Acadia
Well-Known Member
I remotely witnessed an odd flight early this morning and I can’t for the life of me figure out what was going on.
I live approximately 8nm SSW of BHB. To my west about 2.5nm is the approach path of a GPS or LOC BC to runway 04 and I am used to hearing traffic on final out in that direction. In VFR conditions it is not uncommon for traffic arriving from the SW to come almost overhead to join the traffic pattern for other runways. The only hindrance is that I have a large area of national parkland directly east (a tenth of a mile away) and that includes a 1000’ foot elevation within about a mile. Accordingly VFR traffic close to my location tends to be fairly high because of the mountain as well as the 2000’ regulation over the park (IFR traffic is never vectored on this side of the approach at lower altitudes). Late night flight operations to and from BHB or around this area in general are almost non-existent
Just after 3:00am EST a fairly low and loud aircraft that sounded like it was inbound for BHB came over my house (it was loud enough to launch me out of my sleep and that is tough to do). It had been pretty rainy and at best MVFR earlier in the evening so I was very surprised to hear a low aircraft over my location. I called the AWOS number and the airport had 900 OVC with 4SM visibility. Winds were pretty strong out of the northeast so I expected an aircraft inbound would be using an instrument approach to 04. At that point it sounded like this aircraft was way off course. A few minutes later I was very surprised to hear the aircraft back to my west heading back south and I kept hearing the engine in the distance in that direction.
I was intrigued enough to boot up my laptop while sitting in bed and check the weather around the area beyond BHB. At best it was MVFR to the north and many coastal areas were IFR (some low). I then tried flightaware.com and sure enough it showed a 210 in my area at 1500’ and nowhere near an approach. It was also in a location where a normal IFR flight would never be vectored and probably too low for approach to even see at that location. I spent the next hour watching the flightaware updates and the very strange flight path of this 210. It seemed to be making large overlapping circles and was working its way northwest. When I made my last check it was up at 3000’ and it was about 30nm NW of me still doing the same thing. The whole time I was also scanning approach and marine frequencies and all was quiet. I could find no departure or destination airport associated with this tail number on flightaware.
So what might this aircraft have been doing at 3am? The tail number showed the aircraft registered to some kind of engineering firm in PA. There are no power lines, pipelines, or other infrastructure in this area that is inspected by air and given the weather and darkness nothing could be inspected anyway. They were moving inland so that seemed to eliminate the possibility that the aircraft was involved in some kind of SAR operation. I can’t imagine any useful government or law enforcement operation in this area in particular since the aircraft was probably in the clouds. The only thoughts I had were could it be some kind of science related operation or training for a similar type operation?
I am stumped.
I live approximately 8nm SSW of BHB. To my west about 2.5nm is the approach path of a GPS or LOC BC to runway 04 and I am used to hearing traffic on final out in that direction. In VFR conditions it is not uncommon for traffic arriving from the SW to come almost overhead to join the traffic pattern for other runways. The only hindrance is that I have a large area of national parkland directly east (a tenth of a mile away) and that includes a 1000’ foot elevation within about a mile. Accordingly VFR traffic close to my location tends to be fairly high because of the mountain as well as the 2000’ regulation over the park (IFR traffic is never vectored on this side of the approach at lower altitudes). Late night flight operations to and from BHB or around this area in general are almost non-existent
Just after 3:00am EST a fairly low and loud aircraft that sounded like it was inbound for BHB came over my house (it was loud enough to launch me out of my sleep and that is tough to do). It had been pretty rainy and at best MVFR earlier in the evening so I was very surprised to hear a low aircraft over my location. I called the AWOS number and the airport had 900 OVC with 4SM visibility. Winds were pretty strong out of the northeast so I expected an aircraft inbound would be using an instrument approach to 04. At that point it sounded like this aircraft was way off course. A few minutes later I was very surprised to hear the aircraft back to my west heading back south and I kept hearing the engine in the distance in that direction.
I was intrigued enough to boot up my laptop while sitting in bed and check the weather around the area beyond BHB. At best it was MVFR to the north and many coastal areas were IFR (some low). I then tried flightaware.com and sure enough it showed a 210 in my area at 1500’ and nowhere near an approach. It was also in a location where a normal IFR flight would never be vectored and probably too low for approach to even see at that location. I spent the next hour watching the flightaware updates and the very strange flight path of this 210. It seemed to be making large overlapping circles and was working its way northwest. When I made my last check it was up at 3000’ and it was about 30nm NW of me still doing the same thing. The whole time I was also scanning approach and marine frequencies and all was quiet. I could find no departure or destination airport associated with this tail number on flightaware.
So what might this aircraft have been doing at 3am? The tail number showed the aircraft registered to some kind of engineering firm in PA. There are no power lines, pipelines, or other infrastructure in this area that is inspected by air and given the weather and darkness nothing could be inspected anyway. They were moving inland so that seemed to eliminate the possibility that the aircraft was involved in some kind of SAR operation. I can’t imagine any useful government or law enforcement operation in this area in particular since the aircraft was probably in the clouds. The only thoughts I had were could it be some kind of science related operation or training for a similar type operation?
I am stumped.
