Mystery Plane Over London

[Dai Fledermaus]

Conspiracy theorists will love this!

LINK

[Jon H]

Why not phone the owners and ask them

**LINK**

**LINK**

In any event, I am sure this has been going on for yonks, is just easier for us to spot it now!

[Olly P]

Hardly a mystery plane if it has Registration and can be traced to owner.

There are many reasons for flying a 'racetrack' pattern - these can include surveillance and monitoring, to film shooting, or even tourism and photography - trying to get the right light at the right time!

Olly

[Jon H]

Apparently the met police rent out these planes for...something, no one knows what hence the drama. But if they are doing say, anti terrorism surveillance, they aren't going to shout about it and give the game away. People just ened to stop worrying. There are more CCTV cameras in London than any other city, I cant see why an orbiting plane is a cause for alarm

[Gordon Tarling]

There's also an Islander that flies out of Northolt most days and can often be spotted high over London. It seems to be fairly well known that it's on covert surveillance duties. They're doing their bit to help keep us all safe.

[Mike Etheridge 1]

I am sure I spotted the plane Gordon is referring to at high level a year or two ago at the time when the volcano erupted in Iceland and many aircraft flights were cancelled. I can remember getting out my binoculars to check out the detail of the plane but I could only determine it was twin engined and that it was doing circular sweeps over our local area. I assumed at the time it was taking air samples at high level. It seemed relevant to me at the time as we are on the flight path of aircraft landing at Heathrow. The landing aircraft sweep over our house in South Croydon and then do two right turns to take them over Catford eventually and then I assume over Richmond and on to Heathrow. As we on top of a hill on a clear day from our front bedroom window and with the aid of binoculars you can see the landing planes on their final approaches.

[Daithi O Buitigh]

Where I have to quietly snigger is the claim that the aircraft have 'no callsigns'. They do - the reg letters are the callsign. The original article writer apparently doesn't know that it's only commercial flights that have an alphanumeric 'flight number' that identifies the airline and the route

The local cops (PSNI) here have a twin as well and that's used in a random pattern watching traffic these days. It was never really used for covert surveillance as the army choppers did that .

Just as an aside, the original intention when they restructured toe local fuzz was to call them the 'Northern Ireland Police Service'. Eventually (after about a month) the penny finally dropped that calling them 'NIPS' wasn't a very bright idea

[Codename-John]

So all the Data they glean from your mobile and home phones, GPS, internet activity, computer files, cctv, face recognition, banking details, store cards, "Smart" meters, RFID etc isn't enough to keep an eye you anymore, they have to rely on a couple of light aircraft circling overhead and that's magicly going to keep everybody safe ?

LOL

[Pete B]

I know I'd rather 'they' had my bank details than Billy Burglar...

Pete

[Codename-John]

Posted by Pete B - Moderator on 25/07/2014 22:31:29:

I know I'd rather 'they' had my bank details than Billy Burglar...

Pete

You think a Cessna would stop anybody else getting it ?

[cymaz]

 

 

Here it is

Picture here

Edited By cymaz on 26/07/2014 07:22:11

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Martin Whybrow]

Love the quote in the original article:

'So what's the point of these planes? Apparently -- at least this is the widespread theory, and we can't definitely confirm it - the plane is used for surveillance, or more specifically to intercept mobile phone conversations and intercept calls.'

Why do you need a plane to do that? Oh, and intercepting phone calls in nigh-on impossible because the digital data is encrypted.

[John Privett]

Another example of callsigns is that for the Epsom Derby all helicopters operating in and out of the (temporary) heli strip (the rest of the year it's our club strip!) are issued "Jockey" callsigns - so "Jockey01", Jockey33" etc. For some reason the callsign is usually displayed on the heli too.

Here's one from last year;

And one from this year;

Of course (away from the Derby!) a lot of aircraft will not have a callsign as such, but will use their registration when talking to ATC. For example the fist heli above would identify itself initially as "Golf Bravo Papa Whisky India". As long as there wasn't another "G-**WI" being handled at the same time this would then be shortened to "Golf Whisky India".

