Mysterious helicopters have been circling Los Angeles

[cronix]

Portland didn't have helicopters that I'm aware of, but at the height of the multi-month riots over the spring, summer and fall, the Air Force was flying one of these[1] Special Operations Surveillance Planes that they denied were doing any "surveilling." It's interesting that the flight paths happened to coincide with the locations of where the riots happened to be occurring that day and Portland had a No-Fly Zone restriction in place.[2]

[1] https://theintercept.com/2020/07/23/air-force-surveillance-p... [2] https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-protest-flight-res...

[CydeWeys]

> multi-month riots over the spring, summer and fal

There were no multi-month riots this summer. Multi-month protests, yes. But not riots. The riots were much smaller in number and generally only lasted a few days at any one location prior to order being restored (here in NYC we had a few nights of looting that could be described as a riot). Even the infamous 1992 LA riots only lasted a week. Multi-month riots would be downfall-of-society level.

[nabilhat]

The PPB were renting N50TV (FOX livery and all) for a while and using it to hunt people walking home for enhanced harrassment. The owners of that helicopter didn't feel great about being associated, so PPB moved on to other rentals out of Port Orchards, WA.

Through the summer it was possible to watch C172's on ADSB squawking as IDAHO33 and IDAHO44, circling at 3000ft. They haven't been visible on ADSB in months. I have a great view of the areas they often circle over. They're still active, they're just not squawking. As recently as yesterday afternoon, in fact.

[bryzaguy]

I live in inner southeast Portland. There were helicopters flying above my place many nights during the protests. Unsure how low they were flying given how really loud they were.

[neartheplain]

Reminder that with a ~$25 software-defined radio (SDR) dongle you can receive any aircraft’s ADS-B signal, complete with position, altitude, velocity, and flight ID:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Surveillan...

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/adsb-aircraft-radar-with-rtl-sdr/

[tambeb]

I contribute ADS-B data grabbed with SDR to Flightradar24. It's pretty sweet because they give you their Business subscription plan (the highest one, $50/month) for free.

I think you may need at least a free account to see the stats, but in any case these are my two sites:

https://www.flightradar24.com/account/feed-stats/?id=5024

https://www.flightradar24.com/account/feed-stats/?id=23968

[runjake]

And even without an SDR radio, you can head over to https://adsbexchange.com and explore aircraft live in your area!

[thinkbud]

Do any informed US readers here know what are the implications of the FAA ADS-B privacy ICAO address program[0]? Will this reduce the possibility for hobbyists to have oversight over such flight operations?

[0] https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/equipadsb/privacy/

[pwenzel]

This was a similar ordeal in Minneapolis in 2020. When news choppers weren't circling the George Floyd memorial, it was National Guard and State Patrol scanning for civil unrest, or more recently, State Patrol's investigating carjackings:

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/more-than-40-arres...

I live next to the autonomous zone and the helicopter traffic frequenting our neighborhood always triggers me. During the protests on December 30th we had State Patrol lights shining in our windows.

With all the surveillance and military response to events happening in the country right now, I'm definitely curious to see what these choppers in Los Angeles are up to.

[ericcholis]

Similarly, there's been an increase in helicopter traffic in Western New York. But, we do know why. It's Canadian snowbirds trying to skip the border shutdown to head to Florida https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/canadians-buzz-throu...

[Triv888]

They can still fly to come down here (but if they want to bring their car, they need to ship it down). It is packed with Canadians down south Florida.

[pbourke]

Probably this will be discontinued now that the US will require a negative COVID test prior to entry via air.

[openasocket]

When I lived in Northern Virginia I saw a lot of helicopters flying over my apartment building, and not just the usual news and police helicopters. More than once I saw 4 uh-60s flying over in formation, and some uh-60s and uh-72s with a distinctive black and gold stripe color scheme. I did some research online and found that there were people in this region fascinated with identifying and cataloguing all of these aircraft, almost like bird watching. I found out they were likely stationed at the Pentagon. The black and gold ones are VIP transport helicopters, meant for transporting members of congress and cabinet members, particularly for evacuations in an emergency. I also saw marine one a couple times, though since it was alone I believe it didn't have POTUS in it at the time (when POTUS is actually in there they fly several identical helicopters in formation so you don't know which has the president). My apartment was roughly under the direct route between Andrews AB and DC, and pretty close to the pentagon, my guess is it was a convenient route for training and drilling.

[joncrane]

Yep, there's even a "helicopters of DC" Twitter account which is really interesting.

[nradov]

There is no single Marine One helicopter. The squadron has several identical helicopters, but they only get the "Marine One" call sign when the President is on board. At other times they use different call signs.

[digikata]

Similar reports of helicopters in my community were aerial inspections of the electrical grid being conducted by So Cal Edison.

[donatj]

The most curious part to me is that all these photos of the helicopters were taken by cameras without rolling shutters.

[ISL]

Having serendipitously dipped a toe into the avgeek waters, it doesn't seem so surprising to me. In a major metropolitan area, you can bank on people listening to ATC traffic and camping out near airfields with good-enough cameras at almost any time. In the avgeek world, one can earn both personal satisfaction and kudos for novel aircraft, so they are especially desirable.

