the airfield would have told the public that's what they were doing being that the assessors put all of our info for the public to see.

Originally posted by RelentlessLurker
its a dhs surveillence program.

its not just marietta, its everywhere they just installed smart meters. (california/oklahoma)

they have a whole fleet of cessna's that moniter entire neighborhoods, ive been watching them watch me now for over a year.

google CELLDAR.

I Googled CELLDAR and it's interesting never heard of it before, but are you saying that they use these Cessna's to monitor people's cell phone conversations?

Originally posted by Mikeyy
I don't know the first thing about aviation as I am no Pilot, but I have 2 questions.

1) How much fuel can a plane this size hold?

This plane could circle for several hours at low power without refueling.

2) Is there any law that says a small civilian plane, can or cannot, fly around in circles? Must you always have a "destination" when in the air?

There are certain laws about being at least 500 feet away from any obstructions, there are altitude restrictions over populated areas, there are noise ordinances in some areas. But, in general, it is very common for a private pilot to fly around in circles, take pictures, do some sight seeing, practice maneuvers, or any number of other things. Airplanes are used for aerial photography more often than helicopters, and circling a construction site, or a landmark would be perfectly normal.

Originally posted by My.mind.is.mine
Saw this plane while in Marietta for work. I saw it from a distance but I remember it because I thought it was gonna crash. Other than that it doesn't seem that it's too much to this story.

Was it a Cessna? It be nice if someone could have got the registration number from the tail and it would have definitely quelled this story.

Civil Air Patrol (a.k.a, US Air Force Auxiliary)-- a four seat Cessna is the standard.

Primary mission is to look for downed aircraft, but from time to time they can be and are activated for various missions from the mundane (looking for marijuana crops) to the exotic (flying radiation detection equipment). Several days over one area means it is probably neither of those examples.

Even a training mission with exotic equipment might be classified.

If it were police, helicopters would be expected, as has been mentioned above, but it is possible.