Annoying Belconnen Helicopter ?

bd84 said :

wow 200 comments of people whinging and complaining about one little helicopter.. must be close to being a record. Canberrans at their best I guess..

In all fairness, 197 of them is HenryBG whinging about Police enforcing drug laws.

wow 200 comments of people whinging and complaining about one little helicopter.. must be close to being a record. Canberrans at their best I guess..

HenryBG said :

buzz819 said :

—–HenryBG—–Wouldn’t that be more useful than hassling potheads?—–

You do realise that the potheads are what caused the killing of Don Mackay?

I see why we are are having so much trouble communicating – you have no idea what’s going on.

Mackay wasn’t killed by potheads.
Nor was he killed by pony-tailed entrepreneurs using hydro systems to grow a couple of kg of pot 3 times a year.

He was killed by Italian mafia.
The same kind of creature that Winchester was likely killed by after they perceived him to have double-crossed them when bent Sydney coppers ripped off their AFP-“authorised” crop, none of which ended up at the conclusion of Operation Seville in a police lockup, all of it having been sold on the black market with zero interference from the law.

Now, if *only* the AFP would show a bit more initiative enforcing the law against the scary dudes with guns and the vast numbers of cops who work with them instead of picking on harmless amateur growers and smokers, things would be so much better for all of us.

And why was there such a problem with drugs at that time? Because of the pot heads that were using the drug, thus causing the demand that helped organised crime grow, which lead to Underbelly: A tale of two cities.

buzz819 said :

—–HenryBG—–Wouldn’t that be more useful than hassling potheads?—–

You do realise that the potheads are what caused the killing of Don Mackay?

I see why we are are having so much trouble communicating – you have no idea what’s going on.

Mackay wasn’t killed by potheads.
Nor was he killed by pony-tailed entrepreneurs using hydro systems to grow a couple of kg of pot 3 times a year.

He was killed by Italian mafia.
The same kind of creature that Winchester was likely killed by after they perceived him to have double-crossed them when bent Sydney coppers ripped off their AFP-“authorised” crop, none of which ended up at the conclusion of Operation Seville in a police lockup, all of it having been sold on the black market with zero interference from the law.

Now, if *only* the AFP would show a bit more initiative enforcing the law against the scary dudes with guns and the vast numbers of cops who work with them instead of picking on harmless amateur growers and smokers, things would be so much better for all of us.

—– HenryBG—- So…if they aren’t following orders, then they’re using their own initiative to try to enforce a policy which ex-Commissioner Mick Palmer says has proven an abject failure, right?—–

Yes Henry, they are showing initiative in enforcing the law, it’s not like that’s what Police do or anything. They also are not taking orders or direction off someone who is not in charge of their organisation, if the government wants to listen to the ex-commissioner then so be it, until then yes, the Police will continue to enforce drug laws. I am starting to see that maybe you are about 5 beers short of a 6 pack.

—–HenryBG—–Do you think enforcing laws that don’t work is something that should be high-priority with lots of money spent on it?—–

Yes, I think all laws should be enforced until such time that they are no longer laws, this is how legal framework is governed.

—–HenryBG—–How about – for example – investigating those who commissioned a statue of Al Grassby, the friend and apologist of those who killed Donald Mackay? Or finally doing something about gaoling those who shot Winchester?—–

So you want the AFP to investigate Stanhope for putting up a statue? I agree, he has wasted a heap of money on a lot stupid statues around Canberra. I think you will find that in the Alexander Machonochie Centre, there is a bloke called David Eastman, he has been found guilty by a jury of his peers in the matter of the shooting of Mr Winchester. Simon Corbell has also stated if there was “new” evidence he would consider an appeal. Do you have a conspiracy theory website? I hope you do because that would be an entertaining read that would keep me busy for a couple of minutes a day.

—–HenryBG—–Wouldn’t that be more useful than hassling potheads?—–

You do realise that the potheads are what caused the killing of Don Mackay?

buzz819 said :

HenryBG said :

So the police are just “following orders”, eh? Nuremberg defence, much?

As for making money off drugs, I think Operation Seville demonstrated who the prime movers are in that particular field – perhaps that explains the AFP’s commitment to putting all the suburban amateur grow house competition out of business with their expensive chopper?

There not following orders you dimwit, read what I wrote, they are enforcing laws.

I’m sure they would be happy to stop enforcing laws, but where would that stop? They just enforce the ones they want to? Sounds like a good justice system to me.

So…if they aren’t following orders, then they’re using their own initiative to try to enforce a policy which ex-Commissioner Mick Palmer says has proven an abject failure, right?

Do you think enforcing laws that don’t work is something that should be high-priority with lots of money spent on it?
How about – for example – investigating those who commissioned a statue of Al Grassby, the friend and apologist of those who killed Donald Mackay? Or finally doing something about gaoling those who shot Winchester?
Wouldn’t that be more useful than hassling potheads?

HenryBG said :

buzz819 said :

The war on drugs does need to change, fight the law makers, they are the ones who get all the money from it after all.

So the police are just “following orders”, eh? Nuremberg defence, much?

As for making money off drugs, I think Operation Seville demonstrated who the prime movers are in that particular field – perhaps that explains the AFP’s commitment to putting all the suburban amateur grow house competition out of business with their expensive chopper?

There not following orders you dimwit, read what I wrote, they are enforcing laws.

I’m sure they would be happy to stop enforcing laws, but where would that stop? They just enforce the ones they want to? Sounds like a good justice system to me.

buzz819 said :

The war on drugs does need to change, fight the law makers, they are the ones who get all the money from it after all.

So the police are just “following orders”, eh? Nuremberg defence, much?

As for making money off drugs, I think Operation Seville demonstrated who the prime movers are in that particular field – perhaps that explains the AFP’s commitment to putting all the suburban amateur grow house competition out of business with their expensive chopper?

HenryBG said :

buzz819 said :

I’ve already stated that your entire tax bill would be lucky to cover one police officers wage for 6 months, let a lone “paying” for the helicopter.

Yes, I’ve seen you try that utterly, mind-numbingly stupid argument before.
If the tax I pay is so inconsequential, why do they bother collecting it from me?

buzz819 said :

You have no right for input, unless you join either parliament, and change the laws, or join the Police and become management and stop it from happening. You really are a nothing in the big scheme of things Henry, get used to it.

That money is coming out of my pocket in order to provide community services.
I certainly am entitled to input.
I pay their wages. They are serving me.
If they don’t like working for me, they can go and get a job in private enterprise somewhere.

And here’s what Mick Palmer, former AFP commissioner and John Howard’s architect of the “Tough on Drugs” policy, has this to say:

“It is really time for a conversation. To pretend this country’s [drug prohibition] system is working, that it’s really as good as we can expect of ourselves, is nonsense.”

Palmer says he has concluded over time that no matter how effective police investigations are, no matter how many criminals are apprehended, “the end result, and the more you look at it the more obvious it becomes, is we make no difference.

He was on Radio National this morning saying that prohibition is an utter failure, and the money spent on these sorts of activities is a waste.

So who do I believe, random wowsers incapable of analysis or logic and apparently unaware of the function of the Public Service in a Democracy, or the former AFP commissioner in charge of enforcing prohibition?

You don’t pay their wages, they don’t serve you, their moto is definitely not “To Protect and Serve.”

More of your wages goes towards public art then the Police. Sure, the laws need changing, but the Police are there to “enforce” the law, you want to change go join parliament and do it that way, a whinge session on here bagging out the Police just shows that your an ignoramus more then anything.

The war on drugs does need to change, fight the law makers, they are the ones who get all the money from it after all.

buzz819 said :

I’ve already stated that your entire tax bill would be lucky to cover one police officers wage for 6 months, let a lone “paying” for the helicopter.

Yes, I’ve seen you try that utterly, mind-numbingly stupid argument before.
If the tax I pay is so inconsequential, why do they bother collecting it from me?

buzz819 said :

You have no right for input, unless you join either parliament, and change the laws, or join the Police and become management and stop it from happening. You really are a nothing in the big scheme of things Henry, get used to it.

That money is coming out of my pocket in order to provide community services.
I certainly am entitled to input.
I pay their wages. They are serving me.
If they don’t like working for me, they can go and get a job in private enterprise somewhere.

And here’s what Mick Palmer, former AFP commissioner and John Howard’s architect of the “Tough on Drugs” policy, has this to say:

“It is really time for a conversation. To pretend this country’s [drug prohibition] system is working, that it’s really as good as we can expect of ourselves, is nonsense.”

Palmer says he has concluded over time that no matter how effective police investigations are, no matter how many criminals are apprehended, “the end result, and the more you look at it the more obvious it becomes, is we make no difference.

He was on Radio National this morning saying that prohibition is an utter failure, and the money spent on these sorts of activities is a waste.

So who do I believe, random wowsers incapable of analysis or logic and apparently unaware of the function of the Public Service in a Democracy, or the former AFP commissioner in charge of enforcing prohibition?

Apologies if it has already been mentioned, could the helicopter just be scoping the kangaroo populations for the cull?

HenryBG said :

vg said :

What a pack of whiney know-it-alls. Armchair critics of Policing abound again, most
with no stomach for the job, or a stomach down to their knees which prevents even considering it. Big mouths on the end of an ADSL line. The same musclemen who yell abuse at Police from a distance but when queried individually about the abuse trickle a stream of fresh urine down the inside of their tight jeans.

Drugs are a crime, and their users criminals. Full stop, end of story. A helicopter trial to prevent those crimes causes a kerfuffle not heard since the great cycle path whinge of ’08.

Get over yourselves you petulant, petty, self important people of no social consequence

Considering my rates are paying for it, I am fully entitled to object to the money being wasted on people who are only “criminals” because of stupid laws criminalising them for no good reason.

I think my rates should be used to find real criminals, you know, thieves and robbers, and then actually put them in prison, and then keep them off the drugs while they are there.

Seeing as Massey and many like him are roaming the community at will, despite having done more than enough to warrant excluding them from society permanently, it seems law enforcement isn’t delivering, and now they’re distracting us by spending vast amounts on catching harmless horticulturalists who aren’t actually doing anything wrong except grow some plants which pose a far lesser threat to society than places like Mooseheads do.

Your rates??

I’ve already stated that your entire tax bill would be lucky to cover one police officers wage for 6 months, let a lone “paying” for the helicopter. You have no right for input, unless you join either parliament, and change the laws, or join the Police and become management and stop it from happening. You really are a nothing in the big scheme of things Henry, get used to it.

I was awoken at 5.30am by what I thought was someone parked out the front in a truck powered by an old Cummins Diesel 903 engine (thump. thump, thump). I checked it out an could see no vehicles but hearing the sound with clarity it was identified as rotor slap from a high flying helicopter which appeared to be over Mt Taylor. It was impossible to sleep – almost had me looking for some drugs to induce some tranquility. It is bloodywell annoying.
I am starting to think it may be sponsored by the airport people in an attempt to build receptivity for 24 hour flying activity at Costco International Airport.

basketofcat said :

You don’t get it, do you? I’m sad that the thread got derailed by discussion about the legality and morality of drugs. It could have easily have centred on theft of copper, or counter-terrorism, or finding missing persons, or the ultimate in scanning for unregistered cars and unlicensed drivers. The real issue is that it was most likely conducting a dragnet search for those and more, but with extremely broad search criteria. Such searching and profiling is the subject of great debate and opposition when conducted in person, but because this time it’s a secretive helicopter, and that some of you have a past in law enforcement or the military, it’s justified and legal? Do you have any idea of the number of laws and tests must be used in the generalised searches? Do you have full confidence that they’re all being respected and enforced? I sure don’t.

I suppose the issue is: are you stealing copper? do you have and drive and unregistered car? are you growing drugs, or concerned about any other illegal activity you are performing being found out?
If no, then I don’t see the issue, really. If civil libertarians had their way, you’d imagine that someone spotted murdering someone in their backyard would be OK, because the way they were spotted was ‘illegal’….?
Or are we simply saying here that all we want them to do is pass some legislation saying they can do it, and we’ll all calm down?

vg said :

What a pack of whiney know-it-alls. Armchair critics of Policing abound again, most
with no stomach for the job, or a stomach down to their knees which prevents even considering it. Big mouths on the end of an ADSL line. The same musclemen who yell abuse at Police from a distance but when queried individually about the abuse trickle a stream of fresh urine down the inside of their tight jeans.

Drugs are a crime, and their users criminals. Full stop, end of story. A helicopter trial to prevent those crimes causes a kerfuffle not heard since the great cycle path whinge of ’08.

Get over yourselves you petulant, petty, self important people of no social consequence

Considering my rates are paying for it, I am fully entitled to object to the money being wasted on people who are only “criminals” because of stupid laws criminalising them for no good reason.

I think my rates should be used to find real criminals, you know, thieves and robbers, and then actually put them in prison, and then keep them off the drugs while they are there.

Seeing as Massey and many like him are roaming the community at will, despite having done more than enough to warrant excluding them from society permanently, it seems law enforcement isn’t delivering, and now they’re distracting us by spending vast amounts on catching harmless horticulturalists who aren’t actually doing anything wrong except grow some plants which pose a far lesser threat to society than places like Mooseheads do.

“Do you have any idea of the number of laws and tests must be used in the generalised searches? Do you have full confidence that they’re all being respected and enforced? I sure don’t”

Which question don’t you have any idea about, is it the laws being broken or the confidence side of things

I would be very interested in your research and or knowledge into what laws are being broken. I did some looking into it early in the thread and could only come up with references to the US laws revolving around the 4th ammendment.

vg said :

What a pack of whiney know-it-alls. Armchair critics of Policing abound again, most
with no stomach for the job, or a stomach down to their knees which prevents even considering it. Big mouths on the end of an ADSL line. The same musclemen who yell abuse at Police from a distance but when queried individually about the abuse trickle a stream of fresh urine down the inside of their tight jeans.

Drugs are a crime, and their users criminals. Full stop, end of story. A helicopter trial to prevent those crimes causes a kerfuffle not heard since the great cycle path whinge of ’08.

Get over yourselves you petulant, petty, self important people of no social consequence

You don’t get it, do you? I’m sad that the thread got derailed by discussion about the legality and morality of drugs. It could have easily have centred on theft of copper, or counter-terrorism, or finding missing persons, or the ultimate in scanning for unregistered cars and unlicensed drivers. The real issue is that it was most likely conducting a dragnet search for those and more, but with extremely broad search criteria. Such searching and profiling is the subject of great debate and opposition when conducted in person, but because this time it’s a secretive helicopter, and that some of you have a past in law enforcement or the military, it’s justified and legal? Do you have any idea of the number of laws and tests must be used in the generalised searches? Do you have full confidence that they’re all being respected and enforced? I sure don’t.

vg said :

not heard since the great cycle path whinge of ’08.

That ones still going isn’t it?

+1 on the rest of what you said too.

What a pack of whiney know-it-alls. Armchair critics of Policing abound again, most
with no stomach for the job, or a stomach down to their knees which prevents even considering it. Big mouths on the end of an ADSL line. The same musclemen who yell abuse at Police from a distance but when queried individually about the abuse trickle a stream of fresh urine down the inside of their tight jeans.

Drugs are a crime, and their users criminals. Full stop, end of story. A helicopter trial to prevent those crimes causes a kerfuffle not heard since the great cycle path whinge of ’08.

Get over yourselves you petulant, petty, self important people of no social consequence

basketofcat said :

It’s been blocked from flightaware: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/FDPOL21

“This aircraft (FDPOL21) is not available for public tracking per request from the owner/operator.”

loooool.

It’s just so they can sit about dvaey’s house with out him know it is there.

It’s been blocked from flightaware: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/FDPOL21

“This aircraft (FDPOL21) is not available for public tracking per request from the owner/operator.”

loooool.

