To ask you if helicopters are watching you??

[Sassenach85]

Has anyone noticed helicopters in their area? We have them now day and night - some so low it scared the pets and kids. Some black some yellow some grey. Is this just my area? We all feel unnerved by it a bit

A Vulcan did fly over. DH was a plane nut as a kid and recognised it instantly.I think we worked out it was on its way back to a local base and not an official flight.

Not recently it didn't, it really didn't..

The demise of the last airworthy flying Vulcan is a long and sorry story
that is beyond the scope of this thread but it's a matter of fact/public record that that airframe, XH558, last flew at the end of the 2015 display season.

No Vulcan has flown at all, anywhere in the world, since that aircraft's last flight...

Either your DH saw the aircraft 5 years or more ago or he misidentified what he saw. The US has deployed B-2 "Stealth Bombers" over/to the UK on rare occasions in the recent past ..is it possible he saw one of those?

ukdefencejournal.org.uk/american-b-2-stealth-bombers-land-in-the-uk/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Vulcan_XH558

To be honest, they weren't that stealthy. I could see them and they were LOUD!
The stealth bit involves the shape and construction being hard for primary radar to detect not to them being quiet.

It's unlikely to be police helicopters - in our not particularly rural area there's only one helicopter covering three counties.

Lot less for us here in central London.

We barely see one a day if that now. Used to several a day.

@notimagain. I’m guessing you cross posted. I misremembered. It was a stealth bomber.

RAF planes are being used to transport patients with coronavirus from remote/island locations to bigger hospitals.

I live in a rural village and there are many more helicopters just above and it's usually on weekends. They're not on fr24 so I assume police.

Yep. In Bristol

We aren’t a big town or village

I’m enjoying the discussion on this, I’ve been ignoring it for ages. There are multiple points,

increased activity similar to what we already have experience of

Increase in variety of helicopters

Change of circumstances than usual - time and height ?

@notimagain. I’m guessing you cross posted.

I did, Mea Culpa...glad it got sorted out..

Yes, more helicopters. I figured they were watching us. Anyone else had drones?

Yes there’s more than usual round here. Air ambulance and police I think. There have been some serious car accidents in my local area since lockdown began; The local boy racers are taking advantage of the roads being quieter and flipping their cars over on various street corners

We live in an area where we always have lots of helicopters circling around as we live near an airfield where there are a lot of both civilian and military test flights. I've hardly seen any lately, so they must be out there watching all the rest of you instead.

Freedar shows Offshore trips and the Coastguard out at present in Scotland, there's a bunch from the helicopter training school further south, one of the Red Arrows(!) near Lincoln, another bunch of training in the West Country (and a Sea King is up) and a couple of Air Ambulances doing their thing.

Fewer here. In a small city with a nearby RAF. Usual number of planes from there headed both towards London & towards Birmingham, but now that you mention it I realise zero helicopters around at all.

Lots of bicycle police though, trying to disperse/help the local drunk or homeless people who are still congregating in their usual places.

Far fewer here, I think I might live near @Leckford possibly, but we often have night flying training here and it's noticeably quiet.

Same in our area. I’ve never known so many buzzing over. It must be surveillance of some sort to check on movements.

I was up at 4:30 this morning for the dawn chorus and there was a police helicopter circling overhead for quite a while; backwards and forwards. Police stats for arrests are going to be peachy for 2020 now they aren't having to catch any genuine criminals.

It's the opposite where we live. We are used to chinooks and other helicopters flying over on a regular basis and they seemed to have disappeared.

Yes. Funny, I can hear one now.

Yes! We have noticed the past two weeks slot more helicopters circling our town.

I'm amazed you've posted this as I've noticed it too and normally I'm oblivious to stuff like this!

We are in Falkirk and it's definitely a huge increase compared to normal. There was one earlier that was so loud I genuinely thought it was going to land on our house roof! DH is a bit of a geek so watches Flight Radar all the time and he said it was a Network Rail helicopter, I never even knew they had anything of the sort.

Air ambulances, police all show up on Flight Radar in our area but military helicopters don't. Their airplanes do though.

I've genuinely been wondering if there has been an escaped prisoner or something with how regular these have been and how loud and low. All sorts have been running through my tiny mind 🤣

For those of you who are interested, there’s a whole MN Flight Radar thread here with lots of useful info

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3824208-flight-radar-24-pt-2#prettyPhoto

They will tell you useful things like there’s a Red Arrow plan over Manchester right now