Go look for yourself.
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/
It’s 9pm eastern. Normally at this time on a weekday, there’s relatively light traffic. Yesterday and today, it’s been double, triple or more. It started yesterday. I see a pattern. There are sentry helicopter pairs flying randomly around many major east coast bases and waterways. Many many more helicopters up right now than the last year. It’s fucking hectic out there right now. And it shouldn’t be. Pretty sure there’s a carrier down off Florida. I tracked mail birds leaving and then disappearing off shore. Only one place they could be going.
Something has changed with the start of Durham trial. I check this website several times a day since 2019. Every day. I am ex military as well, I know when something is unusual. This is unusual. Very.
We have entered a new phase of whatever is happening. This is a fucking shitload of aircfraft and helos at 2100 on a Wednesday.
Fiscal year started up, they have money for stuff.
That’s a load of crap. The only units that run out of money are the ones that don’t matter. In my entire career not a single time did we have to wait until October to do something.
And this isn’t training sorties. It’s not a bunch of flight students in training aircraft. You can tell by looking at them. I’m seeing intel birds and sentry duty helicopters just loitering. No touch and goes for landing practice. No training aircraft. I don’t buy the money excuse.
How many people are in an intel bird? Think they train? You're free to your opinion. Monkeyworks mentioned this possibility, so I'm not making it up. I don't run the schedule for these so it's all speculation.