Anyone noticing increased helicopter activity in your area?

reply to post by mountaingirl1111


Speed radar.

reply to post by SCGrits


Ah, so someone is playing with their new toys.

reply to post by Druscilla


Nice reply to the OP's question. The OP's interested in any up-tics in activity and I see your post dripping w/ sarcasism. Almost makes me think you think the op is a little off. Bottom line..your rude! If you didn't have anything positive to insert you should have went somewhere else.

It's not nice to put others down so you can get attention.

On topic...I live in gt falls MT. I've noticed an up- tic in military planes coming in and out...nothing to huge

Originally posted by nixie_nox
reply to post by mountaingirl1111

 

Speed radar.

I really don't think so, just because they focus on residential areas. Sometimes an hour or two goes by over residential areas. Our neighborhood has thousands of homes and is tucked away from any major roads or even minor roads, really. When they do follow the road and do a big loop, they don't stay close enough to the road or highway for any length of time in order to be doing speed radar. All I know is they follow the trains at night as they head N/NW and focus on neighborhoods, which seems odd to me.

I recently wrote in a different thread that now they aren't just plain black or dark, dark green copters, they are the big military copters with two sets of rotors and travel in pairs, but they do the same thing as the other ones.

Nothing out of ordinary Coast Guard copters here...

I wonder if the occupants of these things are counting bi-pedal heat signatures in rural areas?
Lots of hollow points being hoarded by 'our protectors'?

Are these helis equipped with one of these?
h>ttp://www.amazon.com/FLIR-Scout-240x180-monocular-7-5Hz/dp/B005J2KJFU?tag=qrb-su-20

I had heard a helicopter earlier today, walked outside to see what I could see about its activity and thought it was odd what it was doing. Flying a bit low and the area I am in is nothing strange to hear airplanes or to see news copters for traffic - but where I am to see a helicopter without military or what would be noticeable as gov't helicopter with visible markings or for commercial use. Lastly - no one is missing in the area. The one thing that struck me about its appearance was that it was black - no visible commercial lettering or numbers.

I am not paranoid that they are looking at me. I just find that it had no purpose from my balcony view of my apartment.

Since I read a lot - and explore lots of subjects here on ATS I was surprised to actually find this post. I only read a handful on this link but I thought I would add my fly by to the list.

We quite often hear helicopters in SE London.

But on Monday 20 August, I and my girls are doing some tidying up in the back garden when a black and yellow one (not the UK Police Heli, yellow was on the bottom) came over quite low.
We counted how many times it went directly above us-8 times.
It also had strange perturberances/monitoring devices? under the back rotor.

Don't know anyting about Helicopters so I couldn't tell you what type they were.

Scared my girls though.

reply to post by doctornamtab


It's so weird that I see this thread today. Yesterday, my brother and I were out doing some night photography here in Europe around 11PM and two low flying helicopters fly over about five minutes apart. Not really typical that late at night, in fact low flying helicopters in this area is anything BUT typical.

No military bases in the vicinity either.

I am in fact living in New Zealand at the moment, and there has been more activity in the sky than usual. Based in one of the main city's [more the outskirts of one i should say] there tends to be a fair amount of planes that you can see but not hear [generally high altitude by the time they pass over] however, a lot of helicopters and also use of the military cargo planes flying over my area. May just be coincidence, but it is fascinating to see a large military plane just cruising overhead atleast once a week instead of the once every 1 - 2 months.

for 2 days last week, in the afternoon, copters overhead, very low. turns out they were doing RADIATION TESTING. like we haven't been showered in radioactivity since fukushima

I just had one pounding on my roof for about 20 minutes. Circling the property really low and then heading due South, and back North again before circling more. Fortunately, I had my 400mm handy. WTF were they looking for?? And why is there a civilian in there? The tail boom says US ARMY. We never see military flights around here. It's very rural and residential. Even my cat was freaking out.

And I'm back again, copter activity has increased even more so, i watched as 2 heli's circled, and one flew over my house while i was outside having a smoke. We've been having an awful lot of strong winds and lightning activity over the past weeks too, and the last storm that passed was relatively close to where i live, but i was unable to hear the rumble of thunder that generally follows a lightning strike. I'm starting to think that something isn't quite right and we aren't going to be informed about it.

Yes, I have as of 2 nights ago. I work right by the Hillsborough airport and yes.. there is activity out their most of the time..daytime that is..

however..

2 nights ago, 9:30p-10p I stepped outside to make a phone call and heard huge rotor chop.. which almost made me get in my truck and go see what was up.. it was so close I could barely talk to the wife, that's how loud & close it was to me, it definitely sounded like a Ch-47 Chinook; the chop is loud and distinctive.

Tonight, heading home up 26, definitely saw 1 light off in the distance, thought it was a jet/plane but, the light was too bright; got off the off ramp to head home and saw another very bright light..my thought was .. 'what are they doing out here/or looking for' in the middle of a cut /plowed field ..

reply to post by zayonara


It is a US Army UH-72A Lakota Serial 72216. Looks like a new build from Fiscal Year 2012. Full serial will be 12-72216

www.ondutchwings.nl...

It all depends where you live as to the further questions of where it is based, etc.

reply to post by tommyjo


New? Maybe they were test driving it....over houses? Not!

For about the last 17 years it was pretty common to have low flying helicopters of all sorts flying close by and often very low... There isn't as many in the last 2 or 3 years but the ones I have hear and seen have been much louder even though they are at a higher altitude than before... I can identify numerous helicopters by the sound they make even when not wearing my hearing aids.. Those of the Vietnam era passing overhead at night I can actually feel the low frequency from the rotor blades before they are close enough to hear... For awhile there were new models from Bell Helicopter equipped with large black pods attached under the forward most part of the fuselage and some device that made them very quiet... As sensitive as I am to the sound of aircraft these new ones would be overhead and very low enough in the sky to clearly see see the faces of those on board at about the time I was first able to hear them... That made me very uneasy... Most of the recent helicopter traffic has been Care Flights from small local hospitals to Tyler or Dallas.

reply to post by zayonara


New as is new-build and recently delivered as per the serial. What do you think they were doing then? Was he breaking any flight regulations by flying over houses? Why is everything a conspiracy? The helo is clearly marked and if you had a low flying complaint then it can be followed up. Have you done any research as to any units in your state operating UH-72 Lakotas? Some military units provide direct support to other agencies.

Yes, we think it's the DEA borrowing air time from the US 4RMY to look at my Basil plants.

Originally posted by zayonara
Yes, we think it's the DEA borrowing air time from the US 4RMY to look at my Basil plants.

They don't need to borrow time. They are assigned and especially equipped as counter drug units that assists other agencies.

Looks like the UH-72 that you photographed is MEP equipped and operates with a counter drug unit.

ngbcounterdrug.ng.mil...

According to mode s records 72216 has been noted in Alabama. Some 50 pages at following link.

mobile.live-mode-s.info...,+US

Aircrew assigned to the counter drugs units have been training in Alabama.

As the UH-72A Lakota gets the MEP upgrade, the aircrews receive MEP training. Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Florida Guard units have taken delivery of the newly upgraded aircraft, and the Guardsmen from those states are undergoing training on the MEP in Huntsville, Ala.

So there you have a possible and likely reason why a US Army UH-72A was flying around your area. They weren't there just to annoy your cat!

Starred you. Thanks for the links!