HenryBG said :

Special G said :

HenryBG said :

Special G said :

Police operate on evidence. If you provide the evidence then you are the one who needs to provide a statement and attend court to be cross examined on that evidence.

Bullshit. I can give information to Police that enables them to investigate a crime. If they are interested. *I* don’t have to prove anything for an investigation to get under way.

I notice Buzz’s response to being wrong is a *Yawn*. Says it all really.

Go back and re read what you quoted. You call up police ops and tell them stuff. An investigation gets underway. The first thing they do is obtain a formal statement from the person making the complaint and whether they are willing to go to court and provide that evidence. Without this I am tipping the investigation will stall and go no where further pretty quickly.

Go down the magistrates court any day of the week and you will notice a great many prosecutions where the only “witness” is an investigating police officer. Or two. No civilians.

“We’re not going to do anything without a statement” is just a brush-off excuse for when they don’t think investigating a report is going to be worth their while. I’m sure it’s sometimes justified. And sometimes it’s bad PR.

Henry – you are not quite getting it are you. I’ll try to explain it through that cannabis induced haze. The Police officer is there giving evidence of something they saw. If the primary witness is civilian then they get a choice if they want to give evidence – this is called making a formal complaint to police. If they don’t want to provide a statement (evidence) and attend court (as a witness) then a police officer cannot stand in for them and provide the persons evidence (heresay) as it would be inadmissable.

Back to the chopper. Great to have but probably too expensive in this jurisdiction on a full time basis.

For dvaey’s benefit…

http://the-riotact.com/a-chinook-over-canberra/73901

”
I think you will find the unknown call sign was one of the large twin bladed helicopters parked at Fairbairn tonight, you know the defence ones, the ones that know all about physics and stuff. Once again dvaey you have managed to make me laugh, at some point you must get sick of that feeling in the gut when you have got it wrong ……. again.”

Dvaey said:
It might have been a defence one, but that still doesnt explain why it was flying in circles above Belco and Tuggeranong at less than 200m above ground level, on a 1hr flight that started and finished at Canberra. Maybe theyve been buzzing those of us who complained about their last efforts.

It also does not explain why your post was ALL about Police and their disregard for physics and the way THEY were flying THEIR heicopter when you now agree it MIGHT have been defence (when in fact, and I still know you are afraid of facts, it was). The flight paths you were referring to were the ones where the ADFA cadets were being given familarisation flights in the airframe.

For all the RA posters on here now, go outside for just a few seconds and that sound you can hear isn’t a helicopter it’s Dvaey back peddalling ……. again ….. but just a bit faster than usual.

Don’t worry about the noise folks, with the new aerial drones they’ll be able to watch over us all 24 hours a day without disturbing our precious sleep.

I know I sure feel safer knowing there is someone creeping round my backyard and peeking in my back window from the sky, especially if it helps rid the world of those deadly criminal potheads.

The police aren’t just a gang of government thugs you know, they are the thin blue line that seperates us fine upstanding citizens from the seedy underworld that stands ready to swallow us all at a moments notice!

I know they might be ignoring the underage prostitution, the diplomatic drug mules and the banking oligarchy that rules us all, but as long as they get all the stoners, the net users and and the party goers I’d say thats a job well done, right lads?

Special G said :

HenryBG said :

Special G said :

Police operate on evidence. If you provide the evidence then you are the one who needs to provide a statement and attend court to be cross examined on that evidence.

Bullshit. I can give information to Police that enables them to investigate a crime. If they are interested. *I* don’t have to prove anything for an investigation to get under way.

I notice Buzz’s response to being wrong is a *Yawn*. Says it all really.

Go back and re read what you quoted. You call up police ops and tell them stuff. An investigation gets underway. The first thing they do is obtain a formal statement from the person making the complaint and whether they are willing to go to court and provide that evidence. Without this I am tipping the investigation will stall and go no where further pretty quickly.

Go down the magistrates court any day of the week and you will notice a great many prosecutions where the only “witness” is an investigating police officer. Or two. No civilians.

“We’re not going to do anything without a statement” is just a brush-off excuse for when they don’t think investigating a report is going to be worth their while. I’m sure it’s sometimes justified. And sometimes it’s bad PR.

dvaey said :

troutfisher said :

I think you will find the unknown call sign was one of the large twin bladed helicopters parked at Fairbairn tonight, you know the defence ones, the ones that know all about physics and stuff. Once again dvaey you have managed to make me laugh, at some point you must get sick of that feeling in the gut when you have got it wrong ……. again.

It might have been a defence one, but that still doesnt explain why it was flying in circles above Belco and Tuggeranong at less than 200m above ground level, on a 1hr flight that started and finished at Canberra. Maybe theyve been buzzing those of us who complained about their last efforts.

Sounds like it was the Chinook you are talking about.

HenryBG said :

Special G said :

Police operate on evidence. If you provide the evidence then you are the one who needs to provide a statement and attend court to be cross examined on that evidence.

Bullshit. I can give information to Police that enables them to investigate a crime. If they are interested. *I* don’t have to prove anything for an investigation to get under way.

I notice Buzz’s response to being wrong is a *Yawn*. Says it all really.

Go back and re read what you quoted. You call up police ops and tell them stuff. An investigation gets underway. The first thing they do is obtain a formal statement from the person making the complaint and whether they are willing to go to court and provide that evidence. Without this I am tipping the investigation will stall and go no where further pretty quickly.

HenryBG said :

Special G said :

Police operate on evidence. If you provide the evidence then you are the one who needs to provide a statement and attend court to be cross examined on that evidence.

Bullshit. I can give information to Police that enables them to investigate a crime. If they are interested. *I* don’t have to prove anything for an investigation to get under way.

I notice Buzz’s response to being wrong is a *Yawn*. Says it all really.

The yawn was more of a “Wow the troll post really worked.”

Both Henry and WMC are advocates of getting rid of one law, yet adamant that another is the be all and end all of laws.

Smoking Tobacco is legal, yet growing tobacco is illegal http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ea190180/s28.html quite heft fines as well. Yet it is illegal too smoke in a car with a kid, in a restaurant, near food, near a drinking area, near an entrance to a public building etc. So there a more laws governing smoking tobacco then there is smoking cannabis. Smoke in a car with a kid is like a $250 fine, breaching a smoke free public place law is $110 fine, having less then 20gr of Cannabis is a $100 fine. 2 plants of Cannabis – $100 fine, 1 plant of tobacco looks like it could be a $55,000 fine or 2 years imprisonment. So the law is still weighed towards the use of cannabis being a lighter punishment. There is a HUGE difference between someone growing 2 plants of cannabis to someone having a dedicated grow house. How hard do you think this law would be to enforce if everyone just decided to have one or two plants at home for personal use and only smoked it at home??? No one would be fined and no one would have their houses searched looking for a grow house, have a think about it that way.

I’ve posted a number of times saying I am a huge advocate of the burnout laws in the ACT, I don’t think they are strict enough. Having a go at Police, who have stretched resources so they can’t attend a car doing burnouts is a bit of a laugh. I know it seems like “the Police” have people everywhere, there are media releases about drugs being seized, helicopters flying around, people being arrested for robberies and property crime etc, yet there doesn’t seem to be enough to go to the house with the burnout. The main reason why is, there is a dedicated drug team, there is a dedicated criminal investigation unit etc.

Unfortunately, like any other state, for just about any of these other teams to attend general duties have to turn up first, what does that mean for a car doing a burnout in Calwell? If the car is doing a burnout at a busy time of night, you’d be lucky to have 4 Police cars in Tuggeranong. There is close to 150,000 people that live in the Tuggeranong area, with 4 Police cars to go respond to jobs in that area, I can’t tell you what the priority system is, mainly because I don’t know how it works, but out of that number of people, you could imagine that there would be a number of domestic violence jobs to attend, which would definitely hold a higher priority then a car doing a burn out etc.

If when you call Police about a car doing a burnout, instead of saying that you do not want to give a statement, say that you want to speak to the attending patrol, they should make time to attend your address. I mean I’d rather have a Police car parked at my house after it happens to speak to Police, you would think that that would put a bit of fear in the young fella doing the burnouts. Just a thought.

troutfisher said :

I think you will find the unknown call sign was one of the large twin bladed helicopters parked at Fairbairn tonight, you know the defence ones, the ones that know all about physics and stuff. Once again dvaey you have managed to make me laugh, at some point you must get sick of that feeling in the gut when you have got it wrong ……. again.

It might have been a defence one, but that still doesnt explain why it was flying in circles above Belco and Tuggeranong at less than 200m above ground level, on a 1hr flight that started and finished at Canberra. Maybe theyve been buzzing those of us who complained about their last efforts.

I love the RA sometimes. It has been said already but I can’t help but say it again. “its a helicopter, get over it”. I would be glad to know someone was keeping watch over me, get some ear muffs? As for Police acting on evidence? Some people are just smarter than others, that is life. Police are no different. Not all are going to be able to ascertain what it was evidence and what was not. What else can they go on then? If an old school copper didn’t go off his or her gut now and then many a crime probably would have gone unsolved. Would we really want police to only go off evidence alone? Probably yes we would. But it would be an impossibility and mean courts would have no reason to decide anything. (A good start some here might say). Police are essential to law and order which is a back bone for any civilised commmunity to function. I think the status quo isn’t too bad at all. Hold on, I think I hear the chilling sound of chopper blades nearing………. Good. Wake me if I am in danger. Cheers fella.

And I am guessing the fact that the Air Force not having helicopters might be another good reason why they dont do low level exercises over populated areas. I can remember watching the ARMY (they own helicopters, and so do the Navy) blackhawks doing the fast roping exercises onto the roof tops in Sydney, but I don’t suppose you could call Sydney populated.

I think you will find the unknown call sign was one of the large twin bladed helicopters parked at Fairbairn tonight, you know the defence ones, the ones that know all about physics and stuff. Once again dvaey you have managed to make me laugh, at some point you must get sick of that feeling in the gut when you have got it wrong ……. again.

Tracker said its landed.. is there a 2nd helicopter? I can still hear it

basketofcat said :

So they’re at it again tonight: http://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/FDPOL21

Some helicopter with an unknown callsign was doing the same around lunchtime today. A check on the airservices tracker shows this aircraft was flying at 3399′ over mount taylor. Given that mount taylor is around 2800′ they were flying at just over 500′ AGL, well under the required safety margin. I always wonder what it is about police that makes them feel exempt from the laws of physics and safety. They claim you cant drive fast or talk on your mobile, unless youre a police officer then youre exempt. They claim you cant fly below 1000′, seemingly unless youre the police and then youre exempt. Just because theyve got a fancy federal police badge, if they have an engine failure over populated areas for example, their ass is going to the ground just as fast as any other pilots, and 500′ doesnt give you much time to think. Hence why military low-flying excercises are done over non-populated areas, the airforce has presumably figured out the laws of physics that the police are still trying to understand.

Really sick of the low flying every night

http://www.police.act.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/act/2012/may/man-arrested-after-search-warrant-in-gowrie.aspx

buzz819 said :

HenryBG said :

buzz819 said :

I think we should end the prohibition of burn outs, they don’t hurt any one, like a bit of cannabis, .

How do you dream up crap like this? If that attempted analogy were any more pathetic, it would occupy a 4th seat alongside Dannii, McFadden and fattwat.

Burnouts cause a nuisance, damage, pollution, and potential danger for other road users.

Do it on your own private property without causing an excessive noise issues for the neighbours and nobody should have a problem with it, just like people drinking a cup off coffee/drinking a glass of wine/munching on a hash-cookie without causing any kind of nuisance don’t deserve to be criminalised.

**Yawn**

Regardless of my feelings towards our dear friend Henry, **Yawn** is not any form of rebuttal or argument or even a comeback. If you are too tired to add anything of value, maybe you should go to bed?

Special G said :

Police operate on evidence. If you provide the evidence then you are the one who needs to provide a statement and attend court to be cross examined on that evidence.

Bullshit. I can give information to Police that enables them to investigate a crime. If they are interested. *I* don’t have to prove anything for an investigation to get under way.

I notice Buzz’s response to being wrong is a *Yawn*. Says it all really.

HenryBG said :

buzz819 said :

I think we should end the prohibition of burn outs, they don’t hurt any one, like a bit of cannabis, .

How do you dream up crap like this? If that attempted analogy were any more pathetic, it would occupy a 4th seat alongside Dannii, McFadden and fattwat.

Burnouts cause a nuisance, damage, pollution, and potential danger for other road users.

Do it on your own private property without causing an excessive noise issues for the neighbours and nobody should have a problem with it, just like people drinking a cup off coffee/drinking a glass of wine/munching on a hash-cookie without causing any kind of nuisance don’t deserve to be criminalised.

**Yawn**

So they’re at it again tonight: http://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/FDPOL21

Whatever their mission or their purpose, I wish I had their budget!

Re Broken Hill Go back and read post #150. Messed up the quote thingy.

I’ll try to educate you on how the judicial system works.

Police operate on evidence. If you provide the evidence then you are the one who needs to provide a statement and attend court to be cross examined on that evidence. If you are not prepared to do that then the Police are unable to take action. It’s that simple.

The suggestion that you take video/photos of said burnouts is so that the evidence you provide is not just ‘your word’ against theirs.

If you had video of a burnout and you are prepared to go to Court I don’t know any coppers who wouldn’t be prepared to send the matter to court. Most likely seize their car as well.

Woody said “If a copper took my details, did a drive by, then knocked on the door to say ‘Sorry mate – missed them, and we’ve got other urgent stuff to do, and that sucks’, I’d be happy. You listened. You turned up.”

If the police have other urgent stuff to do, they go and do it. Your minor traffic complaint – and yes on the grand scheme of things it is minor – gets to wait. If you want more police ask your local member for them or get on board and show how you can do a better job. http://www.police.act.gov.au/jobs-actpol/career-information.aspx

Dropping crooks off on the way to Broken Hill is called kidnapping

Because *doing police work* – you know, really complicated stuff like turning up when somebody reports a crime – is exactly the same as kidnapping people, which was clearly what I was calling for. I mean, I know I said turn up and talk to their parents, but what I really meant was beat the sh*t out of them then dump then someplace near Tidbinbilla in their jocks. I’m all for police brutality. I love it when people who didn’t finish high school get to make important moral decisions about the judicious use of force.

If a copper took my details, did a drive by, then knocked on the door to say ‘Sorry mate – missed them, and we’ve got other urgent stuff to do, and that sucks’, I’d be happy. You listened. You turned up. You gave it a go. You’re not from Krypton, but you took it seriously. If you said ‘Mate, we had a word to their parents, can’t do much more than that’, I’d be f*cking stoked. It’s the ‘You take the photos, you bring the video, you press the charges, you testify in court, don’t you know we’re busy?’ that gets me. What do I need you for, then? What are you good for?

I think we should end the prohibition of burn outs

How would we know the difference? I’m serious. It’s prohibited now, and you don’t turn up, so what would change, exactly?

Maybe next time I’ll say ‘They’re doing burnouts, and I think I saw a bong in the front seat! Won’t somebody think of my children!’ Then I’ll sit back and wait for the dudes in the black body armour to rappel from a chopper.

buzz819 said :

I think we should end the prohibition of burn outs, they don’t hurt any one, like a bit of cannabis, .

How do you dream up crap like this? If that attempted analogy were any more pathetic, it would occupy a 4th seat alongside Dannii, McFadden and fattwat.

Burnouts cause a nuisance, damage, pollution, and potential danger for other road users.

Do it on your own private property without causing an excessive noise issues for the neighbours and nobody should have a problem with it, just like people drinking a cup off coffee/drinking a glass of wine/munching on a hash-cookie without causing any kind of nuisance don’t deserve to be criminalised.