Edited By John Privett on 26/07/2014 09:43:55

[Codename-John]

Posted by Martin Whybrow on 26/07/2014 09:30:10:

Love the quote in the original article:

'So what's the point of these planes? Apparently -- at least this is the widespread theory, and we can't definitely confirm it - the plane is used for surveillance, or more specifically to intercept mobile phone conversations and intercept calls.'

Why do you need a plane to do that? Oh, and intercepting phone calls in nigh-on impossible because the digital data is encrypted.

From what`s already happening and the drip law pushed through parliament last week, service providers must record details of who you phoned / contacted / website you visited etc, when, for how long and in the case of text messages, emails etc, the content of the message and save it for 12 months.

If the nsa / gchq etc can remotely turn on your microphone on your mobile phone even while it is switched off, it matters not if the data is encrypted while being sent, they can listen to you saying it and record it live

[C Norton]

Just because mobile phone data is encrypted it doesn't mean it can't be un-encrypted otherwise none of us could ever use our phones! The aircraft in question usually operate at a higher category than normal commercial flights, normally telling ATC in advance of their intentions and having this facilitated with no questions asked or positional information disussed over the R/T.

The reason they show no callsign is that Flight Radar relies on the Mode S element of an aircraft's transponder to provide indentity and in these cases it is disabled, though I'm not sure how that helps their anonymity!

Edited By C Norton on 26/07/2014 10:53:37

[C Norton]

Or even identity.....

[cymaz]

I don't mind how many times Police planes fly over head. We are not aware about what surveillance goes on to stop a terrorist action. If nothing happens then the powers that be are doing a good job.

Keep it up chaps.

[John Miller 4]

The Islander's yes there are two of them operating out of Northolt, I think you will find, are used for training purposes. I am afraid I am unable to see what all the fuss is about. It seems that it is 'someone is not telling me something so I need to know' If it is the Boys in Blue let them get on with it, but we are no means certain that it is them are we?

[Codename-John]

I wonder what how you would react if say you were sitting on a train reading a text that someone had sent you, only to notice that the person behind you was leaning over reading it too, or if some stranger just casually picked up your phone from the table and started browsing through it, reading all your messages, checking who you had spoken to, who your friends were, looking at pictures of your wife, kids, grand kids etc ? yet you don't mind about anybody sitting in an unidentified office doing it remotely. All in the name of keeping you safe from the latest boogeyman, I wonder if people used to think of the Gestapo in the same way ?

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

I don't think that is a particularly reasonable comparison CJ. No I would not like someone to lean over and read my texts or to "casually pick up my phone". But that's not the point, the people who are making intercepts (and let's accept for the sake of argument that they are) are not just "some stranger" or just "casually looking" into our affairs. They are people charged with the task of keeping us safe in a pretty damn dangerous and hostile world. You may refer to "bogeymen" but I firmly believe that there are some evil-minded nutters out there in the big wide world who frankly wouldn't bat an eyelid at killing the likes of you or me given the slightest opportunity to do so, and are so fanatical that they would do it even if it encompassed their own death. It's very hard to combat such people. They may be relatively small in number, but their determination and irrational passion is such that they pose a threat out of all proportion to their size.

As a society I believe this leaves us in a very difficult position. We can have absolute privacy - in which case these madmen can plan and execute whatever they want in complete security. I believe we would pay a very high price indeed for such a degree of privacy.

Or, we can let the "secret squirrels" completely off the leash, allowing them to do whatever they feel best to combat the threat. The problem now is that such a level of intrusion into our private lives would probably be intolerable for most of us. The total surveillance level would destroy the very things we value so much in a free society.

So, what do we do? I believe we choose a sensible middle ground. We, as a society via our elected representatives in parliament, make the assessment of the security risk versus the level of intrusion. We allow the police and other agencies more power to intrude into our everyday lives than we might feel is ideal, in return for an acceptable degree of security. Its a trade off - liberty for security.

