Why is that plane circling?

35 comments

Cadeho 09/08/2009 at 11:18 PM

Yes, John… it’s a police plane. I believe they always have red and blue lights at opposite ends on the wings. I saw blue lights on my way home at about Pahup and Rogers St. I don’t know what it was.

Cadeho 09/08/2009 at 11:19 PM

Phaup and Rogers. Darn typos.

TimH 09/09/2009 at 7:51 AM

Yes…Only police aircraft are permitted to fly at that low altitude over residential areas.

Gordo 09/09/2009 at 8:44 AM

Its the UN. Put on your aluminum foil hat and they cant read your mind

PaulF 09/09/2009 at 3:16 PM

Ah, it may be the cops. But I suspect that the flight instructors from Chesterfield airport sometimes get their instrument students to practice timed turns, holding patterns and slow flight over the city. They often seem to center on the monument at Libby Hill Park. Just for kicks, see if they are taking 2 minutes to do a complete turn. If so, they are doing or practicing “standard rate” turns. Poster #3 is incorrect, as aircraft may basically be legally flown as low as 1000 feet (which is not very high) over “congested areas” per FAR 91.119

Bullwinkle 09/09/2009 at 3:43 PM

On the other hand, the restricted airspace for Richmond International extends pretty far out… I doubt that student pilots practice over Church Hill very often.

I’m pretty sure the circler is a police plane. I see the thing so often that it’s weird to NOT see it. Sometimes it shines a spotlight down to boot.

However, the red and blue lights don’t tell us much as they are standard equipment on basically all aircraft.

PaulF 09/09/2009 at 6:01 PM

Hmmmm…let’s see…the class C airspace around RIC extends to the surface only as far west as approximately N. 25th St. So from about N. 25th to Libbie you’d be legal flying below 1400′. But since you’d need to stay 1000 feet above the ground, and we are already a couple hundred feet above mean sea level in Richmond, you’d have to keep it between 1400′ MSL and 1200′ MSL – kind of a narrow range. So #6 makes a good point. Must be the State police….

Keith West 09/10/2009 at 5:37 PM

The airspace around RIC isn’t “restricted”- you just have to be talking with a controller to go there, and they’ll let you do most anything you want as long as it doesn’t get in the way of traffic.

Most any practice work would be conducted at higher altitudes at night- and farther away from the class C airspace around the airport.

Whoever was flying around was paying attention to something on the ground. I could be wrong, but I don’t thing Richmond police have any aircraft. The state does. It may have been them.

mwa 09/24/2009 at 2:38 PM

RIC police do have aircraft. Cessna 172 I think is what they have. They have good IR optics and a flood light. They usually patrol / loiter around the city at night helping spot things.

If they were loitering, chances are they were helping a ground team search for something.

Sundagger 09/24/2009 at 4:45 PM

Or it could be aliens, coming to suck our brains out. Of course, it many cases, it would be redundant.

Marshall 03/18/2010 at 7:24 AM

They were circling again last night and kept me awake. They finish their loop right above my house on Glenwood. I’m surprised more people aren’t saying anything about it. I contacted the FAA and called non-emergency, but nothing they can do. I just don’t see why they need to focus on our area, particularly since it is primarily residential. If they want to focus on the Shockoe area, they don’t need to be all the way over here.

crd 03/18/2010 at 10:02 AM

Oddly, a small plane was just circling over the river downtown. When I first saw it, it was circling over the river behind the Fed. Reserve building, roughly over Brown’s Island, then switched to an area just east of there around Riverfront Plaza, flying really low, big lazy circles. Dunno when this post will make it from ‘moderation’ to real time, but when I saw the plane it was just before 10 a.m.

Wayne Gilmore 12/03/2012 at 1:09 PM

This just happened at my house, A small single engine aircraft at 500 ft was doing laps above my house, it stayed there for about 30 mins. The police had no idea what was happening. What I found odd was the constant engine pitch change(reving the engine) Im not near any interstates, not near the airport, and ive never seen an aircraft near my house in 5 years.

TM More 10/09/2014 at 2:00 AM

It’s 1:55am, and I am up thanks to this small plane with three flashing lights circling above my house. I live in the Westover area and it’s been like this for a few nights now. I really want to know what is going on. WHY would a plane be circling at 2 in the morning? Hmm.

Ryan Shaughnessy 12/07/2014 at 3:59 PM

Yea.. ditto to the above comment. I’m in Westover hills area as well.. and its about a month later; but on friday Dec 5th same thing, low plane circling for bout 20min.. idling up and down right by the river. I was wondering.. were they maybe taking a night skyline shot? or is that ridiculous, as it seems a helicopter would be the best bet for that..?? Can only guess it was state police for some reason.. anyone have anything to add to the mystery..? Just odd and slightly annoying..

spacecat 12/07/2014 at 8:13 PM

I bet if you shine a laser at it from your backyard, someone would come over and explain why it’s flying overhead 😉 It was flying around Fulton a couple months ago in the wee hours. Woke me up and kept me up for awhile. Cops? Al Quaeda? Skynet!

Eric S. Huffstutler 12/07/2014 at 10:03 PM

Don’t you find that strange that the police doesn’t have an idea what is going on when it is restricted air space? I do know in years past it was said when these planes fly low circling it is usually looking for fugitives.

CH Animal Lover 12/07/2014 at 10:21 PM

It has woken me from a dead sleep a few times recently. Surely they could do this some other time rather than the middle of the night! Unless it actually is police working on something (not training), 2:00 in the morning is not the right time.