It wasn’t drivel. Policing is very crim-friendly in this day & age. When’s the last time a Massey scumbag woke up to find himself by the side of the road halfway to Broken Hill?
We know who’s doing half the crime in this town but we can’t just run all the rubbish out of town.

Woody had a dig at Police being pie smelling and useless. Complete drivel. Dropping crooks off on the way to Broken Hill is called kidnapping. It’s a good thing those days are gone.

Crooks gets caught all the time and then we all get let down by the courts. If the Police weren’t doing their job and catching them you wouldn’t be able to name names.

Uhh Dvaey, you have been watching too many Mission Impossible and James Bond movies.

The heat signature that the FLIR shows is of the roof of the house, so there has to be a substantial amount of heat to heat up the house, heat up the roof cavity, then heat up the roof to show a significant heat signature. I believe the setup makes the house a lot hotter then most people would have their heating systems, but I am not sure of the temp that is required for it.

So the heat of one person is barely enough to change the heat inside a living room, let alone the whole house, so no, no they can’t see who is sleeping where. Even if they could it is IR, so it would be a red blob, not really anything you could ID someone with. So you can take off your tin foil hat and live safe knowing that the helicopter wont pick you up on the toilet.

http://irinformir.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/can-ir-cameras-see-through-walls.html

After the post about “seeing through walls” I was a little intrigued by the abilities of a FLIR so, as opposed to writing down what I thought it could do I actually looked into it. It can’t see through walls, it can’t tell where you are sleeping in your room, it can’t see anything except infra red radiated heat. You have confused this ability to see through things with another technology that is expensive and likely limited to the military or you have just blurted it out your date and expected people to believe you. In short you just proved to me you know actually nothing about what your talking about.

And to think, me a lowly tradie was able to search this out on the internet and get some facts about FLIR (yes I know you don’t like FACTS as they can prove things) and dispell the rumours that came about via some misinterpretation in a court case in the US that revolved around their 4th ammendment. Ironically it involved a drug grower who got caught.

dvaey said :

Special G said :

Last time I checked, google and nearmap dont have devices that can locate people inside buildings. Imagine if nearmap images showed who was sleeping in what beds in their images… that would be a privacy concern.. looking at your front yard and trees, is hardly a privacy issue.

I’m not sure if you are serious, but if you are you obviously have no idea about how Infra-Red imaging systems work. As someone who spent a lot of time looking at IR imagery in a previous career, you can’t see through things with a FLIR. IR relies on an object emitting heat either as a heat source itself (a person, car, even street lights in a sensitive FLIR system) or by releasing heat that it has absorbed from another source (i.e the sun). Any solid object between the source and an observer will conceal it (like a roof).

Special G said :

Dvaey – equating cannabis use to rough sex being assault is about the stupidist thing you have ever come up with. Non consentual rough sex is rape. Consentual rough sex is consentual. Cannabis use is decriminalised.

My point is, that the government and the law might say one thing, but sometimes what people do in their own time shouldnt be part of the governments business. I never said anything about non-consensual sex. Rape is a crime, the same as holding someone down and injecting them with heroin. But if someone consents to having sex or someone consents to injecting themselves with a potentially fatal drug, it should be a personal choice.

troutfisher said :

If the AFP has the ability to send a helicopter with the FLIR to my suburb when there are sh1theads running around creating trouble, I for one am happy to put up with the small inconvience of the noise for a period of time if it means they are able to be found and dealt with.

The thing is, the chopper is here for a week, then itll be back off to Sydney. As others have pointed out, Canberra isnt big enough for a police helicopter, as much as it might help the police in the long term. You can be sure if this helicopter was actually here to help the community, or hang around for more than a few days doing late night buzzes, ACT policing would have been all over the story with press released and photo ops.. instead they pretty much deny it even exists until presented with the evidence, and even then they dont even take the opportunity when given to explain one useful thing it is doing for our fair city.

buzz819 said :

basketofcat said :

No, I’m just someone who doesn’t like the idea of indiscriminate warrant-less searches being conducted under the guise of a training exercise.

So google earth and near map would hold the same problems for you?

Last time I checked, google and nearmap dont have devices that can locate people inside buildings. Imagine if nearmap images showed who was sleeping in what beds in their images… that would be a privacy concern.. looking at your front yard and trees, is hardly a privacy issue.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

You mean you’re one of these people who are happy to whine about hoons doing burnouts, but too gutless and/or lazy to provide a statement or any other corroborating evidence to assist police put the offenders before court?

Sit down and relax for a second. I know, I know, you’re keen to show off your Year 10 Certificate and your manual drivers license, but…just chill.

Somebody calls you, and says that somebody is breaking the law. There’s a good chance you could send a car round and catch them in the act, because they do one cul-de-sac, then the next, then the next. The caller tells you this. You’ve got a good fifteen, twenty minutes.

You have power, authority, cars, guns. You could catch them in the act. You could press charges. You could testify in court. But do you step up and do your bit? No, you cower in the station, and then have the f*cking gall to call innocent mums and dads – the citizens you’re meant to serve – gutless and lazy because they won’t shoulder the risk of retaliation on behalf of the entire neighbourhood. Retaliation you’d do SFA to investigate. ‘You have insurance, don’t you? Because that’ll get your windows fixed. Won’t help your wife and kids sleep, but hey, sh*t happens. Here’s an incident number. Have a top day.’

That, my friend with less training than the apprentice who gave me a number 4 last week, is gutless and lazy. It’s why you’re not in the army. Because you want all of the power, and none of the responsibility and none of the risk, and it’s why you blame citizens because when you’re the one who’s so utterly, utterly sh*thouse at your job. You can’t even be ars*d driving by, sticking your head in. ‘Heard there’s been some hooning. That wasn’t you boys, was it? Mum and Dad around? Better keep an eye on these fellas.’

You’re absolutely f*cking hopeless for anything that doesn’t involve driving round in a car and pulling people over. Unless somebody went round and sorted the hoons out themselves. Then you’d be all over it like a blue, meat pie-scented rash.

I think we should end the prohibition of burn outs, they don’t hurt any one, like a bit of cannabis, if it wasn’t against the law then it would stop burn out related crimes. I mean who is it really hurting? Just the person who is doing it, they have to pay for the tires. At the end of the day burnouts and small cannabis offences are dealt with via a ticket, so we should just get rid of the offence.

Special G said :

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

You mean you’re one of these people who are happy to whine about hoons doing burnouts, but too gutless and/or lazy to provide a statement or any other corroborating evidence to assist police put the offenders before court?

Sit down and relax for a second. I know, I know, you’re keen to show off your Year 10 Certificate and your manual drivers license, but…just chill.

Somebody calls you, and says that somebody is breaking the law. There’s a good chance you could send a car round and catch them in the act, because they do one cul-de-sac, then the next, then the next. The caller tells you this. You’ve got a good fifteen, twenty minutes.

You have power, authority, cars, guns. You could catch them in the act. You could press charges. You could testify in court. But do you step up and do your bit? No, you cower in the station, and then have the f*cking gall to call innocent mums and dads – the citizens you’re meant to serve – gutless and lazy because they won’t shoulder the risk of retaliation on behalf of the entire neighbourhood. Retaliation you’d do SFA to investigate. ‘You have insurance, don’t you? Because that’ll get your windows fixed. Won’t help your wife and kids sleep, but hey, sh*t happens. Here’s an incident number. Have a top day.’

That, my friend with less training than the apprentice who gave me a number 4 last week, is gutless and lazy. It’s why you’re not in the army. Because you want all of the power, and none of the responsibility and none of the risk, and it’s why you blame citizens because when you’re the one who’s so utterly, utterly sh*thouse at your job. You can’t even be ars*d driving by, sticking your head in. ‘Heard there’s been some hooning. That wasn’t you boys, was it? Mum and Dad around? Better keep an eye on these fellas.’

You’re absolutely f*cking hopeless for anything that doesn’t involve driving round in a car and pulling people over. Unless somebody went round and sorted the hoons out themselves. Then you’d be all over it like a blue, meat pie-scented rash.

Seriously – what are you on about here? You start by saying chill and then 4 paragraphs of complete drivel.

It’s a helicopter people get over it.

It wasn’t drivel. Policing is very crim-friendly in this day & age. When’s the last time a Massey scumbag woke up to find himself by the side of the road halfway to Broken Hill?
We know who’s doing half the crime in this town but we can’t just run all the rubbish out of town.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

You mean you’re one of these people who are happy to whine about hoons doing burnouts, but too gutless and/or lazy to provide a statement or any other corroborating evidence to assist police put the offenders before court?

Sit down and relax for a second. I know, I know, you’re keen to show off your Year 10 Certificate and your manual drivers license, but…just chill.

Somebody calls you, and says that somebody is breaking the law. There’s a good chance you could send a car round and catch them in the act, because they do one cul-de-sac, then the next, then the next. The caller tells you this. You’ve got a good fifteen, twenty minutes.

You have power, authority, cars, guns. You could catch them in the act. You could press charges. You could testify in court. But do you step up and do your bit? No, you cower in the station, and then have the f*cking gall to call innocent mums and dads – the citizens you’re meant to serve – gutless and lazy because they won’t shoulder the risk of retaliation on behalf of the entire neighbourhood. Retaliation you’d do SFA to investigate. ‘You have insurance, don’t you? Because that’ll get your windows fixed. Won’t help your wife and kids sleep, but hey, sh*t happens. Here’s an incident number. Have a top day.’

That, my friend with less training than the apprentice who gave me a number 4 last week, is gutless and lazy. It’s why you’re not in the army. Because you want all of the power, and none of the responsibility and none of the risk, and it’s why you blame citizens because when you’re the one who’s so utterly, utterly sh*thouse at your job. You can’t even be ars*d driving by, sticking your head in. ‘Heard there’s been some hooning. That wasn’t you boys, was it? Mum and Dad around? Better keep an eye on these fellas.’

You’re absolutely f*cking hopeless for anything that doesn’t involve driving round in a car and pulling people over. Unless somebody went round and sorted the hoons out themselves. Then you’d be all over it like a blue, meat pie-scented rash.

Seriously – what are you on about here? You start by saying chill and then 4 paragraphs of complete drivel.

It’s a helicopter people get over it.

He’s probably just worried they’re going to find all the drugs he’s growing. In a somewhat related question, does this mean FEDPOL21 is going to win this month’s Mully?

basketofcat said :

buzz819 said :

So because they are based here it means they don’t have to train any more? You are a lil moron aren’t you…

No, I’m just someone who doesn’t like the idea of indiscriminate warrant-less searches being conducted under the guise of a training exercise.

So google earth and near map would hold the same problems for you?

basketofcat said :

I also imagine ACT residents have some of the least legal and political protection or recourse to protest this sort of “training”. Imagine if it had been conducted in western Sydney, where the helicopter started. The state and federal opposition parties would have had a field day.

Yeah cause it’s not like they do that… Oh wait a minute, NSW and VicPOL do do that.

Because your an expert, how many raids have been conducted due to this “indiscriminate searching” method?

Mullycopter?

Or Choppermully?

I also imagine ACT residents have some of the least legal and political protection or recourse to protest this sort of “training”. Imagine if it had been conducted in western Sydney, where the helicopter started. The state and federal opposition parties would have had a field day.

buzz819 said :

So because they are based here it means they don’t have to train any more? You are a lil moron aren’t you…

No, I’m just someone who doesn’t like the idea of indiscriminate warrant-less searches being conducted under the guise of a training exercise.

You mean you’re one of these people who are happy to whine about hoons doing burnouts, but too gutless and/or lazy to provide a statement or any other corroborating evidence to assist police put the offenders before court?

Sit down and relax for a second. I know, I know, you’re keen to show off your Year 10 Certificate and your manual drivers license, but…just chill.

Somebody calls you, and says that somebody is breaking the law. There’s a good chance you could send a car round and catch them in the act, because they do one cul-de-sac, then the next, then the next. The caller tells you this. You’ve got a good fifteen, twenty minutes.

You have power, authority, cars, guns. You could catch them in the act. You could press charges. You could testify in court. But do you step up and do your bit? No, you cower in the station, and then have the f*cking gall to call innocent mums and dads – the citizens you’re meant to serve – gutless and lazy because they won’t shoulder the risk of retaliation on behalf of the entire neighbourhood. Retaliation you’d do SFA to investigate. ‘You have insurance, don’t you? Because that’ll get your windows fixed. Won’t help your wife and kids sleep, but hey, sh*t happens. Here’s an incident number. Have a top day.’

That, my friend with less training than the apprentice who gave me a number 4 last week, is gutless and lazy. It’s why you’re not in the army. Because you want all of the power, and none of the responsibility and none of the risk, and it’s why you blame citizens because when you’re the one who’s so utterly, utterly sh*thouse at your job. You can’t even be ars*d driving by, sticking your head in. ‘Heard there’s been some hooning. That wasn’t you boys, was it? Mum and Dad around? Better keep an eye on these fellas.’

You’re absolutely f*cking hopeless for anything that doesn’t involve driving round in a car and pulling people over. Unless somebody went round and sorted the hoons out themselves. Then you’d be all over it like a blue, meat pie-scented rash.

basketofcat said :

troutfisher said :

Has it possibly occured to you that the training may be with the FLIR (As Air Services were able to tell you), and that training in an urban environment is be best bang for buck.That way they can do training and possibly provide some assistance in a real time incident involving ACT police members.

Nup. Training is so four years ago. Anyway, the ORG and SRS are based here now, why do they need to train anyone? right buzz?

So because they are based here it means they don’t have to train any more? You are a lil moron aren’t you…

Three videos, even though they are OS, the same stuff happens here, yes even in Canberra I have been told.

http://videosift.com/video/FLIR-Video-of-Police-K9-Unit-Hunting-Suspects

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWrzyuJUtkY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_CM4nljnrQ&feature=related

troutfisher said :

Has it possibly occured to you that the training may be with the FLIR (As Air Services were able to tell you), and that training in an urban environment is be best bang for buck.That way they can do training and possibly provide some assistance in a real time incident involving ACT police members.

Nup. Training is so four years ago. Anyway, the ORG and SRS are based here now, why do they need to train anyone? right buzz?

Has it possibly occured to you that the training may be with the FLIR (As Air Services were able to tell you), and that training in an urban environment is be best bang for buck.That way they can do training and possibly provide some assistance in a real time incident involving ACT police members.

I searched the internet for FLIR videos and there appeared to be very few, read none, of blank bushland, but plenty (and I was only looking for non military operations) of videos that relate to finding people where they shouldn’t be, ie thieves in the night, following police pursuits (and being able to pull cars back and still catch the offenders) and some subsequent foot chases.

If the AFP has the ability to send a helicopter with the FLIR to my suburb when there are sh1theads running around creating trouble, I for one am happy to put up with the small inconvience of the noise for a period of time if it means they are able to be found and dealt with.

Dvaey – equating cannabis use to rough sex being assault is about the stupidist thing you have ever come up with. Non consentual rough sex is rape. Consentual rough sex is consentual. Cannabis use is decriminalised.

dvaey said :

Holden Caulfield said :

They were pushing the training line on 666 radio this afternoon too.

So, why didnt they go to the designated flight training area just North of Canberra? Interesting as well that airservices gave me more info than the police are willing to confirm. Airservices told me that the police were doing work involving thermal imaging cameras.

Maybe they’re training with their thermal imaging cameras??

Holden Caulfield said :

They were pushing the training line on 666 radio this afternoon too.

So, why didnt they go to the designated flight training area just North of Canberra? Interesting as well that airservices gave me more info than the police are willing to confirm. Airservices told me that the police were doing work involving thermal imaging cameras.

