That's the same thing I thought. Most likely a Search and Rescue operation. I was a P3 Orion flight engineer. That plane did maritime patrol missions at low altitude over the water. We would fly at 200ft for hours doing tracks like that either on a S&R mission or hunting submarines. So maybe they were tracking an enemy sub instead of a S&R mission. Either way it looks normal to me.
Probably standard quals, training new pilots and systems operators, getting in that flight time. Guard Units have to cram a lot of training into short time periods, the Federal government has to pay them when they Drill so training can be intense, they tend to make it a full plate they serve you.
I see Guard Units out over our lake doing much the same thing, they run drills calibrating equipment and honing skillz. Sometimes they have county marine units working with them, the helo will wander off, a small boat will zoom over somewhere and drop a person into the water or a device, then the helo finds them/it, stuff like that. I've seen them training for longer than an hour, making exact patterns and repeating.
I try to load up the Dog and go sit out on the lake in the pontoon and watch them, we are easily amused, the Dog and I.
The local Coast Guard base here has a couple of Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopters, and they very often fly training missions that involve long ovals. Many times, one of the long sides of the oval is above my back yard so I hear them.
They are on the Weather Channel's sea rescue shows more than any other bases, as they cover a substantial portion of the Atlantic coast.
It looks like a search grid
That's the same thing I thought. Most likely a Search and Rescue operation. I was a P3 Orion flight engineer. That plane did maritime patrol missions at low altitude over the water. We would fly at 200ft for hours doing tracks like that either on a S&R mission or hunting submarines. So maybe they were tracking an enemy sub instead of a S&R mission. Either way it looks normal to me.
Must be training for rescue. It's back in the air and doing a similar pattern in southern Mass now.
International waters begins at 12 miles from the shoreline. I have been on missions that tracked submarines within 50 miles of our border before.
Probably standard quals, training new pilots and systems operators, getting in that flight time. Guard Units have to cram a lot of training into short time periods, the Federal government has to pay them when they Drill so training can be intense, they tend to make it a full plate they serve you.
I see Guard Units out over our lake doing much the same thing, they run drills calibrating equipment and honing skillz. Sometimes they have county marine units working with them, the helo will wander off, a small boat will zoom over somewhere and drop a person into the water or a device, then the helo finds them/it, stuff like that. I've seen them training for longer than an hour, making exact patterns and repeating.
I try to load up the Dog and go sit out on the lake in the pontoon and watch them, we are easily amused, the Dog and I.
https://files.catbox.moe/dyn65q.jpg
The local Coast Guard base here has a couple of Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopters, and they very often fly training missions that involve long ovals. Many times, one of the long sides of the oval is above my back yard so I hear them.
They are on the Weather Channel's sea rescue shows more than any other bases, as they cover a substantial portion of the Atlantic coast.
Holding Pattern?