"History will be kind to us, because we will write it"
Does anybody know why there has been a helecopter circling the Belconnen/Northside area for the past few hours?
It is about 1:30 am and the noise has left me awake pondering if there is a legitimate or even necessary reason for its flight path. This has been a regular occurrence for the past 4 or so nights.
It does not sound like a military chopper (although I may be mistaken), and I an pretty sure it is not the SouthCare chopper either.
ED – Dot3 also sent in this post:
So what is it for????
….. it’s callsign is FEDPOL 21
UPDATE 21/05/12 10:50: eq2 has sent in this info:
The circles around Belconnen were flown at around 1am.
Flight altitude was sustained at 4700ft for both flights.
Flights like these have not occurred on previous Saturdays.data source: http://webtrak.bksv.com/cbr
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Where did the post from Dot3 come from?
From what I’ve been hearing, they’re for sussing out large-scale drug growing.
Instant Mash 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?
really shouldn’t be too hard to have a sensor listening for the rotor signature and turning off the lights automatically.
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.
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.
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.
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?
johnboy said :
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 :
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.
johnboy said :
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.
HenryBG said :
p1 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.
HenryBG 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)
theforce said :
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?
buzz819 said :
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?
dvaey said :
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 :
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.
buzz819 said :
Probably less than the causal link between speakeasys and street violence during prohibition.
dvaey said :
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.
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.
Hmmm. HenryBG knows a lot of specific numbers and detail about this topic. Could explain a few things.
I heard it last night in Chapman, heard it come over a few times, first time I thought it was just SouthCare or something, but then I heard it a few more times and got curious. This clears it all up a bit.
LSWCHP said :
[tinfoil hat on]
Riot Act posters are a known bunch of degenerates. What were you doing online?
[tinfoil hat off
theforce said :
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????
talk about a first world problem….
wanna know the truth?
they were looking for johnboy, Aliens, and reptoid tunnel entraces
HenryBG said :
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.
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?
buzz819 said :
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.
buzz819 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)?