Whilst the agencies are being reasonably effective - which in the light of a number of recent court cases and successful prosecutions would seem to be the case - and the level of intrusion is acceptable to the majority, then all is well. However, I feel we have to recognise two worrying facts;

1. This balance can't deliver "total security" - sadly eventually the madmen will slip one passed the agencies. And as we are not, in general, prepared to accept the total surveillance regime that would be necessary for 100% security we just have to learn to bear the cost from time-to-time.

2. As the nutters get smarter - and possibly get more technological resources from hostile powers - the level of surveillance may have to increase to keep the threat level constant. Are we prepared to accept this?

BEB

[Codename-John]

The thing is BEB, people entrusted with these things are not always trustworthy enough are they, and who monitors the monitors ? How many Police officers whom you are meant to trust get suspended, sacked or even prosecuted for corruption / abuse of power etc every year, even a quick google brings up more than you would think I expect.

Most of you seem very prepared to accept it, the "im not bothered, ive got nothing to hide" brigade are just sleep walking into a total surveillance state, you only have to look at the direction its gone in the last few years to see where its going, you cant walk down a street without being filmed from every direction, one ive been hearing lots about lately is GPS Black boxes in every car to monitor your driving and movements is on the horizon, it starts off as "have one for your own benefit and we might give you a discount of your insurance" then after this trial to make sure the technology works, it gets rolled out to everybody like it or not, refuse to have one and you'll be refused Insurance, we all know how they like to milk the cash cow motorists

[John Olsen 1]

If these planes were over my city (Auckland NZ) I would assume they were using infrared cameras to look for marijuana plots, but I guess that is unlikely in central London. I gather that weed stands out in infrared compared to other crops. If it is being grown indoors then the lights need a lot of power so the building tends to stand out, unless of course there is a deep basement.

I don't think it is very likely that they are monitoring cell phones, there are much easier ways to do that. You need the cooperation of the cell phone company, but a government agency would have that or be able to get it. The company that I used to work for did have a strict policy that they would not do any tracing for anyone without a warrant, but that would be easy enough for the police or any three letter agency to get if they wanted it. Quite common to need to try to track the movements of a phone for someone who has gone missing for instance. Obviously these sort of powers can be abused, and not just by the authorities. Back in the day there was a Post Office telephone exchange worker who managed to get himself sacked for tapping the phone of his ex-wife.

I wonder if what they are actually doing is taking air quality measurements? Or maybe monitoring traffic? (Makes me think of Jane in the "Coupling" TV series.) It will be something for which flying is worth the cost, since as we all know it is not a cheap thing to do, especially over a place like London.

John

[C Norton]

John, believe me, the way that the air traffic controllers are required to handle these flights and the many problems the flights cause, I can assure you that they are not doing anything as mundane as traffic monitoring or air quality measurements! And beyond that I'm saying nowt else....

[Dai Fledermaus]

Posted by Codename-John on 27/07/2014 16:16:10:

I wonder what how you would react if say you were sitting on a train reading a text that someone had sent you, only to notice that the person behind you was leaning over reading it too, or if some stranger just casually picked up your phone from the table and started browsing through it, reading all your messages, checking who you had spoken to, who your friends were, looking at pictures of your wife, kids, grand kids etc ? yet you don't mind about anybody sitting in an unidentified office doing it remotely. All in the name of keeping you safe from the latest boogeyman, I wonder if people used to think of the Gestapo in the same way ?

 

 

 

I'm safe from the boogeyman then C-J, he'll not get me. Why? Well, I have a mobile, but I hardly ever use it. I have no idea what the number is, which does cause some embarrassment whenever I'm asked for it, but the fact is that I just don't seem to need it. Most of the time when, I leave the house, I simply forget to take it with me.

SWIMBO, on the other hand, takes her phone everywhere, at home she takes it with her from room to room, she even takes it to bed " oh someone might call during the night" is her logic despite us having a landline. It's not unusual for us to turn the car around after a mile or two of a local trip, shopping perhaps, and go back home because she has forgotten her phone. Now, with her new android phone and `all you can eat data` whatever that means the spys in the skys will be working overtime over our house.

 

Edited By Colin Ashman on 28/07/2014 08:14:00