[Scan-DC] Mystery airplane over Takoma Park
Eric C. Carlson
ecarlson at gmail.com
Tue Feb 5 09:40:55 EST 2019
They typically are flying at several thousand feet up in large circles
(fixed wing or helicopters). They have a very low noise profile and are
hard to notice. The FBI planes are known to have modifications to reduce
engine noise.
-Eric
On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 8:29 AM Andrew Clegg <andrew_w_clegg at hotmail.com>
wrote:
> The crooks don't realize there are helicopters and/or planes buzzing over
> them for hours at a time?
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* scan-dc-bounces at mailman.qth.net <scan-dc-bounces at mailman.qth.net>
> on behalf of Eric C. Carlson <ecarlson at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 5, 2019 9:11 AM
> *To:* Alan Henney
> *Cc:* Scan DC
> *Subject:* Re: [Scan-DC] Mystery airplane over Takoma Park
>
> I can speak from my experience in Houston. These are almost always
> anti-narcotics surveillance flights. There was one period of time where the
> FBI aircraft were camped out over a suspected "terrorist" apartment for a
> few months but I don't think that is the norm. Callsign these days is
> "Limo" for FBI. Monitor 136.275 (DOJ aircraft) for air-to-base and
> air-to-air when they swap out planes. In the DC area the FBI aircraft
> should be flying out of Manassas airport. They will be on the usual
> approach/departure frequencies with ATC. The ones in Houston also disabled
> their Mode S transponders (TCAS) -- so they won't be trackable via MLAT --
> and are using tablet computers for traffic avoidance. You won't hear them a
> lot on ATC but they will check in "on station" and "RTB." Depending on how
> close they are to approach/departure routes you may hear more if ATC is
> giving traffic advisories.
>
> For FBI, they're usually on a simplex VHF tactical frequency; look for
> something 5x5 ENC for hours at a time when they're overhead (I've also
> gotten Close Call hits). Due to the multi-agency nature of most of the
> anti-narc work you'll see FBI aircraft working with DEA/ICE/CBP/locals, or
> DEA aircraft doing the same thing (with correspondingly random combinations
> of frequencies). DEA aircraft exhibit the same behavior (callsign "Flint").
> CBP aircraft ("Omaha") fly in support of ICE and in my experience these are
> typically helicopters (although FBI and DEA use helicopters also). CBP
> aircraft use 136.375 and the CBP "Air" P25 simplex frequencies. Also, more
> rarely, there are the US Marshals aircraft using callsign "Gunsmoke" (I've
> caught them using 170.8 NAC 293 simplex on many occasions).
>
> I've never heard any these aircraft on VFR advisory frequencies for what
> it's worth (e.g., 123.025); ATC approach/departure is your best bet to find
> them in the clear.
>
> -Eric
>
> On Mon, Feb 4, 2019 at 11:23 PM Alan Henney via Scan-DC <
> scan-dc at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > Flying over Takoma Park -- over and over -- this afternoon and early
> > evening was this airplane. It flew a continuous circle following the
> same
> > flight path (Takoma Park was the western edge).
> > It's the classical FBI contractor, I assume. Did we ever come to a
> > conclusion as to what kind of surveillance they are conducting?
> > Whenever I see a civilian aircraft fly overhead here I quickly consult my
> > ADSB tracker (thanks Mike!) hoping to make an ID. I find at least the
> > civilian aircraft typically appear... but not this one.
> >
> >
> > Did anybody, by chance, catch them on the aircraft radio? I did not hear
> > them on the helicopter channel, 134.35 (maybe too high for that?). The
> > plane was overhead roughly from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. (at least).
> > Thanks,Alan
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