Noisy helicopters during the night!

[Azul]

How can I feed and sun tan my plants and still be eco-friendly ?

[Clinker]

Hahahaha... I was going to start a thread about them myself! I was woken up also, I wonder what they were looking for and I think there may have been more than one...

[LibraCarr]

Hi,

Just to advise that the helicopter was deployed to follow a suspect car/person last night in the East Dulwich area, having exited the Peckham area and a lack of response cars available the chopper was utilised.

Thermal imaging facilities were used only to track the suspect.

Regards,

Libra Carr.

[Clinker]

LibraCarr Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hi,

>

> Just to advise that the helicopter was deployed to

> follow a suspect car/person last night in the East

> Dulwich area, having exited the Peckham area and a

> lack of response cars available the chopper was

> utilised.

>

> Thermal imaging facilities were used only to track

> the suspect.

> Regards,

> Libra Carr.

Wowzah! Did they catch 'im?

[LibraCarr]

Hi again,

I would imagine so as when the chopper is scrambled it feeds the direction/location of the culprit to ground based vehicles.Given the overall cost of the helicopter, they do not launch it unless needed.

Regards,

Libra Carr.

[MadWorld74]

it was bloody noisy.The sirens didn't stop wailing until after 1.30am.

[Lizziedjango]

Which sirens? I heard the helicopter again last night....seems to be a fairly regular occurence. At night.

[MadWorld74]

Saturday night south of Underhill Road, there were sirens gallore and a chopper. No one else round there hear it. Really bad.

[jimbo1964]

I did. It woke us all up. My toddler son is obsessed with helicopters so he got very excited and wanted to look out the window. All very annoying. I suppose they have to chase the miscreants but annoying they wake up a whole neighbourhood in the process. Not forgetting we also have the FHT to contend with.

[Hayward]

There was a helicopter hovering right over my house - barely a couple of hundred feet up - last night from about 23:00 until about 02:30. Didn't get a wink of sleep.

What on earth could it be doing - and where can I complain? Aren't there supposed to be air-space regulations about this sort of thing?

[zephyr]

Police helicopters - you can complain but not sure it will make any difference. Have seen them using their spotlight occasionally - very bright!

[Hayward]

It's the principle of the thing!

At the very least, I'd like to know the nature of the exercise - I do consider this to be a somewhat extreme measure, there must hundreds if not thousands more people in such a densely populated area whose sleep was also disturbed.

[jumpinjackflash]

Hayward - are you also known 'JRussel'?

[Hayward]

Sorry, 'fraid not.

[jumpinjackflash]

ok

[zephyr]

they are looking for baddies at night using their infrared camera. It is not that often and I would guess that they would only use the helicopter over densely populated areas if the person was very very naughty.

If you write be sure to post here what the reply was

[bigbadwolf]

Helicopters are noisy, would you prefer them to politely turn their engines off whilst flying over east Dulwich! I think they're awesome and when one hovers over my building it reinforces the dream that I may one day unexpectedly meet Bruce Willis.

[Amelie]

You could try the Civil Aviation Authority, the Metropolitan Police Authority, and the Borough Commander but I doubt if you will get anywhere.

[Hayward]

Well I got this back yesterday afternoon.

Dear Mr Griffin,

Thank you for your recent e-mail to The Metropolitan Police Service. You raised a question regarding an unknown helicopter being in the are of your home last night.

I can confirm that one of our Air Support Units was in the vicinity twice last night at different times, carrying out different jobs on these separate occasions, both of which were related to criminal activity.

The MPS never deploys its Air Support Unit without good reason, and it is a valuable tool in the tracking and apprehension of those involved in criminal activity, it also aids our colleagues on the ground with ensuring safety for those involved is maximised with a birds eye view of the area.

Yours sincerely

...which is fair enough. Clearly they oughtn't to tell me about currently ongoing investigations etc., but I just hope it was tracking physically dangerous people, rather than thermaling people's attics - although I can't, of course, expect the Police to agree with me on that one!

To my great relief there was no repeat last night (not until I was already fast asleep with earplugs in).

And now for my next windmill - Southern 'Trains'...