They were pushing the training line on 666 radio this afternoon too.

BenMac said :

Comment from @CPOACT in response to the helicopter

“it’s our AFP National cousins doing some training – nothing exciting I’m afraid”

hahahahaha

Nah, it’s the local boys making good use of the resources that are now available to them! Stop lying, police PR person behind police twitter account! tell us about the grow houses they’re finding!

LSWCHP said :

BenMac said :

Comment from @CPOACT in response to the helicopter

“it’s our AFP National cousins doing some training – nothing exciting I’m afraid”

Oh thank Christ for that.

Based on this news, my wife and I have decided to continue burning our stash. We are proceeding at about an ounce an hour. 🙂

Breaking news: AFP helicopter targets increased pizza delivery activity in Giralang…

Am I going to get raided for having my wood heater cranking this last fortnight. I like to sit in my underpants and not feel cold

OpenYourMind said :

Just heard it over Woden/Weston Creek. Blue Thunder it aint!

I find it rather ironic that many studies have shown that stoned drivers are safer drivers than the rest of us. It’s traffic accident figures Govt safety organisations are not keen to dwell on.
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/4131.html

Even Monash University has to work its tits off to point any kind of bone at Cannabis users:
http://www.monash.edu.au/miri/research/reports/muarc231.pdf

There’s lots of legal drugs that are a far greater contributor to impairment of driving, but screening them might be seen to be targeting the elderly and the sick.

I *imagine* that once you’re stoned, the whole idea of driving seems like a massive hassle. I guess that the inquisitiveness caused by cannabis causes a bit of sensory overload if the world starts who zing by at 60km/hr. I suppose this causes slow and highly attentive driving. I guess the extra paranoia creates extra ability at anticipation.

Just heard it over Woden/Weston Creek. Blue Thunder it aint!

I find it rather ironic that many studies have shown that stoned drivers are safer drivers than the rest of us. It’s traffic accident figures Govt safety organisations are not keen to dwell on.
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/4131.html

Even Monash University has to work its tits off to point any kind of bone at Cannabis users:
http://www.monash.edu.au/miri/research/reports/muarc231.pdf

There’s lots of legal drugs that are a far greater contributor to impairment of driving, but screening them might be seen to be targeting the elderly and the sick.

BenMac said :

Comment from @CPOACT in response to the helicopter

“it’s our AFP National cousins doing some training – nothing exciting I’m afraid”

Oh thank Christ for that.

Based on this news, my wife and I have decided to continue burning our stash. We are proceeding at about an ounce an hour. 🙂

Comment from @CPOACT in response to the helicopter

“it’s our AFP National cousins doing some training – nothing exciting I’m afraid”

It’s back…

It appears to have been circling my house in Giralang for the last hour or so. Not that I’m paranoid or anything.

Enough is enough. The risks are too great. My wife and I have decided to burn our stash. We’re currently going through it at about an ounce an hour.

Nanouk said :

OMG, I can’t stand it anymore, that’s a real pain… Can I complain to the police about the noise?!

Complain to Airservices Australia via the WebTrak link provided.

Also, why in the flight path image does it show the 1110pm flight as turbo prop aircraft and only the 750pm flight as a helicopter, according to the WebTrak page. Perhaps the 2nd flight wasn’t the mysterious FEDPOL21 helicopter.

HenryBG said :

dvaey said :

Without my prompting, I was told that it is a police operation involving thermal imaging devices.

Lucky I turned my Tastic off, then.

Nanouk said :

OMG, I can’t stand it anymore, that’s a real pain… Can I complain to the police about the noise?!

Can you tell me doctor why I still can’t get to sleep?
And why FEDPOL21 chills me to my feet?
And what’s this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?

It means you should have had a flu vaccination, HenryBG.

dvaey said :

Without my prompting, I was told that it is a police operation involving thermal imaging devices.

Lucky I turned my Tastic off, then.

Nanouk said :

OMG, I can’t stand it anymore, that’s a real pain… Can I complain to the police about the noise?!

Can you tell me doctor why I still can’t get to sleep?
And why FEDPOL21 chills me to my feet?
And what’s this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?

Mitch_Haymes said :

Check this… (Helps to google…hint)..

http://www.mapsofworld.com/cities/australia/canberra/facts.html

So, 571m or 1873ft which means they would have been 2617ft AGL.

Is my maths that bad or are they nearly three (3) times higher than what you keep moaning about?

Above ground level is not the same as ‘above airport level’. The airport is 570m but the ACT is not flat. When the hills rise, so does the required ground clearance.

OMG, I can’t stand it anymore, that’s a real pain… Can I complain to the police about the noise?!

dvaey said :

buzz819 said :

I thought the minimum height they achieved was 4500feet? So 4.5 times more then your exaggeration.

This minimum height is AGL (above ground level). Altitude is generally given as above MSL (Mean Sea Level).

So you are saying Canberra is 3500ft above Mean Sea Level?

Check this… (Helps to google…hint)..

http://www.mapsofworld.com/cities/australia/canberra/facts.html

So, 571m or 1873ft which means they would have been 2617ft AGL.

Is my maths that bad or are they nearly three (3) times higher than what you keep moaning about?

dvaey said :

dpm said :

We should all take our tin foil hats off, calm down, and try to enjoy life. I mean, who knows when a rogue helicopter is going to come crashing down and kill us??

Hopefully sonic can be on the scene when it happens again.

TheDancingDjinn said :

Im with Mitch, i thought i heard something like a helicopter not long ago, but i just got on with my night.

Whoever got upset by it must have the softest of all cocks. – you actually complained Davey? seriously? it made its way down to Kambah?

We live under the path regularly taken by Southcare, so we are used to the occasional helicopter noise, but Southcare doesnt fly in circles above the suburbs for hours on end. The chopper spent most of its time in Tuggeranong from looking at the flightpaths.

buzz819 said :

I thought the minimum height they achieved was 4500feet? So 4.5 times more then your exaggeration.

This minimum height is AGL (above ground level). Altitude is generally given as above MSL (Mean Sea Level).

I just received a followup call to my noise complaint from Airservices Australia, and was informed that it was a short-term police operation that is still ongoing, and they had received a large number of complaints over the past few days. They also advised that Airservices Australia has no jurisdiction over Military, Emergency or Police air traffic. Without my prompting, I was told that it is a police operation involving thermal imaging devices.

So did you ring Airservices and complain about the RFS chopper that was out yesterday too? I saw that flying around about the same height?

Or is it that you are just upset it’s the AFP?

dpm said :

We should all take our tin foil hats off, calm down, and try to enjoy life. I mean, who knows when a rogue helicopter is going to come crashing down and kill us??

Hopefully sonic can be on the scene when it happens again.

TheDancingDjinn said :

Im with Mitch, i thought i heard something like a helicopter not long ago, but i just got on with my night. Whoever got upset by it must have the softest of all cocks. – you actually complained Davey? seriously? it made its way down to Kambah?

We live under the path regularly taken by Southcare, so we are used to the occasional helicopter noise, but Southcare doesnt fly in circles above the suburbs for hours on end. The chopper spent most of its time in Tuggeranong from looking at the flightpaths.

buzz819 said :

I thought the minimum height they achieved was 4500feet? So 4.5 times more then your exaggeration.

This minimum height is AGL (above ground level). Altitude is generally given as above MSL (Mean Sea Level).

I just received a followup call to my noise complaint from Airservices Australia, and was informed that it was a short-term police operation that is still ongoing, and they had received a large number of complaints over the past few days. They also advised that Airservices Australia has no jurisdiction over Military, Emergency or Police air traffic. Without my prompting, I was told that it is a police operation involving thermal imaging devices.

dvaey said :

buzz819 said :

dvaey said :

Great to hear it was of assistance. Are we mere citizens allowed to know what assistance the taxpayer-funded chopper provided?

I love these type of arguments – I’m a tax payer, I demand to know what is going on…

Well, apparently after all the pushing on here, as someone said they were up there looking for a woman who had gone missing. Whether Im a tax payer or not, maybe the police could have simply said they were looking for a missing person, and heaven forbid, ask for the publics help instead of giving us the mushroom treatment.

buzz819 said :

Have you asked ASIO how they do their job, ASIS, DIO, do you demand to know why NSW Police has a helicopter?

No, how those various groups do their jobs, doesnt affect me. However, if ASIS decides to fly a helicopter in circles 1000′ above my house at 1am, then yes youd better believe I will be asking wtf they were upto. Theres a good chance that Air Services will be asking what they were upto too. There are good reasons why aircraft should not operate above built-up areas, aside from the noise and inconvenience, there is also the safety factor.. What they gonna do when they have a bird strike at 1am while sitting 300m above suburbia.. did they even think about that, or the myriad of other reasons why low-level flying is generally restricted to the military over designated areas?

I thought the minimum height they achieved was 4500feet? So 4.5 times more then your exaggeration.

I heard the chopper, but a truck drove past about a km away and drowned out the sound of it. I put in three noise complaints about the truck.

buzz819 said :

So if I am reading that map correctly, there is three restricted areas, NE of the airport, NW of the Tugg Town Centre and east of QBN? While the rest of the area is controlled airspace with different ceilings for different classes of aircrafts?

That’s what I gathered too.

Mitch_Haymes said :

dvaey said :

Mitch_Haymes said :

I was outside last night when this helo flew over my house, I wouldn’t have known otherwise. You lot must have your hearing aids turned up too loud. That or you are too paranoid about being caught for something.

For what its worth, I was inside having dinner, and still heard it over the TV. I did notice that for some of yesterdays flight, they were flying at 6000′ before returning to their 4500′ level. I received a response from Airservices Australia about my noise complaint though, so maybe that is related to their higher altitude and earlier (6pm instead of 1am) flights.

Good to see that you have time to be constructive. FWIW.

Im with Mitch, i thought i heard something like a helicopter not long ago, but i just got on with my night. Whoever got upset by it must have the softest of all cocks. – you actually complained Davey? seriously? it made its way down to Kambah?

also – wouldn’t the military spots around Canberra be no flight zones? – if i can’t go on top of Mt Pleasant to look at the cool cannon and the view i doubt i could fly my small plane near it.

So if I am reading that map correctly, there is three restricted areas, NE of the airport, NW of the Tugg Town Centre and east of QBN? While the rest of the area is controlled airspace with different ceilings for different classes of aircrafts?

dvaey said :

… However, if ASIS decides to fly a helicopter in circles 1000′ above my house at 1am, then yes youd better believe I will be asking wtf they were upto. Theres a good chance that Air Services will be asking what they were upto too. There are good reasons why aircraft should not operate above built-up areas, aside from the noise and inconvenience, there is also the safety factor.. What they gonna do when they have a bird strike at 1am while sitting 300m above suburbia.. did they even think about that, or the myriad of other reasons why low-level flying is generally restricted to the military over designated areas?

Hahahaha! Paranoia is setting in!
From my experience, helicopters fly over other cities quite a lot. Maybe it just means Canberra is all grown up now?
We should all take our tin foil hats off, calm down, and try to enjoy life. I mean, who knows when a rogue helicopter is going to come crashing down and kill us?? I better go and smell the roses before the inevitable happens… Hahahaha!

buzz819 said :

did they even think about that, or the myriad of other reasons why low-level flying is generally restricted to the military over designated areas?

Can you point me to a map that shows where the restricted airspace is in Canberra?

My comment was about movements restricted to certain airspace, not restricted airspace. To answer your question though, there is no airspace in Canberra where these restricted movements are allowed. The closest you’d find is probably Lake George.

Civil Aviation Regulations 1988 require aircraft to maintain a minimum height of 1,000 feet above ground level (AGL) over built up areas and 500 feet over all other areas.

buzz819 said :

dvaey said :

buzz819 said :

dvaey said :

Great to hear it was of assistance. Are we mere citizens allowed to know what assistance the taxpayer-funded chopper provided?

I love these type of arguments – I’m a tax payer, I demand to know what is going on…

Well, apparently after all the pushing on here, as someone said they were up there looking for a woman who had gone missing. Whether Im a tax payer or not, maybe the police could have simply said they were looking for a missing person, and heaven forbid, ask for the publics help instead of giving us the mushroom treatment.

buzz819 said :

Have you asked ASIO how they do their job, ASIS, DIO, do you demand to know why NSW Police has a helicopter?

No, how those various groups do their jobs, doesnt affect me. However, if ASIS decides to fly a helicopter in circles 1000′ above my house at 1am, then yes youd better believe I will be asking wtf they were upto. Theres a good chance that Air Services will be asking what they were upto too. There are good reasons why aircraft should not operate above built-up areas, aside from the noise and inconvenience, there is also the safety factor.. What they gonna do when they have a bird strike at 1am while sitting 300m above suburbia.. did they even think about that, or the myriad of other reasons why low-level flying is generally restricted to the military over designated areas?

Can you point me to a map that shows where the restricted airspace is in Canberra?

Here is the Caberra area VTC

[IMG]http://www.goughcorp.com/~andrew/Maps/VTC-map.jpg[/IMG]

How’s that for ya Dvaey?

dvaey said :

Mitch_Haymes said :

I was outside last night when this helo flew over my house, I wouldn’t have known otherwise. You lot must have your hearing aids turned up too loud. That or you are too paranoid about being caught for something.

For what its worth, I was inside having dinner, and still heard it over the TV. I did notice that for some of yesterdays flight, they were flying at 6000′ before returning to their 4500′ level. I received a response from Airservices Australia about my noise complaint though, so maybe that is related to their higher altitude and earlier (6pm instead of 1am) flights.

Good to see that you have time to be constructive. FWIW.

Mitch_Haymes said :

I was outside last night when this helo flew over my house, I wouldn’t have known otherwise. You lot must have your hearing aids turned up too loud. That or you are too paranoid about being caught for something.

For what its worth, I was inside having dinner, and still heard it over the TV. I did notice that for some of yesterdays flight, they were flying at 6000′ before returning to their 4500′ level. I received a response from Airservices Australia about my noise complaint though, so maybe that is related to their higher altitude and earlier (6pm instead of 1am) flights.

dvaey said :

buzz819 said :

dvaey said :

Great to hear it was of assistance. Are we mere citizens allowed to know what assistance the taxpayer-funded chopper provided?

I love these type of arguments – I’m a tax payer, I demand to know what is going on…

Well, apparently after all the pushing on here, as someone said they were up there looking for a woman who had gone missing. Whether Im a tax payer or not, maybe the police could have simply said they were looking for a missing person, and heaven forbid, ask for the publics help instead of giving us the mushroom treatment.

buzz819 said :

Have you asked ASIO how they do their job, ASIS, DIO, do you demand to know why NSW Police has a helicopter?

No, how those various groups do their jobs, doesnt affect me. However, if ASIS decides to fly a helicopter in circles 1000′ above my house at 1am, then yes youd better believe I will be asking wtf they were upto. Theres a good chance that Air Services will be asking what they were upto too. There are good reasons why aircraft should not operate above built-up areas, aside from the noise and inconvenience, there is also the safety factor.. What they gonna do when they have a bird strike at 1am while sitting 300m above suburbia.. did they even think about that, or the myriad of other reasons why low-level flying is generally restricted to the military over designated areas?

Can you point me to a map that shows where the restricted airspace is in Canberra?

basketofcat said :

buzz819 said :

So you have listed a thread that is 4 years old and a news article that is 3 years old, you still have not stated why you don’t think that an AFP asset would not be used in other area’s? I will quote a current news article for you, just to see if you can maybe pull thy head out of arse.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/elite-police-super-group-20120202-1t8fa.html

basketofcat said :

Blah blah blah…

The article you linked says that the newly formed group will be effective from July, and based in Canberra, Brisbane and Melbourne. It’s now May and the helicopter this month started in Camden. What gives? Is the AFP still leasing it? Does it bode well for a real emergency if isn’t based locally?

