By adamg on Tue., 5/6/2014 - 5:20 pm 
Somebody piloted this Cessna in repeated circles around Roslindale and Hyde Park this afternoon. AlertNewEngland reports:
Some Google detective work shows it's probably fed law enforcement.
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Comments
How low was it? Maybe this
By anon
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 6:03pm
How low was it? Maybe this is law enforcements way of bypassing the recent law that prevents helicopters from flying too close to the ground over residential areas in order to find signs of marijuana cultivation.
If you knew anything about
By anon
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 7:15pm
If you knew anything about cultivating or busting growers you would know that would be a huge waste of time.
Sorry, I don't grow weed or
By anon
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 4:23am
Sorry, I don't grow weed or work for the dea. I was just trying to think of an idea as to why a law enforcement agency might need prolonged surveillance in roslindale.
I'm no good at judging height
By adamg
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 7:44pm
It was low enough to be noticeable inside even with closed windows, but high enough that it really wasn't intolerable, unless you fixated on it and kept following it.
Heard a helicopter over West Roxbury the other night
By anon
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 6:21pm
flying extremely low. Use to also always hear them flying very low over the Truman Parkway area of Hyde Park, always very early in the AM, around 2.
Two thoughts come to mind:
By Hyde_Parker
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 4:37pm
Two thoughts come to mind: state-police night-flying drills (guessing) or perhaps you heard a medical helicopter flying up to one of the hospitals. I think they use the train tracks for visual navigation.
There looking for
By anon
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 6:51pm
You, or another illegal Haitian radio station.
It may be FEMA developing
By anon
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 7:14pm
It may be FEMA developing floodplain maps... they can and conduct these flights either at night or during the day.
From the FEMA website....
This Appendix presents the guidelines and specifications that must be used for the application of Airborne LIght Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) systems for gathering the data necessary to create digital elevation models (DEMs) for hydraulic modeling of floodplains, digital terrain maps, and other National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) products.
What google detective work?
By anon
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 7:23pm
What google detective work? You just linked to somebody's twitter that said that. Kinda like that incident that said racism was trending last week after the hockey game.
OK ...
By adamg
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 7:41pm
The Google detective work was following one particular link from results on Googling the airplane serial number to a page that showed the company to which the plane is registered once bought a helicopter from the DEA. I admit I linked to that particular tweet partly because of that and partly because, well, the guy in question is kind of the go-to guy locally for helicopter info, which is good for me because ever since the Marathon bombings, I now frequently get asked on Twitter "Why is there a helicopter over [place]?" and nine times out of ten, I have no clue, but he often does.
You can look up the tail
By Hyde_Parker
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 4:40pm
You can look up the tail number and see to whom the plane is registered, right? I write this as a question, because I've never done it.
Same with helicopters, I suppose. If you can't see the tail number (because it's too dark, for example,) you can bring it up on Flight Aware (or some other radar website) and click on the icon to show you the information.
Yep; likely a FBI long duration surveillance or intercept plane
By kernelPanic
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 7:28pm
Same report last year about a plane like this circling over Quincy.
I can't find recent articles about it but this 2006 era wired article talks about how small prop planes are being used as platforms for long-duration, low-and-slow surveillance flights in the US: http://www.wired.com/2006/06/mystery_planes_/
The basic idea is that the planes can fly for hours and are slow and low enough to get incredible imagery - it's also likely that the planes carry an airborne version of the Stingray fake cell phone tower simulator that is used to intercept and provide better tracking granularity on mobile phones.
The key data points would be to ask witnesses:
1. Did the plane always circle in the same rotational direction (camera pods are on one side of the plane so they generally have to fly the same sort of circle or figure eight pattern)
2. Anyone notice any new wifi stations or sudden increase in bars or signal strength on their phones?
Same pattern
By adamg
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 7:42pm
A largeish circle or oval that seemed to hit the edge of Roslindale Square to the north, maybe Washington Street to the west, somewhere over Hyde Park to the south and east of Hyde Park Avenue to the east. Over and over again.
interesting
By kernelPanic
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 7:51pm
The circular station keeping is interesting and makes me think fed level law enforcement even more. The commercial LIDAR and imagery flights would not fly the same path over and over again - they are expensive to run and often carry expensive sensors leased just for the job so they want to cover as much land as possible.
Someone wanted their cameras or fake cell phone tower over a particular part of town for a reason. Will be interesting to see if anything comes from this in the coming days/weeks/months
Surveying
By BlackKat
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 8:37pm
It was sent to count the playgrounds in Roslindale.
Comment of the day.
By Hyde_Parker
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 4:42pm
Comment of the day.
Different tail number than Quincy, but FBI has 90 planes
By O-FISH-L
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 8:06pm
https://privacysos.org/node/1058. Interestingly, the Quincy plane also appeared around early May last year.
A bit off topic, but have you
By brianjdamico
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 9:29pm
A bit off topic, but have you seen the released report on FBI Aviation online, I think it was from a few years ago, maybe a congressional report. The redactions in it are lovely 'the agency has [redacted] pilots, fly [redacted number] of the following aircraft: [redacted] [redacted] [redacted], etc. A nice 80? pages of no useful info on the unit to anyone who wants to know anything about the unit.
I seriously love this blog
By cubiclegirl
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 9:25pm
This is all.
the same one?
By ridgerunnr
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 6:13am
just wondering, was it this same plane that was circling Roslindale last Fall?
http://www.universalhub.com/2013/it-probably-beats...
Different plane, different owner
By adamg
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 6:40am
The serial number is in the comments there.
Federal survey.
By Pete Nice
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 6:29am
On the inequality of playgrounds in Boston.
Ha!
By BostonUrbEx
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 8:17am
:)
You sure
By bulgingbuick
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 8:40am
it wasn't part of the Amber Alert for the missing tiny library?
Someone already made that
By anon
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 8:59am
Someone already made that joke last night.
You Shecky the
By bulgingbuick
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 9:59am
joke cop?
This is
By bulgingbuick
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 8:38am
a distressing development for the tinfoil hat crowd. Black helicopters, black helicopters now they've got to look for generic Cessna's?
Where's this freakin' guy gonna land?
By anon
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 9:18am
On the fairway?