[Scan-DC] Baltimore Police surveillance planes

[Eric C. Carlson]

This is a little bit of an odd case in that the planes are privately
operated. However, the FAA is allowing "sensitive" law enforcement aircraft
operations to turn off their ADS-B position reporting. I don't know if
these flights would qualify or care. I've seen Army National Guard (in
support of anti-narcotics work) and local law enforcement doing this
already in Houston.

To the extent the aircraft are in controlled airspace then they will have
to talk to air traffic control. But if they are outside of the BWI Class B
airspace then you likely won't hear anything from them. Eyeballing the TAC
chart though, it looks like the city of Baltimore at 8,500 feet is all in
the Class B. Once they're "on station" though they won't generally be
talking much; you'll be more likely to hear the controller advising other
aircraft of "traffic at your X o'clock maneuvering at 8,500 feet" if
they're in the area. I'm assuming these aircraft fly a fixed pattern but if
it's more ad hoc then there might be more to listen to.

-Eric

On Sat, Dec 21, 2019 at 8:20 AM Ronald Perron via Scan-DC <
scan-dc at mailman.qth.net> wrote:

> Alan
> Thanks for the article.  Saw a piece about this on the local TV news.
> I would think because of the crowded air traffic around here that these
> aircraft would show up on ADS-B.
> Since they would operate around 8,500 ft I would suspect that they could
> be heard on the local helo freq 123.025 for coordination & deconfiction
> purposes.
> They could also use a new, discrete VHF/UHF freq
> Would also suspect that due to the nature and length of these flights that
> the aircraft would have to keep in continuous contact with the local ATC
> freqs, i.e. 119.4, 119.7 etc.
>
> Ron (mdmonitor1 at verizon.net)Utility Monitoring from Maryland, USA
> (390747N 763711W  Grid FM19qd)
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Henney <alan at henney.com>
> To: Scan DC <Scan-DC at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Sat, Dec 21, 2019 3:23 am
> Subject: [Scan-DC] Baltimore Police surveillance planes
>
> Will we see these planes on our ADSB trackers?  What freqs might the planes
> use for voice and downlinks?
>
> Baltimore Police back pilot program for surveillance planes, reviving
> controversial program
>
>
> https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-baltimore-police-support-surveillance-plane-20191220-zfhd5ndtlbdurlj5xfr6xhoe2i-story.html
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