You didn’t respond to my question about the callsign. If it it had been POLAIR it would have been much harder to link to the IDG. FEDPOL was too easy.

For the first part – Superintendent Rod Kruger said the majority of the AFP’s specialised units would now be stationed in Canberra.
”It also ties into, on the national side of the house, a centralisation of personnel from across three locations, Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne,” Superintendent Kruger said.
”It’s all Canberra-based now, so the specialist cell is here,” he said.

Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/elite-police-super-group-20120202-1t8fa.html#ixzz1veROQN5w

For the 2nd part, why do they need to hide they are from the AFP?

dvaey said :

buzz819 said :

dvaey said :

Great to hear it was of assistance. Are we mere citizens allowed to know what assistance the taxpayer-funded chopper provided?

I love these type of arguments – I’m a tax payer, I demand to know what is going on…

Well, apparently after all the pushing on here, as someone said they were up there looking for a woman who had gone missing. Whether Im a tax payer or not, maybe the police could have simply said they were looking for a missing person, and heaven forbid, ask for the publics help instead of giving us the mushroom treatment.

buzz819 said :

Have you asked ASIO how they do their job, ASIS, DIO, do you demand to know why NSW Police has a helicopter?

No, how those various groups do their jobs, doesnt affect me. However, if ASIS decides to fly a helicopter in circles 1000′ above my house at 1am, then yes youd better believe I will be asking wtf they were upto. Theres a good chance that Air Services will be asking what they were upto too. There are good reasons why aircraft should not operate above built-up areas, aside from the noise and inconvenience, there is also the safety factor.. What they gonna do when they have a bird strike at 1am while sitting 300m above suburbia.. did they even think about that, or the myriad of other reasons why low-level flying is generally restricted to the military over designated areas?

How about you go away and do some research before putting your fingers on the keyboard? You will help make yourself sound a little more credible.

I was outside last night when this helo flew over my house, I wouldn’t have known otherwise. You lot must have your hearing aids turned up too loud. That or you are too paranoid about being caught for something.

basketofcat said :

buzz819 said :

So you have listed a thread that is 4 years old and a news article that is 3 years old, you still have not stated why you don’t think that an AFP asset would not be used in other area’s? I will quote a current news article for you, just to see if you can maybe pull thy head out of arse.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/elite-police-super-group-20120202-1t8fa.html

basketofcat said :

Blah blah blah…

The article you linked says that the newly formed group will be effective from July, and based in Canberra, Brisbane and Melbourne.

Obviously you can’t read, the article states that they MOVED FROM Brisbane and Melbourne to Canberra.

buzz819 said :

dvaey said :

Great to hear it was of assistance. Are we mere citizens allowed to know what assistance the taxpayer-funded chopper provided?

I love these type of arguments – I’m a tax payer, I demand to know what is going on…

Well, apparently after all the pushing on here, as someone said they were up there looking for a woman who had gone missing. Whether Im a tax payer or not, maybe the police could have simply said they were looking for a missing person, and heaven forbid, ask for the publics help instead of giving us the mushroom treatment.

buzz819 said :

Have you asked ASIO how they do their job, ASIS, DIO, do you demand to know why NSW Police has a helicopter?

No, how those various groups do their jobs, doesnt affect me. However, if ASIS decides to fly a helicopter in circles 1000′ above my house at 1am, then yes youd better believe I will be asking wtf they were upto. Theres a good chance that Air Services will be asking what they were upto too. There are good reasons why aircraft should not operate above built-up areas, aside from the noise and inconvenience, there is also the safety factor.. What they gonna do when they have a bird strike at 1am while sitting 300m above suburbia.. did they even think about that, or the myriad of other reasons why low-level flying is generally restricted to the military over designated areas?

buzz819 said :

So you have listed a thread that is 4 years old and a news article that is 3 years old, you still have not stated why you don’t think that an AFP asset would not be used in other area’s? I will quote a current news article for you, just to see if you can maybe pull thy head out of arse.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/elite-police-super-group-20120202-1t8fa.html

basketofcat said :

Blah blah blah…

The article you linked says that the newly formed group will be effective from July, and based in Canberra, Brisbane and Melbourne. It’s now May and the helicopter this month started in Camden. What gives? Is the AFP still leasing it? Does it bode well for a real emergency if isn’t based locally?

You didn’t respond to my question about the callsign. If it it had been POLAIR it would have been much harder to link to the IDG. FEDPOL was too easy.

dpm said :

Jethro said :

Jethro said :

i guess if the government wanted to make their public health statements more truthful they would include some statistics.

For example, instead of claiming that “cannabis use causes mental health problems”, they could say something like “cannabis use is linked to mental health problems in 0.0005% of users”, which would be a more accurate statement, but one that is less able to justify their current drug policies.

Sorry… a couple too many zeroes there!

0.05%

Maybe you’d had a few too many cones when you wrote that! Hahahaha! 😉
Anyway, moving on, how do people feel about this too?:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/20-caught-in-first-year-of-drug-tests-20120522-1z3g2.html

Does this pick up cannabis? If so, why do they do it as I thought it didn’t affect driving (mentioned earlier in this post, I think)? Are they using it as a sneaky way to pick up potheads on their way to work?

http://ncpic.org.au/ncpic/publications/research-briefs/article/driving-under-the-influence-of-cannabis-a-brief-review-of-the-literature

Well… This is the only article that I have read on Cannabis and driving, it does say early tests found that driving did appear to change the driving habit, but the drivers compensated for being under the influence, then it went onto say that these tests may not have been accurate because they were based on urine tested THC, which is already metabolised THC, so that may have skewed the results.

Then it showed the results of testing drivers who were in accidents, etc. It found that on average 11% of drivers in accidents had THC in their system, I don’t know what to say about that number, as it could just be the younger generations propensity to get into more collisions which would change these results.

So the article pretty much says, it could affect them, but might not, so who knows?

Jethro said :

Jethro said :

i guess if the government wanted to make their public health statements more truthful they would include some statistics.

For example, instead of claiming that “cannabis use causes mental health problems”, they could say something like “cannabis use is linked to mental health problems in 0.0005% of users”, which would be a more accurate statement, but one that is less able to justify their current drug policies.

Sorry… a couple too many zeroes there!

0.05%

Maybe you’d had a few too many cones when you wrote that! Hahahaha! 😉
Anyway, moving on, how do people feel about this too?:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/20-caught-in-first-year-of-drug-tests-20120522-1z3g2.html

Does this pick up cannabis? If so, why do they do it as I thought it didn’t affect driving (mentioned earlier in this post, I think)? Are they using it as a sneaky way to pick up potheads on their way to work?

dvaey said :

Tooks said :

I can tell you for a fact that the chopper was of assistance over the weekend at numerous incidents. Make of that what you will.

Great to hear it was of assistance. Are we mere citizens allowed to know what assistance the taxpayer-funded chopper provided? Other than a police chase (which happened 6hrs after the chopper was in the air), there have been no announcements from ACTPOL for anything that could be relevant.

Why do you come on here with comments like that? “I can tell you youre all wrong, because I know whats right” is starting to wear thin.. although I guess theres enough people here throwing around opinions that arent backed up, why not throw yours into the ring too.

I love these type of arguments – I’m a tax payer, I demand to know what is going on…

Have you asked ASIO how they do their job, ASIS, DIO, do you demand to know why NSW Police has a helicopter?

You aren’t special, unless you were paying millions at a time to the government your “Tax contribution ” of I’m guessing no more then $20,000 – $30,000 is not even enough to pay for the salary of one Police officer, let alone make you entitled to comment on how you think Policing should be run or how much information you are entitled to know. Remember that money goes to failed health, failed education, failed public arts, failed public transport, the GDE etc. Get over yourself.

Jethro said :

i guess if the government wanted to make their public health statements more truthful they would include some statistics.

For example, instead of claiming that “cannabis use causes mental health problems”, they could say something like “cannabis use is linked to mental health problems in 0.0005% of users”, which would be a more accurate statement, but one that is less able to justify their current drug policies.

Sorry… a couple too many zeroes there!

0.05%

i guess if the government wanted to make their public health statements more truthful they would include some statistics.

For example, instead of claiming that “cannabis use causes mental health problems”, they could say something like “cannabis use is linked to mental health problems in 0.0005% of users”, which would be a more accurate statement, but one that is less able to justify their current drug policies.

So you have listed a thread that is 4 years old and a news article that is 3 years old, you still have not stated why you don’t think that an AFP asset would not be used in other area’s? I will quote a current news article for you, just to see if you can maybe pull thy head out of arse.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/elite-police-super-group-20120202-1t8fa.html

basketofcat said :

Blah blah blah…

Myles Peterson said :

When I did night reporter and stuff went down, ACT Police were always ****ing hopeless at communication. They seemed to think they were top secret spies or something. Getting information out of them was like pulling nails, even over seemingly harmless events – and some that weren’t so harmless, but definitely in the realm of public interest.

I remember an incident several years ago in Belconnen of a guy who’d threatened police with a shotgun, led them on a high-speed chase, dumped his car and legged it into the suburbs. The police were unable to find him for 24hrs. I happened to be working in the area at the time the road was closed, and asked an officer standing at the roadblock what had happened. He advised me that there was an accident and road was closed. ‘No worries, thanks’ I replied and proceeded on my way, returning to the suburb about an hour later through a backroad to avoid the ‘accident’. About 4hrs after Id received my advice from the officer on the ground, I heard breaking news on the radio that the area I was in, had been locked down and residents were advised to stay indoors.. gee that woulda been nice to know at the time, rather than 4hrs later by which time he’s probably either asleep or on the other side of the city. My boss at the time felt bad for sending me into the area, as we both believed it was simply an accident, and wasnt until the police reports much later that we understood the seriousness. DJ McLaughlin for those of you who may remember the story.

mezza76 said :

I simply provided the offical public health link – mistakenly thinking most people would accept that Governments wouldn’t provide inaccurate information to the public on a public health issue.

If you believe this, then maybe you should read the recent stories of Katy providing inaccurate health information to the public on health issues. Governments provide whatever information suits them at the time. You mention clinicians, but fail to mention anything about medical marijuana. You seem just like every other sheep, the government says drugs are bad, drugs kill people, drugs turn you into a raping murder.. the problem is, they go and lump heroin, pcp, meth and pot in the same category (separate to alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and guarana), and then wonder why people dont trust them to draw the line? Of the above 8 drugs I mentioned, only one has a 0-death record, even after abuse.

buzz819 said :

basketofcat said :

So given its callsign, was the AFP International Deployment Group operating the helicopter? If so, why were was the AFP IDG offering it as a service to the ACT branch of the AFP?

So… Are you really that stupid that you don’t think that the AFP would not use an AFP asset in more then one AFP operational area? Really?

per http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/elite-cops-just-cashed-up-cowboys/story-e6frg6sx-1111118577007 :

An independent audit commissioned by the AFP into the rapid growth of the International Deployment Group has suggested a potentially damaging cultural rift has emerged between the IDG and the rest of the force.

The report, by auditing firm KPMG, was obtained by The Australian under the freedom of information laws.

It identified perceptions within the AFP that the IDG was overfunded, unaccountable and staffed by “cowboys” who had a tendency to bypass the rules when it suited them. The report found those perceptions — many of which were false or unfair — had the potential to inhibit effective working relations between the group and other arms of the AFP.

“Rightly or wrongly, the IDG currently has perception issues which will need to be proactively managed,” the report says.

The IDG was established in February 2004 to manage Australia’s growing offshore policing functions.

Why didn’t they use POLAIR?

Another thread on the AFP IDG Air Support Unit (ASU): http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/326136-australias-afp-operating-rotary-wing-airframes.html

We recently conducted helicopter marksman training in Australia for an asian police force.

The shooters were machines. They could reliably hit a watermelon out to 200 meters, from the back of a shaky old jetranger.

I for one wouldn’t want to be a bad guy on the recieving end.

Maybe they saw the kangaroo cull as an opportunity to join in a bit of fun… either way, it seems odd that the internationally oriented, pyjama wearing branch would be doing domestic drug patrols

It’s flying around Gunners now. The turn off the grow lights thing works a charm BTW

mezza76 said :

But having worked with clinicians in Government, the idea that they would lie about health risks or the lack of is bordering on insulting. For all their faults, public health professionals take their responsibility of protecting public health pretty seriously.

Doesn’t stop them from being often wrong, especially GPs – being generalists, and plenty of what they earnestly advise is faddish or opinion-based.

150 years ago health professionals took their blood-letting responsibilities very seriously and they were utterly dismissive of the idea of hygiene.

In any case, if we’re going to ban substances for reasons of public health, then we would ban nicotine, alcohol, and McDonalds and other pseudo-foods. But we don’t. But we *do* criminalise the consumers of one substance which is no more dangerous than alcohol, and the origin of that ban had more to do with the KKK than with public health.

cranky said :

Oh dear,

That poor lost woman has apparently been spotted in South Woden.

The game is afoot.

She must’ve had sparks flying out of her butt to get there from the Cotter so quickly.

I’m starting to think she actually doesn’t want to be found.

mezza76 said :

I simply provided the offical public health link – mistakenly thinking most people would accept that Governments wouldn’t provide inaccurate information to the public on a public health issue. If they did, the ramifications would be severe and in many instances undermine the public trust in the health advice provided to the public.

I think the main problem with your thinking is that most people are so distrustful of anything the Government says (regardless of who’s in power) that the ‘Authorised by the Australian Government, Canberra’ tagline immediately leads to closed minds.

Many people – rightly or wrongly – would believe that health advice provided by the Government is somehow tainted with self interest for whoever is in power. There are a significant number of people out there these days who simply don’t believe that anything the Government tells them is the truth. I’d love to say they’re crazy…but these days, who could blame them?

I think public health information would be better delivered by non-government organisations. Give them the money that the Government would have spent on this stuff, and let them decide how to spread the health message. At least then there is less chance of people believing the messages they’re receiving are part of some Government agenda.

basketofcat said :

So given its callsign, was the AFP International Deployment Group operating the helicopter? If so, why were was the AFP IDG offering it as a service to the ACT branch of the AFP?

So… Are you really that stupid that you don’t think that the AFP would not use an AFP asset in more then one AFP operational area? Really?

Oh dear,

That poor lost woman has apparently been spotted in South Woden.

The game is afoot.

DrKoresh said :

Wow, because I criticise the Government’s patronising approach to informing the pubic I’m a conspiracy nut? That’s the same kind of leap in logic that gets used in all the anti drug PSA’s.
I never said anything about a federal conspiracy, I was mainly criticising that page you linked to for having shit-all in the way of information, which is true.

I said nothing about clinicians, but since you brought them up I’ll address it: I have nothing but respect for doctors and healthcare professionals, but there are recommendations I choose to ignore, on the grounds that say red meat or wine brings more enjoyment to my life than the prospect of an extra 10 years or so from living on rabbit food.

Well you commented that they were “out-in-out lies” which was ridiculous. To suggest that is to suggest that every Chief Health Officer in the country is lying. Not to mention the health systems of most of the Western world, and the World Health Organisation. It’s a silly statement.

I simply provided the offical public health link – mistakenly thinking most people would accept that Governments wouldn’t provide inaccurate information to the public on a public health issue. If they did, the ramifications would be severe and in many instances undermine the public trust in the health advice provided to the public.

If you wanted to do some research on the effects of cannabis on health it’s a well worn path. I was simply providing the link that suggests that cannabis – like any drug – has health risks – as provided by our public health officials. Whether you choose them or any other lifestyle choice is up to you. But dont suggest that its a lie or made up – it isn’t. And if you want to eat too much red meat and drink too much wine – that’s fine too, but don’t complain when you have colon cancer, hearth disease, type 2 diabeties and liver disease. Im not a anti-drug campaigner. If you take drugs then do so with your eyes wide open.

