# Any Flight Trackers out there?



## Phishfry (Sep 14, 2017)

I hear this plane circling above and it sounded like a prop plane so I figured I would pull it up and see whats up..
You just never know these days who is watching you these days.
This flight path really made me realize its purpose.
Tonight MIT was circling my house for 'research'. 9100ft. seems to be his sensors sweetspot
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/MTH9AR


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## ronaldlees (Sep 14, 2017)

I used to wonder why I had so many helicopter fly-overs, but found out (eventually) that it was just the normal flight plan for traffic from a nearby army base.  They changed the pattern a few years ago, and now they're gone.  

Maybe they're looking for weed (NOT in your garden, of course!)   They have special camera equipment that picks it out.


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## ralphbsz (Sep 14, 2017)

We live directly under the flight path to a major airport (arrivals into SFO from the south), and near some flight paths into another airport (SJC), so when we are outdoors at night we get a nice display of airplanes overhead; they are typically high enough (over 10K feet) that the noise is not a problem at all.  I like to use flightradar24.com to get a picture; I think it's web page is a little easier to use than the flightaware one.


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## Phishfry (Sep 14, 2017)

The flight tracker showed the flight originated at NAS Patuxent River, A military base.
That's what caught my eye. A civilian plane departing from PAX.

Something tells me they are testing newer versions of Gorgon Stare on the homeland for DARPA.
I am sure they have a good cover story. Heck who knows if the registration is even legit

It don't hurt that we have nice outdoors weather. Inside I would have never noticed the noise


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## ronaldlees (Sep 14, 2017)

Phishfry said:


> Yes I am sure this was a study of loonie birds too.
> 
> http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...has-been-flying-circles-over-seattle-for-days



It seems to me that stuff like that is mostly good for fishing expeditions, or general operations (like spotting pot growing fields).  It'd be too expensive otherwise.  If they have some particular target in mind, they'd just hook a tracker onto the rubber bumper (or some similar place) of their jeep.  Much cheaper.

Or - even cheaper - they could just tell the cell phone provider to track them, or the service provider for their vehicle navigation system.  The nice part about the nav system is that when they get ready to make an arrest, they can just have the provider issue an immobilization code.


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## bookwormep (Sep 15, 2017)

Here is a story, not to pleased about it though:
https://phys.org/news/2015-06-fbi-mysterious-surveillance-aircraft-cities.html

Granted story is a little old. Confirms what ronaldlees was saying above.


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