Police Helicopters

OK, so it's 1AM and there's a police helicopter hovering overhead. This is a regular twice weekly occurrence. I don't know if they're actually tracking some felon, or if they're trying to make us all feel safe ("gee, those cops up there are keeping us safe from crime as we sleep!"). But what I'm thinking is "which gang of teenagers is driving around drunk in a stolen car tonight?"
Tell everyone your police helicopter stories.

la is the fucking worst for this shit

I was on a training course, and one of the other trainees who grew his own shit told me that the police use infra-red cameras at night to spot the heat signatures of grow lamps. I thought he was being paranoid. Turns out it's true!

xpost-

can you manage an mspaint of this dilemna?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/9/99/20060801091640!Black_square.jpg
It's dark here, so how's this?

(not pictured: bright-as-fuck 1 million candle power searchlight)

i get these like 3 times a week at least flying over. i don't live in a neighborhood where fleeing felons are all over but someone told me the base is nearby so they fly over on their way to wherever. it's really annoying.

We're quite a way from the base, but it's over here a lot. There's even a page for it on the police website. Unfortunately no live feed from the cameras. But full of all kinds of information, including prophetically...

This page will be regularly updated with details about main deployments, so that if you are disturbed at one o'clock in the morning a visit here will help you understand why.

I'm pretty sure that one day I'm going to look out of the window and see Blue Thunder skimming the treetops.

police once raided our rabbit hutch at 3 am, turns out the infrared on the helicopter had picked out our rabbit and they thought it was the guy they were chasing.

"Now, this technology is new to me, but...I'm pretty sure that's Homer Simpson in the oven, rotating slowly."

my ex-gf lived near the 101 in LA, and a couple times a week, helicopters would circle in the middle of the night. long circles, so you can just about fall back to sleep before they loop back around again.

The benefit of living in a broke-ass city like Montreal is that they can't actually afford the fuel to send those bitches up in the air all the time. Benefit = peace of mind.

I was on a training course, and one of the other trainees who grew his own shit told me that the police use infra-red cameras at night to spot the heat signatures of grow lamps. I thought he was being paranoid. Turns out it's true!

very true! i was told tho that pot plants actually give off more heat than other plants - and that's what they look for. (very useful factoid when looking for/growing outdoor!)

we get them flying overhead on a semi-regular basis. i hate them...I mean, I hope they find who they're looking for, because flying so damn low in what sounds like 2nd gear, that WHINING from the engine just drives me batty. we went to an airshow a few years ago, and the sacramento police helicopter was there, you could go up and talk to the pilot. my husband wouldn't let me go over there because he knew I just wanted to slap the guy in the head...

you can read about every flight here

http://www.merseyside.police.uk/html/aboutus/departments/air-support/whereabouts/index.htm

Can't they use balloons or something instead? I live near Tottenham, get this shit every Saturday night.

I get it a lot in my area too - I dunno if it is because I'm relatively near a cemetary (are they looking for zombies or something!?) or more likley becuase St Kilda is a dodgy area full of pros and junkies and whatnot.

The Grand Prix was on this past weekend and the flyovers were RIDICULOUS. Friday-Sunday we had some kind of mig fighters tearing low overhead, so incredibly loud (awesome! But very very loud), and at one point even a freaking 737 jumbo ambled at almost roof-brushing height over the suburb (I live nowhere near an airport).

The formation prop-plane stuff was fun though.

Even in the countryside we get 'em, though on average less than weekly: teenagers in stolen cars at night, illegal hare-coursers in the daytime, apparently.

It's kind of a bummer when they go over work, as the first time they did so they spent a morning hovering very low over a short stretch of river, apparently looking for someone who'd thrown themselves in.

When I was a kid, before police helicopters were so common, there was one circling over the centre of our small town for ages and I told my folks it said POLICE on the underside (not sure if I could actually read it - they couldn't - or if I was being fanciful) and they didn't believe me, but the next day it turned out someone had been held hostage in the church. Excitement in obscure Wiltshire market town! (They were let go safely)

not the same thing but on saturday i saw two chinooks land in regents park for some reason i couldn't fathom and it was fucking awesome

i remember when i was younger when we used to go lamping at night for rabbits on a local golf course, and one night hiding behind trees from a hovering police chopper. i don't think they were interested in us though.

(xpost) those things are fucking loud - had one pass low overhead, set off every car alarm in the street.

i got so used to police and army helicopters when i was growing up in n.ireland i cant spark up the enthusiasm most other people can. when i was at school in a police helicopter crashed into a load of power lines and hit the dirt just over the river from us as we all watched from the playground. probably the most exciting moment of my education

not the same thing but on saturday i saw two chinooks land in regents park for some reason i couldn't fathom and it was fucking awesome

― Hard House SugBanton (blueski), Monday, March 30, 2009 10:55 AM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

they circled my flat a few times (in stoke newington) on sat evening, they were TERRIFYING.

Military helicopter engines are so fucking loud.

05:30, what sounded like multiple helicopter gunships over shepherd's bush. thanks for that.

Ha, I was just thinking about this thread this morning as there was a police helicopter overhead. I wish they'd do a live feed on the website, so that I could steal an iPhone, and watch myself getting pursued by the police, whilst posting to an ILX thread about it.

I saw a band recently, fronted by the guy who flies police helicopters here. I felt like saying "Stop keeping me awake at night, you fascist!".

Did he sing through a megaphone?

i just wrote a song about texting while watching myself get pursued by a police helicopter on my iphone, and i'm going to start a google wave about it

Snoball - no, he didn't sing through a megaphone, or use helicopter sound effects.

He should have had a big flashlight to shine on the crowd.

once in university i was mad lifted... they used to send helicopters over my neighbourhood all the time for a little while, no idea why... but sometimes it was SUPER loud and that night i could have sworn it was outside my house and i got insanely paranoid... i was literally lying on the floor peeking through the windowblinds with all the lights off watching this helicopter a few streets over do a flyby... at one point it pointed a light in my direction and i freaked out

"do not be alarmed, continue swimming naked! ... awwww, cmon!.... continue!"

BTW slocki I have had recurring nightmares about what you just described (hiding on the floor freaking out a chopper can see me/find me) regularly since I was a kid :/

This should really be a rolling thread now. slocki's nightmare scenario actually happened to me last night! Er, except when the searchlight was shining in my window I was lying in bed and just thought "meh"

i think i saw the helicopter in question on the way home, sounded similar anyway. and it's a tiny wasp of a thing. but at 5:30 it sounded huge. (might have been some resonant frequencies thing going on as well).

my friend a few months ago got drunk and stole a car from the street, drove it around like a loon and ended up hitting a police car, fucking moron then decided to try and outrun the police in his drunken state and a fucking fleet of them trying to force him off the road and a helicoptor appeared. luckily he found a spray shop and so he drove in and painted his car yellow and the police went away. he could have got busted or worse, wasted.

04:41. fuckers.

i swear i just saw 8 copters flying in formation in the distance, over central london...

I'm pretty sure that one day I'm going to look out of the window and see Blue Thunder skimming the treetops.

― snoball, Sunday, 29 March 2009 00:22 (1 year ago)

Well not exactly Blue Thunder, but an Apache helicopter just flew over really low.

I can tell it's nearly Spring, because this shit is starting up again.

I’ll be honest with you I usually don’t check what thread I’m posting in

there is only one thread, i'm on the same page. literally

there's one out right now and I'm annoyed

They've been keeping me awake every night.

the National Guard moved to Volunteer Park and the riot cops to the Safeway carpark on 15th; the choppers are presumably waiting to spot an excuse to send them back headcracking at the precinct house.