Given my last link didn’t seem to give you much information – try these (there is heaps more on wikipedia):
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinfo/problems/alcoholanddrugs/cannabis.aspx

Ranganathan, Mohini; D’souza, Deepak Cyril (2006). “The acute effects of cannabinoids on memory in humans: a review”. Psychopharmacology 188 (4): 425–44. doi:10.1007/s00213-006-0508-y. PMID 17019571.

Leweke, F. Markus; Koethe, Dagmar (2008). “Cannabis and psychiatric disorders: it is not only addiction”. Addiction Biology 13 (2): 264–75. doi:10.1111/j.1369-1600.2008.00106.x. PMID 18482435.

Rubino, T; Parolaro, D (2008). “Long lasting consequences of cannabis exposure in adolescence”. Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology 286 (1–2 Suppl 1): S108–13. doi:10.1016/j.mce.2008.02.003. PMID 18358595.

Delisi, Lynn E (2008). “The effect of cannabis on the brain: can it cause brain anomalies that lead to increased risk for schizophrenia?”. Current Opinion in Psychiatry 21 (2): 140–50. doi:10.1097/YCO.0b013e3282f51266. PMID 18332661.

dvaey:
Ive re-read what I wrote.. twice, and I cant see where I said I was 100% sure there was only one pursuit. What I said, was other than this one event there have been no announcements. Im 100% sure there was other police activity.

The implication was pretty obvious.

With an attitude like that, you could go into politics, or maybe head up some sort of corruption inquiry.

Better than being an unemployed forum troll I suppose.

I never suggested anything about cost-benefit either.

Again, the implication was there. You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

Pity you geniuses can’t read.

So you mean the next time the d*ckheads from the corner are doing burnouts, I can just call you and you’ll send a chopper? You know, routine community policing, keeping the streets safe, like you said? Because that’d be great, and I’d totally take back all those jokes I made about the Fitzgerald Inquiry.

You mean you’re one of these people who are happy to whine about hoons doing burnouts, but too gutless and/or lazy to provide a statement or any other corroborating evidence to assist police put the offenders before court? Thankfully, there are plenty of people in your situation who have the ticker to actually help get these idiots of the street.

Should I wait until I can hear it near my house? I wouldn’t want you to go out of your way. You probably need to get home to study the latest policing (sorry, Policing) white papers, Livers Just Do That Sometimes – Innovative Indigenous Engagement Strategies, and Better Practice Media Management – A Male Caucasian Police Officer Will Have Been Seen And/Or Heard Speaking In The Future Perfect Continuous Tense

It may disappoint you that an insipid attempted insult from the forum nuffy isn’t as cutting as you think it is.

dvaey said :

theforce said :

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/FDPOL21

Interestingly, webtrak no longer shows a reg/callsign for the craft, however the flight plan on FlightAware shows all. Looks like theyre interested in something out at the cotter too. Maybe a grow hou..err. missing bushwalker in Uriarra?

They just spent 1 hour doing circles around my house.

Wow, because I criticise the Government’s patronising approach to informing the pubic I’m a conspiracy nut? That’s the same kind of leap in logic that gets used in all the anti drug PSA’s.
I never said anything about a federal conspiracy, I was mainly criticising that page you linked to for having shit-all in the way of information, which is true.

I said nothing about clinicians, but since you brought them up I’ll address it: I have nothing but respect for doctors and healthcare professionals, but there are recommendations I choose to ignore, on the grounds that say red meat or wine brings more enjoyment to my life than the prospect of an extra 10 years or so from living on rabbit food.

theforce said :

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/FDPOL21

Interestingly, webtrak no longer shows a reg/callsign for the craft, however the flight plan on FlightAware shows all. Looks like theyre interested in something out at the cotter too. Maybe a grow hou..err. missing bushwalker in Uriarra?

Pity you geniuses can’t read.

So you mean the next time the d*ckheads from the corner are doing burnouts, I can just call you and you’ll send a chopper? You know, routine community policing, keeping the streets safe, like you said? Because that’d be great, and I’d totally take back all those jokes I made about the Fitzgerald Inquiry.

Should I wait until I can hear it near my house? I wouldn’t want you to go out of your way. You probably need to get home to study the latest policing (sorry, Policing) white papers, Livers Just Do That Sometimes – Innovative Indigenous Engagement Strategies, and Better Practice Media Management – A Male Caucasian Police Officer Will Have Been Seen And/Or Heard Speaking In The Future Perfect Continuous Tense

DrKoresh said :

mezza76 said :

Not that I wanted to buy into this debate – but if anyone wants to do this – knock yourselves out (literally).
http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/internet/drugs/publishing.nsf/content/marijuana

There was nothing of any substance there, thanks for that. Encouragingly, the government seems to have stopped spreading out-and-out lies about the effects of cannabis. Sadly, they’re still trying to characterise it as some horrible societal menace and as such, don’t actually provide any substantive info, rather just a vague list of symptoms and side-effects, presumably to maintain it’s ‘dangerous’ public perception.

oh good – someone who thinks the whole thing is a grand conspiracy and the government lies. Thanks for that.

If you want to consider the drug safe – that’s your personal choice – I couldnt care less. But having worked with clinicians in Government, the idea that they would lie about health risks or the lack of is bordering on insulting. For all their faults, public health professionals take their responsibility of protecting public health pretty seriously.

mezza76 said :

Not that I wanted to buy into this debate – but if anyone wants to do this – knock yourselves out (literally).
http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/internet/drugs/publishing.nsf/content/marijuana

There was nothing of any substance there, thanks for that. Encouragingly, the government seems to have stopped spreading out-and-out lies about the effects of cannabis. Sadly, they’re still trying to characterise it as some horrible societal menace and as such, don’t actually provide any substantive info, rather just a vague list of symptoms and side-effects, presumably to maintain it’s ‘dangerous’ public perception.

HenryBG said :

PeaJay said :

HenryBG said :

… I also recommend you get yourself down to A&E at 0100hrs next Sunday and ask the staff themselves to tell you which substance(s) are giving them trouble.
Hint: it isn’t cannabis.

No, try the mental health unit instead for a bit of balanced perspective.

Are you lot still getting your information from Reefer Madness, then?

Here’s some news for the slow: alcohol causes brain damage. Cannabis doesn’t. Alcohol is a frequent, direct cause for violence. Cannabis isn’t. Alcohol kills people. Cannabis doesn’t.

Funny timing with this news article and this thread:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/nsw/cannabis-hauls-climb-as-police-decry-soft-image-20120520-1yz0z.html

Discuss! Hahahaha! 🙂

LSWCHP said :

Lainey said :

On the radio this morning, the AFP mentioned that the helicopter was searching for a woman missing in Gungahlin plus carrying out some other activities………

Well, based on the flight path, that woman was damned lost indeed. They attempted to locate her in the area between Namadgi and Dunlop, based on the flight path.

It’s compelling viewing… I cant look away from the slow circles… maybe they could turn the flightpath into modern art and sell it to the NGA for $10m.

Lainey said :

On the radio this morning, the AFP mentioned that the helicopter was searching for a woman missing in Gungahlin plus carrying out some other activities………

Well, based on the flight path, that woman was damned lost indeed. They attempted to locate her in the area between Namadgi and Dunlop, based on the flight path.

HenryBG said :

PeaJay said :

HenryBG said :

… I also recommend you get yourself down to A&E at 0100hrs next Sunday and ask the staff themselves to tell you which substance(s) are giving them trouble.
Hint: it isn’t cannabis.

No, try the mental health unit instead for a bit of balanced perspective.

Are you lot still getting your information from Reefer Madness, then?

Here’s some news for the slow: alcohol causes brain damage. Cannabis doesn’t. Alcohol is a frequent, direct cause for violence. Cannabis isn’t. Alcohol kills people. Cannabis doesn’t.

Not that I wanted to buy into this debate – but if anyone wants to do this – knock yourselves out (literally).
http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/internet/drugs/publishing.nsf/content/marijuana

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/FDPOL21

Time to shut down the meth lab, it’s up again!

Yeah, I don’t think that “When people with mental illnesses takes drugs, they go crazy” is great evidence for your position. People with mental illness tend not to be the stablest of folks on a good day. Also, banning everyone else from using it for the sake of the unstable doesn’t hold water either because the people you’re talking about obviously managed to get their hands on it anyway, so it won’t make a difference. So what’s your point?

PeaJay said :

HenryBG said :

… I also recommend you get yourself down to A&E at 0100hrs next Sunday and ask the staff themselves to tell you which substance(s) are giving them trouble.
Hint: it isn’t cannabis.

No, try the mental health unit instead for a bit of balanced perspective.

Are you lot still getting your information from Reefer Madness, then?

Here’s some news for the slow: alcohol causes brain damage. Cannabis doesn’t. Alcohol is a frequent, direct cause for violence. Cannabis isn’t. Alcohol kills people. Cannabis doesn’t.

When I did night reporter and stuff went down, ACT Police were always ****ing hopeless at communication. They seemed to think they were top secret spies or something. Getting information out of them was like pulling nails, even over seemingly harmless events – and some that weren’t so harmless, but definitely in the realm of public interest.

NSW Police on the other hand were awesome to deal with. Always polite, friendly, professional and best of all for a reporter, communicative.

It’s a bit of a worry. Why are ACT Police so secretive? Part of the explanation could be the bad blood between them and my old work over a few incidents, but other media outfits expressed the same frustrations.

HenryBG said :

… I also recommend you get yourself down to A&E at 0100hrs next Sunday and ask the staff themselves to tell you which substance(s) are giving them trouble.
Hint: it isn’t cannabis.

No, try the mental health unit instead for a bit of balanced perspective.

basketofcat said :

So given its callsign, was the AFP International Deployment Group operating the helicopter? If so, why were was the AFP IDG offering it as a service to the ACT branch of the AFP?

Sounds like maybe they were learning to use their infra-red terrorist-finding gadgets and using Canberra to do it over.

On the radio this morning, the AFP mentioned that the helicopter was searching for a woman missing in Gungahlin plus carrying out some other activities………

So given its callsign, was the AFP International Deployment Group operating the helicopter? If so, why were was the AFP IDG offering it as a service to the ACT branch of the AFP?

HenryBG said :

GardeningGirl said :

There’s two things about alcohol, one is it can be enjoyed without the mind altering aspect, another is it was around for a long time before Prohibition so there was probably more of a sense of something not necessarily problematic being taken away from everybody, so rethinking Prohibition was not so much redrawing the line but putting it back where it used to be.
Of course some people do create problems when ingesting alcohol, and some people do with other substances. Does it really make sense for society to redraw the line to cater for those people who put a personal desire for getting high/drunk above the things that keep society functioning well like common sense, social responsibility, work ethic, the laws of the land, and does it really make sense to widen the substance choices available to those people?

Unbelievable. Every sentence of that post is wrong. How do you do it?

Shall we start with a list of all the activities that you, I, and everybody else indulge in which contribute nothing to, “… keep society functioning well like common sense, social responsibility, work ethic, the laws of the land”, and go from there?

I also recommend you get yourself down to A&E at 0100hrs next Sunday and ask the staff themselves to tell you which substance(s) are giving them trouble.
Hint: it isn’t cannabis.

How do I do it? Sober perhaps LOL? Alcohol? Yeah, read it again, I acknowledged that alcohol too is a problem for some people, and there are some people who probably shouldn’t be allowed to have anything at all. Yeah, there are activities we all do for personal enjoyment for no benefit to society, but they don’t harm it either and don’t result in social gatherings turning into brawls or impairment while driving or on the job, did you miss the part about high/drunk.
I just realized I probably heard that helicopter too.

GardeningGirl said :

Alcohol, some people seem to enjoy a champers to go with a toast or a red/white to go with a meal without ending up too mind altered to drive home.
Cannabis, no, I didn’t think that was so new, but it seems like there’s more new things being added, and none of them really go with a nice meal or getting behind the wheel of a car.

You really are a homing-pigeon for the City of Wrongness, aren’t you?

You realise that alcohol was a factor in something like 30% of motor-vehicle crashes, don’t you? Any comparable problem with cannabis-affected drivers? No.

Cannabis doesn’t go with a nice meal? You have no clue. Food is pretty much the main reason Cannabis became popular for human consumption.

And I don’t know any study details, but whereas alcohol causes overconfidence and poor judgment resulting in poor driving outcomes, Cannabis doesn’t have these effects. Boozers like to drive. Potheads tend not to because it’s a bit too complicated for them.

Tooks – I would actually really like it if the police issued a weekly report on what exactly its officers had dealt with/accomplished in a week. People in general might then have a greater respect and understanding for the fuzz and for what they are doing in a day. No one’s saying it’s not a hard job, but to the general population the police are a bunch of unapproachable, unreasonable public servants who use little or none of their own discretion when dealing with the public. It would also help if they got out of their cars and spoke to noncriminal citizens every now and again.

Like many things, both alcohol and cannibis are mind altering chemicals which if used sensibly cause no problem. The trouble is that some people can’t manage this.

dvaey said :

GardeningGirl said :

There’s two things about alcohol, one is it can be enjoyed without the mind altering aspect

Hang on a second. Are you trying to suggest that alcohol does not affect the mind? The sole purpose of alcoholic beverages is to alter your mind.

GardeningGirl said :

another is it was around for a long time before Prohibition so there was probably more of a sense of something not necessarily problematic being taken away from everybody,

Do you think Cannabis is a new creation? Evidence of Cannabis use has been found dating back over 5000 years. The US prohibition laws were brought in around 50 years ago and about 40 years ago the states started passing their own laws to push back against the federal laws. Shortly after the US introduced their laws, anyone who wished to continue trading with the US, followed whatever they said.

Admittedly the time between prohibition and reintroduction of alcohol was only 20 years compared to 80 years since the US first announced its regulation of Cannabis at the International Opium Convention in the 20s (they linked weed to smack back then, and the sheep are still believing it).

Alcohol, some people seem to enjoy a champers to go with a toast or a red/white to go with a meal without ending up too mind altered to drive home.
Cannabis, no, I didn’t think that was so new, but it seems like there’s more new things being added, and none of them really go with a nice meal or getting behind the wheel of a car.

GardeningGirl said :

There’s two things about alcohol, one is it can be enjoyed without the mind altering aspect, another is it was around for a long time before Prohibition so there was probably more of a sense of something not necessarily problematic being taken away from everybody, so rethinking Prohibition was not so much redrawing the line but putting it back where it used to be.
Of course some people do create problems when ingesting alcohol, and some people do with other substances. Does it really make sense for society to redraw the line to cater for those people who put a personal desire for getting high/drunk above the things that keep society functioning well like common sense, social responsibility, work ethic, the laws of the land, and does it really make sense to widen the substance choices available to those people?

Unbelievable. Every sentence of that post is wrong. How do you do it?

Shall we start with a list of all the activities that you, I, and everybody else indulge in which contribute nothing to, “… keep society functioning well like common sense, social responsibility, work ethic, the laws of the land”, and go from there?

I also recommend you get yourself down to A&E at 0100hrs next Sunday and ask the staff themselves to tell you which substance(s) are giving them trouble.
Hint: it isn’t cannabis.

Tooks said :

dvaey said :

Other than a police chase (which happened 6hrs after the chopper was in the air), there have been no announcements from ACTPOL for anything that could be relevant.

You never tire of being wrong, do you? You 100% sure there was only one police pursuit from Friday-Sunday?

Ive re-read what I wrote.. twice, and I cant see where I said I was 100% sure there was only one pursuit. What I said, was other than this one event there have been no announcements. Im 100% sure there was other police activity.