Even a beginner is likely to have an imaging system that is plenty good, with a mechanical shutter. The atmospheric shimmer in the third image suggests that it was made with a longer lens; probably not a beginner.

The President of the United States can't fly over Britain on a secret trip without getting photographed by a semi-retired IT manager: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/27/air-force-on...

It is really great to see distributed citizen-journalism happening.

[KaiserPro]

I don't think we can draw that conclusion.

Its the middle of the day with no cloud, so there is plenty of light. That means we can up the shutter speed to the point where rolling shutter is negligible.

I have a nikon d7000, which has a rolling shutter. Its only really noticeable when I'm recording video, or when there is _lots_ of movement inside the shutter time. at 1/3200th of second, thats a lot of movement.

[sudosysgen]

Most cameras that can take good images of helicopters in flight have a mechanical shutter available.

[spaetzleesser]

Probably taken with cameras with mechanical shutters? That doesn’t seem very curious.

[ravenstine]

For the past few years I've called Pasadena(I live in the general area) the "land of helicopters", but I didn't know that LA in general was seeing something similar recently. People keep telling me that Pasadena/SGV must be a good place to train helicopter pilots, but I don't buy it.

It's been a while since I've bothered to actually look at these helicopters, but a lot of them are pretty nondescript. Not obvious news or police helicopters. Multiple times a month I hear them circle around at night, but I never see anything in the news about an incident or a fugitive. When I ask on Nextdoor I never get replies despite it being loud enough to keep me up.

Then again, I just realized that "Helicopter Hell" is more alliterative. I think I'll call it that from now on.

[scruple]

I'm down in south Orange county. We have helicopters near our neighborhood a few times a week. It surprised me a bit when we first moved here. One of our neighbors is a retired deputy and I've talked to him about it handful of times and he isn't sure what the deal is, either. I lived in East LA for a while, so I've had a fair bit of exposure to the things. It's weird for sure.

[acwan93]

The area above the SGV (Pasadena to Pomona area) is the Santa Fe Practice Area. A lot of first-time pilots, private plane or helicopter, practice and learn how to fly out of El Monte or Brackett (Pomona).

I've checked FlightRadar24 during the protests of June and it seemed like most of the tail numbers of the helicopters flying around the SGV were either Pasadena Police Department, LA County Sheriff, or a private (news?) helicopter. Lately the ones I've seen aren't showing up on FlightRadar24, oddly enough.

[prawn]

"Hellacopters"

[Dnguyen]

There are reports of a person flying around LA airspace with a jet pack. Maybe that's why the helicopter is there, to catch that person?

[jrockway]

How much does a helicopter cost to operate per hour? Whatever it is, it's probably not worth it to catch some guy in a jet pack.

[Simulacra]

Has anyone heard any more about the Los Angeles program to fly airplanes around the city during the day to record everything that happens, similar to what they did in Baltimore?

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-sur...

[SrslyJosh]

Ditto for San Jose lately. Lots of low circling at night.

Edit: Here's an example: https://fr24.com/2021-01-08/05:10/12x/EC20/2683abc3

[lloydatkinson]

I wonder if this is related to the mysterious jet pack man that keeps flying over LA?

[harpiaharpyja]

Makes me wonder if those helicopters being "purchased" by Iraq was just OPSEC.

[steverb]

I would have expected them to have changed the number if that were the case.

[asdff]

It shouldn't be that other worldly in socal. This is the land of the helicopter, where Kobe (may he rest in peace) used to commute to the staples center on helicopter. Where elon musk also commutes by air rather than by his own tesla car. Where the LAPD flies at least two helicopters between 8am-4am every single day regardless of what the radio calls for. In fact, I'm working outside and hear one above right now, by the looks of it, its a small grey personal helicopter. Just after I wrote this I am hearing a second one, navy blue with a yellow callsign on the tail, probably another personal craft.

[raphaelcosta]

How many conspiracy theories people will create/associate using that story?

[mikestew]

Black helicopters? Conspiracy? There's even a Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_helicopter

Now, just like every other conspiracy nut, I'd like to state upfront that I'm no conspiracy theorist. However, over the years "seeing black helicopters" has been an insult used by some. Yet I used to see them parked out in the open at the National Guard base along I-70 in eastern Indiana like 25-30 years ago. And here we have photos published by not-disreputable source. Make of it what you will.

[Animats]

A flight all the way around greater LA while following freeways suggests a training mission. What they're training for is another issue.

[asdff]

Pretty much all helicopter flight paths going through LA follow freeways to navigate, that doesn't suggest anything.

[egberts1]

I am reminded of former Governor Jerry Brown who released a swarm of whirlybirds dumping chemicals from the air ... throughout many California cities AND suburban.

[tastyfreeze]

I am amazed and appreciative at how quickly real, informative news hits the internet. Even if nothing comes from added aerial surveillance, the world knows it is happening.

[hamitron]

The twitter account @SkyCirclesLA keeps track of these sorts of instances. Definitely worth a follow