Circling, they are circling

[ihadedto]

A helicopter has flown back and forth just above my head for the last 20 minutes - not complaining just very curious!
It’s clearly not an air ambulance looking for somewhere to land, as I thought at first.
Can anyone tell me why they do it?

Police helicopter with the heat thingy?

When I said ‘they’ (in the title) I had to listen carefully to decide whether it was more than one, it comes back again so quickly

I think it must be .. I’ve heard them before but it doesn’t usually go on as long. It must be quite serious?

We get this a lot (I live very centrally in a town) usually police looking for someone, either a recently missing person or someone running from a crime.

We had one a while ago but it was checking the local radio mast and that was during the day. You could follow it on flight radar going round and round the hill with the mast on.

Or it could be trump coming into land!!

Are you near Liverpool? The helicopter used to be scrambled when the police were out chasing scallies in stolen cars

I think I was once picked out at random to be followed by a police helicopter on a training flight.

I popped out of work one lunchtime and noticed the police helicopter hovering above our carpark. It was high up, not low, but noticeable due to the noise. I looked around, hoping for a robber to appear at speed, but there were only a few passersby and nothing exciting to see. I got in my car, put the radio on and drove to a local retail park. When I got out, the helicopter was over the retail park, in fact right over my car.

I got a bit paranoid at this point and checked the back seat in case I had any hidden passengers, but it was clear. Did a quick sandwich shop and went back to the car, and the helicopter was circling but not over my car. Got back in and set off back to work, but kept the radio off. Helicopter sound followed me and when I parked back at work, there it was above me again. By this point I was getting a touch paranoid and wondered if I was actually in Goodfellas, so I stuck two fingers up at and bellowed, "FUCK OFF".

Relayed all this to work colleagues who pointed out I had quite a distinctive coloured car (purple) and the helicopter pilots did have to train somewhere, so I was probably just used as an unwitting target on an exercise.

Maybe you have some trainee chopper pilots in your area?

Harriet that is a little bit funny though

Most likely police looking for someone. Download the Flightradar24 app and follow it!

I live in NI and the sound is summer here is-helicopters!
Soon as the good weather hits, those boys jump in the choppers and hover in the skies for weeks.
I used to live in a high rise building and would often get up to check as, I swear, it sounded like it was just outside my window. So loud!
But a good friend of mine, her DH was very high in the PSNI and we were talking about this one day. Apparently he said they can survey cars/people etc from quite a few miles away. So although it might be hovering over you, it could be looking at someone/something a few miles away.
They often come and go all night. Annoying,but definitely for the greater good and where would we be without them?

Thank you everyone. Harriet that was funny but I think I would have felt a bit scared too.
I can imagine the novelty value wears off if it’s happening all the time.
I texted my neighbour who says the most likely explanation is someone having wandered out of a care home.

Happened a Few times a week where I grew up. I learnt to ignore.
Nice neighbourhoods.
We had a crystal meth lab on the corner in the very nicest area.
Appearances can be deceptive.

See if your local police helicopter has a Twitter account. It's unlikely to be real-time but it'll give you an idea of the sort of things they get sent up for. This is the one that lives near J41 of the M1.