Tooks said :

In this case, I can tell you you’re wrong because you are. My comment wasn’t an opinion – it was a fact. Don’t have a hissy fit because I’m not willing to go into specifics.

With an attitude like that, you could go into politics, or maybe head up some sort of corruption inquiry.

Tooks said :

By the way, I never suggested that the benefit was worth the cost, so don’t try to start an argument about taxpayer costs. Do you want a full analysis of what every police car was doing over the same period? Presumably if it didn’t get its own media release, it’s not worth it. Police attend several hundred jobs every weekend. How many get a media release?

I never suggested anything about cost-benefit either, you really did wake up with your fuzzy glasses on this morning didn’t you? I dont really care what every police car was doing over the weekend, they do what they do 24hrs a day 7 days a week. FEDPOL21 (as far as anyone can tell) didnt exist until this weekend’s flights. If the police chopper handled hundreds of jobs every weekend, it would be part of everyday life, but when it turns up once late at night flying low over the city, that is hardly an everday occurance, and would be worthy of a media release. The 60+ comments on this thread show there is some interest in its activities.

dvaey said :

Tooks said :

I can tell you for a fact that the chopper was of assistance over the weekend at numerous incidents. Make of that what you will.

Great to hear it was of assistance. Are we mere citizens allowed to know what assistance the taxpayer-funded chopper provided? Other than a police chase (which happened 6hrs after the chopper was in the air), there have been no announcements from ACTPOL for anything that could be relevant.

Why do you come on here with comments like that? “I can tell you youre all wrong, because I know whats right” is starting to wear thin.. although I guess theres enough people here throwing around opinions that arent backed up, why not throw yours into the ring too.

You never tire of being wrong, do you? You 100% sure there was only one police pursuit from Friday-Sunday?

In this case, I can tell you you’re wrong because you are. My comment wasn’t an opinion – it was a fact. Don’t have a hissy fit because I’m not willing to go into specifics. Like I said, make of that comment what you will. You don’t believe me, fine (it is the internet after all). I couldn’t give two shits whether people believe it or not.

By the way, I never suggested that the benefit was worth the cost, so don’t try to start an argument about taxpayer costs. Do you want a full analysis of what every police car was doing over the same period? Presumably if it didn’t get its own media release, it’s not worth it. Police attend several hundred jobs every weekend. How many get a media release?

Tooks said :

I can tell you for a fact that the chopper was of assistance over the weekend at numerous incidents. Make of that what you will.

Great to hear it was of assistance. Are we mere citizens allowed to know what assistance the taxpayer-funded chopper provided? Other than a police chase (which happened 6hrs after the chopper was in the air), there have been no announcements from ACTPOL for anything that could be relevant.

Why do you come on here with comments like that? “I can tell you youre all wrong, because I know whats right” is starting to wear thin.. although I guess theres enough people here throwing around opinions that arent backed up, why not throw yours into the ring too.

GardeningGirl said :

There’s two things about alcohol, one is it can be enjoyed without the mind altering aspect

Hang on a second. Are you trying to suggest that alcohol does not affect the mind? The sole purpose of alcoholic beverages is to alter your mind.

GardeningGirl said :

another is it was around for a long time before Prohibition so there was probably more of a sense of something not necessarily problematic being taken away from everybody,

Do you think Cannabis is a new creation? Evidence of Cannabis use has been found dating back over 5000 years. The US prohibition laws were brought in around 50 years ago and about 40 years ago the states started passing their own laws to push back against the federal laws. Shortly after the US introduced their laws, anyone who wished to continue trading with the US, followed whatever they said.

Admittedly the time between prohibition and reintroduction of alcohol was only 20 years compared to 80 years since the US first announced its regulation of Cannabis at the International Opium Convention in the 20s (they linked weed to smack back then, and the sheep are still believing it).

eq2 said :

Tooks said :

You think they’re peering out the windows using the naked eye?

I don’t know what you consider ‘interesting’ crime, but most weekends there will be a couple of pursuits, numerous disturbances, missing people, people with mental illness walking the streets threatening to jump off bridges/in front of buses, people breaking into cars etc. All of which the helicopter can assist with.

You’re right a helicopter could assist with those scenarios. However, for most of those scenarios you suggested the police would either A) vary their altitude to be of more assistance or B) hover in one spot. On both flight paths (see original post) the helicopter sustains its altitude and velocity. If all that crime that you suggested was happening why didn’t it adjust it’s altitude or velocity to assist?

I can tell you for a fact that the chopper was of assistance over the weekend at numerous incidents. Make of that what you will.

HenryBG said :

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

“There’s a car full of idiots doing circle work in our street, screaming obscenities and throwing bottles. I know where they live.”
“Yeah, we’ll only come out if you’re personally willing to press charges and testify against them in court.”

…

“I think somebody, somewhere, might be growing a recreational drug that’s about as harmful as caffeine.”
“I’ll get the chopper, then search the entire city. Twice. At night.”

As usual, you put it much better than I can. +1million.

Pity you geniuses can’t read.

FOI request if thinking about this is keeping you awake at night…

Tooks said :

You think they’re peering out the windows using the naked eye?

I don’t know what you consider ‘interesting’ crime, but most weekends there will be a couple of pursuits, numerous disturbances, missing people, people with mental illness walking the streets threatening to jump off bridges/in front of buses, people breaking into cars etc. All of which the helicopter can assist with.

You’re right a helicopter could assist with those scenarios. However, for most of those scenarios you suggested the police would either A) vary their altitude to be of more assistance or B) hover in one spot. On both flight paths (see original post) the helicopter sustains its altitude and velocity. If all that crime that you suggested was happening why didn’t it adjust it’s altitude or velocity to assist?

dvaey said :

If it was legalised, far too many people would lose far too much money and power, both on the corrupt blackmarket and the corrupt enforcement sides, and a LOT of jobs would be lost, if the phantom menace was suddenly no longer a menace. An entire industry has been built upon the war-on-drugs, that would crumble if such a large number of citizens were no longer considered to be breaking the law.

This is the absolute truth. When in doubt, consider who is making the money.

The people who most strongly promote the war on drugs are the ones who benefit most from the status quo…ie the current distributors and retailers of drugs.

If drug use was legalised and regulated then those who are currently making billions out of the drug trade would lose their money supply and hence their influence, and they will do anything they can to prevent that happening, including frothing at the mouth about the need to maintain the war on drugs.

HenryBG said :

eq2 said :

Also see http://earth-api-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/external/marcin_cameralookat.html to see what the world looks like at 6000 ft

And from 700km up, IR gives you this:
http://sentinel1.ga.gov.au/Sentinel/imf.jsp

troutfisher said :

I can’t image any sane person would think these were just laws. Just for my knowledge, which level drug do you intend drawing a line at.

Well, they did try drawing the line below alcohol there for a while.
I don’t know if your subjective opinion would consider that a “just law” or not, but it certainly was an abject failure which gave a massive boost to organised crime.
With the failure of Prohibition, the line was redrawn above alcohol, but below cannabis. That too has proven an abject failure and given a massive boost to organised crime.

Obviously the line will have to be redrawn. Again.

Let us hope they use some evidence-based decisionmaking, this time, rather than falling, again, for the dishonest industry-funded lobbying campaign that obtained the prohibition on cannabis in the first place.

There’s two things about alcohol, one is it can be enjoyed without the mind altering aspect, another is it was around for a long time before Prohibition so there was probably more of a sense of something not necessarily problematic being taken away from everybody, so rethinking Prohibition was not so much redrawing the line but putting it back where it used to be.
Of course some people do create problems when ingesting alcohol, and some people do with other substances. Does it really make sense for society to redraw the line to cater for those people who put a personal desire for getting high/drunk above the things that keep society functioning well like common sense, social responsibility, work ethic, the laws of the land, and does it really make sense to widen the substance choices available to those people?

The flight patterns look just like wool unravelling on a map. Logically, this leads me to surmise that they’re searching for knitters of giant bookmarks.

‘It’s the futility police flying overhead again Mildred. Quck, hide the bookmark in that paper thing. You know, that thing with the writing inside.’

‘But If we knit in time with the chopper blades, they’ll never catch us.’

‘You’re sharp as a number four, dear.’

EvanJames said :

You might as well get used to it. The curfew-free airport is dead-keen on having air movements all night, every night. While the runway and other areas aren’t being used, they’re dead money.

Why do people harp on about the “curfew-free” airport?

It’s curfew free because there is no demand for heavy jets (say B737 sized or bigger) at all hours of the night. The odd Metroliner that pops in and out in the wee hours without making a great deal of noise is fine at the moment.

If and when traffic increases to regular arrival and departure of heavy jets after 2300 you watch this site go into meltdown with rioters demanding a curfew.

If RiotAct through its punters can increase a speed limit on a road then it can certainly meddle in the best laid plans of an airport…

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

“There’s a car full of idiots doing circle work in our street, screaming obscenities and throwing bottles. I know where they live.”
“Yeah, we’ll only come out if you’re personally willing to press charges and testify against them in court.”

…

“I think somebody, somewhere, might be growing a recreational drug that’s about as harmful as caffeine.”
“I’ll get the chopper, then search the entire city. Twice. At night.”

As usual, you put it much better than I can. +1million.

Tooks said :

Talk about jumping to conclusions. Troutfisher is on the money (see post 31) regarding the activities of the chopper. I can’t believe what some people whine about. First world problems indeed.

Well, in that case, great. Lets hope it stays around for a little while for more than just a couple of 1am flights over suburbia, maybe it can be on-call for some rescues and general helo work around Canberra, while southcare goes off to help the region? When will be able to read reports of what theyve been upto, with our tax money, during our sleeptime?

EvanJames said :

You might as well get used to it. The curfew-free airport is dead-keen on having air movements all night, every night. While the runway and other areas aren’t being used, they’re dead money.

One would hope that AAE and Fedex when they bring their all-night flights in, actually use the corridors and runways rather than spending a few hours performing tight circles above the houses at a height of ~2000′ AGL. There is no reason why we should get used to helicopters circling above us in the middle of the night, just because they can. Then again, no doubt the police will pull out their ‘Police officers are exempt from the law’ card, just like they do when cops are caught on their phone or caught driving dangerously.

johnboy said :

really shouldn’t be too hard to have a sensor listening for the rotor signature and turning off the lights automatically.

Pretty sure they look for heat not light. Heat from a grow room would take a longer time to disperse.

“There’s a car full of idiots doing circle work in our street, screaming obscenities and throwing bottles. I know where they live.”
“Yeah, we’ll only come out if you’re personally willing to press charges and testify against them in court.”

…

“I think somebody, somewhere, might be growing a recreational drug that’s about as harmful as caffeine.”
“I’ll get the chopper, then search the entire city. Twice. At night.”

While the below laws do not illustrate what I would call “just and fare” laws, do you think that allowing the Police to pick and choose what laws to investigate would allow for what people call a transparent and corruption free justice system?

Again, Police investigate the laws set by the government, irrelevant to how poor you think these laws are, you want the law changed, talk to the legislative assembly and parliament, not the people who are employed to enforce said laws.

SHAG said :

buzz819 said :

HenryBG said :

buzz819 said :

HenryBG said :

So you also agreed with Tasmanian police enforcing anti sodomy laws pre 1997, and Alabama police enforcing laws prohibiting interacial marriage (when that was illegal)?

You might as well get used to it. The curfew-free airport is dead-keen on having air movements all night, every night. While the runway and other areas aren’t being used, they’re dead money.

Deref said :

Does anyone know what it costs to keep a helicopter like this in the air?

I really have no idea, but an all-up cost including amortisation, maintenance and staffing of, maybe, $10k per hour wouldn’t surprise me.

depending on the helicopter anything from 7-800 to maybe 2-2500 would be an expected range, probably somewhere in the middle

eq2 said :

troutfisher said :

Has anyone had the thought that in fact they may well be doing a number of things given the flight path. Just as a patrol car will move about from job to job the flying patrol car is able to:

Most of these flights were at a sustained altitude of 6000 ft, the human eye can’t really see anything interesting from this height so it is impractical to do many of the “flying patrol car” activities that have been suggested, even with IR assistance. Technology assisted surveillance or training are the only two activities that I can think of that would be able to be performed at this height.

Back to the unusual flights – If you look at at flight FDPOL21 at 2130 18/5 on http://webtrak.bksv.com/cbr you’ll see that it actually flies until about 00:20, even though http://flightaware.com states it landed around 2353. It looks like flightaware does not accurately record landings after midnight. It flies over many parts of the ACT including the Macgregor and Northbourne areas twice.

Aside from drug surveillance, the only other interesting crime that I’m aware of in the Canberra is the copper thievery that has been occurring.

You think they’re peering out the windows using the naked eye?

I don’t know what you consider ‘interesting’ crime, but most weekends there will be a couple of pursuits, numerous disturbances, missing people, people with mental illness walking the streets threatening to jump off bridges/in front of buses, people breaking into cars etc. All of which the helicopter can assist with.

Talk about jumping to conclusions. Troutfisher is on the money (see post 31) regarding the activities of the chopper. I can’t believe what some people whine about. First world problems indeed.

Probably the AFP spending some of their budget before the end of the financial year…

eq2 said :

Also see http://earth-api-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/external/marcin_cameralookat.html to see what the world looks like at 6000 ft

And from 700km up, IR gives you this:
http://sentinel1.ga.gov.au/Sentinel/imf.jsp

troutfisher said :

I can’t image any sane person would think these were just laws. Just for my knowledge, which level drug do you intend drawing a line at.

Well, they did try drawing the line below alcohol there for a while.
I don’t know if your subjective opinion would consider that a “just law” or not, but it certainly was an abject failure which gave a massive boost to organised crime.
With the failure of Prohibition, the line was redrawn above alcohol, but below cannabis. That too has proven an abject failure and given a massive boost to organised crime.

Obviously the line will have to be redrawn. Again.

Let us hope they use some evidence-based decisionmaking, this time, rather than falling, again, for the dishonest industry-funded lobbying campaign that obtained the prohibition on cannabis in the first place.

Does anyone know what it costs to keep a helicopter like this in the air?

I really have no idea, but an all-up cost including amortisation, maintenance and staffing of, maybe, $10k per hour wouldn’t surprise me.

troutfisher said :

I can’t image any sane person would think these were just laws. Just for my knowledge, which level drug do you intend drawing a line at.

What about one that causes actual harm? Nicotine and Alcohol are legal, but Cannabis is not? It is not just the stubborness of the government to relook at the issue, but the hypocrisy of having one dangerous substance legal while a similar significantly less dangerous substance is illegal.

Also see http://earth-api-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/external/marcin_cameralookat.html to see what the world looks like at 6000 ft

troutfisher said :

Has anyone had the thought that in fact they may well be doing a number of things given the flight path. Just as a patrol car will move about from job to job the flying patrol car is able to:

Most of these flights were at a sustained altitude of 6000 ft, the human eye can’t really see anything interesting from this height so it is impractical to do many of the “flying patrol car” activities that have been suggested, even with IR assistance. Technology assisted surveillance or training are the only two activities that I can think of that would be able to be performed at this height.

Back to the unusual flights – If you look at at flight FDPOL21 at 2130 18/5 on http://webtrak.bksv.com/cbr you’ll see that it actually flies until about 00:20, even though http://flightaware.com states it landed around 2353. It looks like flightaware does not accurately record landings after midnight. It flies over many parts of the ACT including the Macgregor and Northbourne areas twice.

Aside from drug surveillance, the only other interesting crime that I’m aware of in the Canberra is the copper thievery that has been occurring.

Pasted from another thread:

ACT Policing is appealing to car owners to remove all valuables from their cars of an evening after a recent spate of thefts in Canberra’s south.