Wayne Gilmore 12/12/2014 at 6:30 PM

This airplane its back. the last year has been horrible. I can not see the plane its self,but pitch change, circling and generally pissing me and others in the neighborhood has become a serious problem. started at 6 pm 12/12/14. I am going to list it every time they(who ever they are) do this.

Nathan Baker 01/02/2015 at 4:37 PM

I’m on the west end and I’ve got a single engine with no police lights doing laps for the last twenty minutes.

anonymous 05/19/2015 at 1:23 AM

I’m sitting here now on the Southside of the city off of Jefferson Davis (should be well clear of the airport and whatever flight tests conducted there) and for the last hour or so I’ve been sitting in my car watching a plane roughly about 1000 ft up circle the neighborhood. It seems to come back around the loop it’s making in about 1-2min intervals. Small engine w/ red & blue flashing lights on opposite ends. It doesn’t seem to be searching for anything as the spot light isn’t lit so I’m kinda wondering what’s up… Read some of the earlier posts and this seems to be an identical case the date is 5/19/2015 and it’s now 1:20AM. The police probably are doing some kind of training and if that was the case of course they’d tell the public they don’t know what it is. Funny thing though I searched “plane circling above” in my phone browser and this was the 1st link that popped up. Somebody knows something!

DON"T TREAD ON ME 06/01/2015 at 8:10 PM

ITS THE FEDS, SHEEPLE http://libertyunyielding.com/2015/05/30/low-flying-federal-surveillance-planes-popping-up-over-more-cities/

Gordo 06/02/2015 at 9:13 AM

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/06/02/fbi-flying-surveillance-aircraft-over-us-cities-planes-traced-to-fake-companies/

crd 06/02/2015 at 10:12 AM

http://www.richmond.com/latest-news/ap/article_0401386c-7849-59b5-9d2e-df5056ea6e04.html

shields 08/26/2015 at 9:52 PM

There is a plane circling jackson ward right now with its spot light on as well. Just doing small circles and slowing making them bigger. No idea what he’s looking for but he keeps the spot light on in the same general area. Doing this for at least the past 20 minutes. Interesting how this keeps happening

STR 10/07/2015 at 5:48 AM

There was some NPR reporting on this a year or so ago–it is a program many cities use. The idea is the prop plane circles the city doing very generic surveillance – looking for things out of the ordinary such as speeding cars, large groups of people or cars, things out of place, etc.
when they spot something odd they increase patrol presence in that area to hopefully prevent crime, or at least speed up response to incidents.

Sdh 11/11/2017 at 9:59 AM

Yes it’s the feds and over here off Midlothian turnpike they do those circles like everyday they are messing with people they consider a political threat I believe

Buckingham Forest 04/26/2018 at 2:01 AM

same thing just happened over my house in Midlothian off of old Buckingham. two o clock in the morning on a Thursday. Although I swear they were circling for a solid hour. I recorded it. the circles were a little less than 2 minutes each.

Kay 07/14/2018 at 1:20 PM

I am in buckingham Va about 45 mins from Chesterfield everyday these planes are doing laps sometimes you can see them sometimes you can’t but you can hear the engine changing its in a circle I can see it behind my neighborhood and circles around it never crosses over my house but its ignoring we all are like it maybe cops since there is only one airport around here and its no reason to do this all day and nights you can see the lights, like dam run out off gas.I havent heard of illegal activity around here and one day I seen the lights but heard nothing we looked through a telespoce from cousin house it was a drone

Jeannie Bohley 08/11/2020 at 10:42 AM

I been watching this seems to be unmarked. Dont see red or blue lights. Pretty low. But got higher adter i got binoculars out….Its been circling my house area for about hlf hr or more. I looked with my binoculars n didnt see any markings. Weird. Its still circling as we speak. Im in roseville mi area. We get alot air yraffic from salfridge but this is like a private small white unmarked plane. Its just circling and circling. Very strange.

Mutter 08/19/2021 at 6:41 PM

It is police airplane been here evenight in lockdonw and now so on flightradr24 look on that so

Will 10/06/2021 at 8:37 AM

Just had this happen. Am in Sydney, Australia. Plane circled my house for about 30 minutes. I checked the Live Plane Site and there were no planes supplied to be in my area. Magically, once I opened that website and discovered the plane wasn’ton the radar, the plane left.

Will 10/06/2021 at 8:38 AM

No planes supposed* to

R. Turner 11/21/2021 at 11:33 PM

Hamilton, Ohio
What appears to be C-130 Hercules’s circle our city every night between the hours of 2:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m.. which to me is the hours that most people are sleeping and aren’t the wiser to what’s going on. They fly at about 3000 ft. This has been going on for about a month now. They fly slow and low. I have a thery on why they doing this but it’s just a thery.

R. Turner 11/26/2021 at 1:27 PM

Let’s pretend for a moment the vaccine shot actually has nanobots in it. With the human body only producing a small amount of electrical current, and these nanobots using that electrical current just somehow transmit. Hypothetically where would they transmit to? The cloud.
Which if I’m not mistaken that would be cell towers and ultimately satellites. Which brings us to our next question to these nanobots have enough electricity to send the signal several miles to the cell tower. Which cell towers are often microwave towers and can be compromised easily with a cell phone by the right people with enough knowledge. Therefore these antibots with a limited amount of electricity can probably only send signal less than a mile. A mile is 5, 280 ft. If this plane is circle in town at approximately 3000 to 5000 ft wouldn’t that put it in the right range for the nanobots to reach. Plus if it’s going to a military aircraft it’s less likely that the signal is being compromised or jammed. Like I said at the beginning let’s just pretend for a moment.

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Why is that plane circling? – CHPN (2024)

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