Between Thursday, May 10 and Sunday, May 13, eleven cars were broken into from a number of suburbs in the Tuggeranong area, including Isabella Plains, Kambah, Monash, Chisholm, Fadden, Gordon and Richardson.

The break-ins occurred overnight with most car windows being smashed and items of value stolen, such as GPS, iPods, cash and wallets. Some of the cars have had their steering column removed and wires have been found loose in an attempt by offenders to steal the car.

Officer-In-Charge of Tuggeranong Police Station, Sergeant Daryl Neit, asks for car owners to remove all valuables from their cars when they get home of an evening.

“If people remove their valuables from their cars of an evening, their car is less likely to become a target for thieves. Most crimes are ones of opportunity,” said Sergeant Neit.

“I would urge anyone who sees or hears suspicious activity in their neighbourhood to call police on 131-444 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.”

But don’t call if the sound of patrol cars going up and down your street might disturb you, or heaven pray the sound of a helicopter overhead being able to locate people with the FLIR. Thats is, unless, of course it’s your car then you won’t give a flying f%%k about disturbing your neighbours.

troutfisher said :

Has anyone had the thought that in fact they may well be doing a number of things given the flight path. Just as a patrol car will move about from job to job the flying patrol car is able to:

This has been suggested before, that the police could have used a helicopter in some instances in the past. By all means, a police helicopter can prove very useful for the reasons you have mentioned. However, flying around in circles between midnight and 1am on a one-off Saturday night hardly means anything. In a day or two, they’ll move the chopper on to somewhere else now that theyve collected their evidence.

They never intended to bring the chopper here to actually assist the Canberra community, otherwise there would have been much fun and fanfare about its arrival. It has snuck in quietly, gone about its business noisily at 1am while the community tries to sleep, then buggers off to find some more herbal criminals.

If it was legalised, far too many people would lose far too much money and power, both on the corrupt blackmarket and the corrupt enforcement sides, and a LOT of jobs would be lost, if the phantom menace was suddenly no longer a menace. An entire industry has been built upon the war-on-drugs, that would crumble if such a large number of citizens were no longer considered to be breaking the law.

SHAG

“So you also agreed with Tasmanian police enforcing anti sodomy laws pre 1997, and Alabama police enforcing laws prohibiting interacial marriage (when that was illegal)?”

I can’t image any sane person would think these were just laws. Just for my knowledge, which level drug do you intend drawing a line at.

The flightaware site shows that there’s a raaf 737 coming in from Indonesia tomorrow morning. The chopper could just be checking things ahead that plane landing.

(I’d never heard off BBJ planes before! I want one.)

Has anyone had the thought that in fact they may well be doing a number of things given the flight path. Just as a patrol car will move about from job to job the flying patrol car is able to:

– check out incidents from the air, dismissing the need to tie up additional resources

-provide additional patrol support and officer security, even assisting in tracking people in the dark and catching those pesky “criminals” (ranging from people stealing on job sites to groups of kids causing issues in possibly YOUR street) that everyone complains about

– search for missing people and for an example being able to check open drains and dark reserves, saving hours for offiers on the ground.

– assisting in following suspicious, even stolen cars without the need to have patrol cars becoming involved until the car has stopped. It always fascinates me to read about idiots complaining about police causing potential accidents by chasing people, but then complain if there is an alternative and it causes them some mild disturbance.

I would almost bet the people on here complaining about the noise are the same people who complain about roads being shut off when there is an accident (“But I always go home this way”) or that the cops don’t do anything about the criminal damage in their local park or some other issue that they are affected by. I wonder if the helicopter was able to track some scrote coming out of theer house with some item they considered very special, would the noise be an issue.

As for the suggestion about setting up sensors to turn off at the sound of rotor blades, I’m sure Southcare would become a real pain in the date, not even taking into account that the sensor would need to be able to see into the future for a few hours to let the heat escape.

buzz819 said :

HenryBG said :

buzz819 said :

HenryBG said :

If you have a few 1000W bulbs on in your shed then your shed will be glowing very bright in the infrared spectrum. Easy to spot at night.

Good to know all the crime in Canberra has been solved and the cops now have time to devote to busting cannabis growers.

Imagine how much money would be saved – and revenue raised – if those growers were licensed, not subjected to police persecution, and paying taxes just like any other grower?

How dare the Police target the people breaking the law… I mean I wonder what the causal link between drug dealing and street violence is? (Sarcasm by the way)

Precisely my point – if there were no law against this harmless behaviour, then a whole bunch of people who are currently criminalised because they prefer cannabis to alcohol or caffeine wouldn’t be breaking any laws, ergo, there would be a lot less crime if cannabis were legalised.

At this moment in time, it is against the law, Police around to enforce the law, the government decides the law. So at the moment, the Police are trying to stop all the antisocial behaviour which is related to drug offences, which includes, street violence, burglary, prostitution and robberies, until the time comes that the government changes the law, there is nothing the Police can do but target the growers, dealers and users. Sounds reasonable to me.

So you also agreed with Tasmanian police enforcing anti sodomy laws pre 1997, and Alabama police enforcing laws prohibiting interacial marriage (when that was illegal)?

buzz819 said :

So at the moment, the Police are trying to stop all the antisocial behaviour which is related to drug offences, which includes, street violence, burglary, prostitution and robberies, ……

Yes, and I’m paying for them to do all this work enforcing laws which create all that work by

a) unnecessarily criminalising large segments of society
b) creating a black economy which directly assists organised crime to flourish

And I reserve the right to call out laws which do not work, have never worked, cause far more problems than the problems they abjectly fail to solve, cost me money, and, worst of all, have absolutely zero evidence-base to support their imposition or continuation.

How hard would it be to pick out the heat signature of some strong light bulbs from all the heated houses out there in a very cold Canberra night?

HenryBG said :

buzz819 said :

HenryBG said :

If you have a few 1000W bulbs on in your shed then your shed will be glowing very bright in the infrared spectrum. Easy to spot at night.

Good to know all the crime in Canberra has been solved and the cops now have time to devote to busting cannabis growers.

Imagine how much money would be saved – and revenue raised – if those growers were licensed, not subjected to police persecution, and paying taxes just like any other grower?

How dare the Police target the people breaking the law… I mean I wonder what the causal link between drug dealing and street violence is? (Sarcasm by the way)

Precisely my point – if there were no law against this harmless behaviour, then a whole bunch of people who are currently criminalised because they prefer cannabis to alcohol or caffeine wouldn’t be breaking any laws, ergo, there would be a lot less crime if cannabis were legalised.

At this moment in time, it is against the law, Police around to enforce the law, the government decides the law. So at the moment, the Police are trying to stop all the antisocial behaviour which is related to drug offences, which includes, street violence, burglary, prostitution and robberies, until the time comes that the government changes the law, there is nothing the Police can do but target the growers, dealers and users. Sounds reasonable to me.

wanna know the truth?
they were looking for johnboy, Aliens, and reptoid tunnel entraces

talk about a first world problem….

theforce said :

Excuse me as a put my anorak on.

If you go to http://www.flightaware.com, and search for either FEDPOL21 or FDPOL21 in the Flight/Tail# field on the left, you can see its flightpath over the last few weeks. Some interesting flight paths over large swathes of Canberra.

Wow! FDPOL21 did some really loopy paths, that’s bizarre.

I heard it too and it was extremely irritating because it wasn’t just transient, the noise kept going! I also wondered what it was. Are they really looking for drugs????

LSWCHP said :

It just flew over my house as I was typing!! How cool is that?

[tinfoil hat on]

Riot Act posters are a known bunch of degenerates. What were you doing online?

[tinfoil hat off

Hmmm. HenryBG knows a lot of specific numbers and detail about this topic. Could explain a few things.

WebTrak is another online aircraft tracking system worth having a look at.
http://webtrak.bksv.com/cbr
Might be a bit tricky to navigate at first, but work through the info tabs and it’ll give you a good start.
The site is managed by Air Services Australia and will allow you to provide a complaint about an aircraft. Also allows a flight history search at the bottom left of the screen.
Interestingly, it also displays loudness of aircraft flying over Jerrabomberra.

dvaey said :

I wonder how often an IXL Tastic shows up on their scan? Tastics have over 1000W of heat globes (some upto 1500W), and are often used in enclosed rooms such as bathrooms and toilets. Looking at the flightpaths though, it seems like theyre focusing on a couple of sites in particular.

That would be the equivalent of one bulb, perhaps two, enough to grow no more than about 6-8 plants. The cops probably have bigger fish to fry than that anyway.

In any case, a tastic on for an hour while somebody uses the bathroom is not the same as the equivalent in wattage being used to energise a hydro system. For starters, the grow lights are on for around 19-20 hours per day for 2-3 months and then roughly 14 hours for another 4-6 weeks.
All this heat is taken up by the plants, by the substrate, and most importantly by the water reservoir, and a couple of hundred litres of water at 25+ degrees contains an enormous amount of heat (think 50 boiling kettles) because water has such an excellent specific heat.
That’s why the smarter guys would have no more than a single box, in a house, with an exhaust sucking air straight down under the house. Not a recipe for making money, but enough to give them the feeling of satisfaction that they’re beating The Man.

buzz819 said :

HenryBG said :

If you have a few 1000W bulbs on in your shed then your shed will be glowing very bright in the infrared spectrum. Easy to spot at night.

Good to know all the crime in Canberra has been solved and the cops now have time to devote to busting cannabis growers.

Imagine how much money would be saved – and revenue raised – if those growers were licensed, not subjected to police persecution, and paying taxes just like any other grower?

How dare the Police target the people breaking the law… I mean I wonder what the causal link between drug dealing and street violence is? (Sarcasm by the way)

Probably less than the causal link between speakeasys and street violence during prohibition.

buzz819 said :

HenryBG said :

If you have a few 1000W bulbs on in your shed then your shed will be glowing very bright in the infrared spectrum. Easy to spot at night.

Good to know all the crime in Canberra has been solved and the cops now have time to devote to busting cannabis growers.

Imagine how much money would be saved – and revenue raised – if those growers were licensed, not subjected to police persecution, and paying taxes just like any other grower?

How dare the Police target the people breaking the law… I mean I wonder what the causal link between drug dealing and street violence is? (Sarcasm by the way)

Precisely my point – if there were no law against this harmless behaviour, then a whole bunch of people who are currently criminalised because they prefer cannabis to alcohol or caffeine wouldn’t be breaking any laws, ergo, there would be a lot less crime if cannabis were legalised.

dvaey said :

I wonder how often an IXL Tastic shows up on their scan? Tastics have over 1000W of heat globes (some upto 1500W), and are often used in enclosed rooms such as bathrooms and toilets. Looking at the flightpaths though, it seems like theyre focusing on a couple of sites in particular.

My guess, and it is only a guess, is that if they are targetting growers of larger crops, it will be more than 1-2KW of heat globes being used in a space somewhat larger than your average ensuite or bathroom.

buzz819 said :

How dare the Police target the people breaking the law… I mean I wonder what the causal link between drug dealing and street violence is? (Sarcasm by the way)

Maybe I know the wrong sort of people, but of the potheads I know, none are really disposed to violence, especially when put in proportion to alcohol or other drugs. Sure, someone smoking weed is breaking drug laws, but someone having rough sex is probably breaking an assault law. Just because a law exists or is being broken, it doesnt mean it needs enforcement. The ironic thing is, the reason they can justify the huge cost of the helo is because they perceive a ‘huge cost’ of the drugs, which is only so inflated due to the risks from the existance of the helo in the first place.

Its a circle, that will never end, but will line the pockets of a lot of power-hungry people, several of whom use the force as a cover to conduct their own drug transactions. When even those enforcing the rules are profiting from it, why would it end?

theforce said :

Excuse me as a put my anorak on.

If you go to http://www.flightaware.com, and search for either FEDPOL21 or FDPOL21 in the Flight/Tail# field on the left, you can see its flightpath over the last few weeks. Some interesting flight paths over large swathes of Canberra.

Hey force, that’s fascinating stuff, thanks for pointing it out.

As for the flightpaths, they’re very, very interesting indeed. They would appear to be looking for things at night all over Canberra. Given that helo time costs thousands of dollars per hour, it must be something pretty high profile to justify the expense.

It just flew over my house as I was typing!! How cool is that?

HenryBG said :

If you have a few 1000W bulbs on in your shed then your shed will be glowing very bright in the infrared spectrum. Easy to spot at night.

Good to know all the crime in Canberra has been solved and the cops now have time to devote to busting cannabis growers.

Imagine how much money would be saved – and revenue raised – if those growers were licensed, not subjected to police persecution, and paying taxes just like any other grower?

How dare the Police target the people breaking the law… I mean I wonder what the causal link between drug dealing and street violence is? (Sarcasm by the way)

HenryBG said :

If you have a few 1000W bulbs on in your shed then your shed will be glowing very bright in the infrared spectrum. Easy to spot at night.

p1 said :

I wonder how often the police turn up at a door with a search warrant for the back shed, old to find the man of the house has a heater, couch, TV and beer fridge out there?

I wonder how often an IXL Tastic shows up on their scan? Tastics have over 1000W of heat globes (some upto 1500W), and are often used in enclosed rooms such as bathrooms and toilets. Looking at the flightpaths though, it seems like theyre focusing on a couple of sites in particular.

johnboy said :

really shouldn’t be too hard to have a sensor listening for the rotor signature and turning off the lights automatically.

First of all that would be quite hard to do and would probably be set off every time your neighbour mows his lawn, and second your garage would still be very hot when the lights were turned off.

johnboy said :

really shouldn’t be too hard to have a sensor listening for the rotor signature and turning off the lights automatically.

It would take a very *long* time to dissipate enough heat to get the shed temperature (30-degree plus, depending on how much they’ve spent on ventilation) down to something approaching the 0-5 degrees ambient outside at this time of year.

p1 said :

I wonder how often the police turn up at a door with a search warrant for the back shed, old to find the man of the house has a heater, couch, TV and beer fridge out there?

Half a dozen 1000W bulbs on for 20-hours a day creates a massive hot spot.

If I were them, I’d be switching them all to head, with the lights coming on at 4am, meaning the shed might just be cool enough come midnight. And get better insulation and some good ventilation with the exhaust releasing under the house.

And, stop voting for idiots who legislate against harmless behaviour.

I wonder how often the police turn up at a door with a search warrant for the back shed, old to find the man of the house has a heater, couch, TV and beer fridge out there?

Excuse me as a put my anorak on.

If you go to http://www.flightaware.com, and search for either FEDPOL21 or FDPOL21 in the Flight/Tail# field on the left, you can see its flightpath over the last few weeks. Some interesting flight paths over large swathes of Canberra.

Yep, have also been hearing a chopper flying over head (inner north) at late-ish times during the night for the last couple of weeks it seems.

So far I’ve found it only to be a minor inconvenience.

I live Gungahlin way and I have also heard this helicopter..it was about a month ago, round midnight and went for ages. It got me up and online, but I couldn’t find anything to explain. I’m interested to find out who’s up there and for what reason as well.

If you have a few 1000W bulbs on in your shed then your shed will be glowing very bright in the infrared spectrum. Easy to spot at night.

Good to know all the crime in Canberra has been solved and the cops now have time to devote to busting cannabis growers.

Imagine how much money would be saved – and revenue raised – if those growers were licensed, not subjected to police persecution, and paying taxes just like any other grower?

Instant Mash said :

From what I’ve been hearing, they’re for sussing out large-scale drug growing.

🙂 See, I logged in to see why they had been flying over Kambah at about 11:30pm for far too long last night…. Now it all fits.

From what I’ve been hearing, they’re for sussing out large-scale drug growing.

Where did the post from Dot3 come from?