Bloody helicopters

[Wednesdayite]

Has anyone had their sleep disrupted by incessant police helicopters above Brixton?

[Mrs Magpie]

My sleep is broken far more often by stolen cars, vans and mopeds being raced around on a circuit through my estate. I am very occasionally woken by helicopters. I'm woken by helicopters perhaps 4 or 5 times a year, and sometimes that will be the air ambulance but the nicked vehicles maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Sadly nicked vehicles and helicopters have never been heard together....

[RushcroftRoader]

I actually like the sound of helicopters when I am trying to sleep. It's the same with rain and thunder.

[newbie]

I don't often hear them after I've gone to sleep, IYSWIM- after about midnight. Before that they're very regular and can be very irritating, 'specially in the summer when the windows are all open.

[Mrs Magpie]

Helicopters used to be a far more regular feature over my estate about 3 or 4 years ago...what used to really do me in was powerful searchlights coming in through the bedroom window.....the little boy next door had a phobia of helicopters so I'd get his hysterical screaming and his poor mum trying to soothe him...I think he's grown out of his helicopter fear now....

[DJWrongspeed]

I get really annoyed by helicopters, I don't think the balance between helicopter benefitting the police vs noise nuisance is right?

As for car alarms, don't get me started, i was working from home yesterday, the alarms seemed to go on for ages. I think they should be banned.

[Mrs Magpie]

As for car alarms, don't get me started.
Tell me about it :rolleyes:
There was one round here that went off with monotonous regularity at night...it was like a compendium of every car alarm sound ever invented....it was only when notes were left under the windscreen wipers by various tenants that it stopped (I know this because I left a note only to discover four other notes had got there before mine).

[passenger]

i was told there looking for heat difference in the roof tops to detect

weather people are growing stuff, in there atics, gardens etc ?

[Mrs Magpie]

This myth has been disproved....there's a thread somewhere I think....anyway, cannabis farms are usually detected by the strong smell or the fire service when the roof catches fire.....

[hendo]

It's no myth, inasmuch as an officer from NCIS once told me they have done helicopter sweeps in the past with heat sensitive cameras looking for farms in people's attics. I don't know if the Met's two choppers are set up to do it though.

[Mrs Magpie]

Well they have infra-red as standard I believe, because that's how they catch people hiding in bushes, wheelie bins etc.....I'm sure that someone (DB? Brian? agricola? PBP?) said it wasn't something they did.

[detective-boy]

Well they have infra-red as standard I believe, because that's how they catch people hiding in bushes, wheelie bins etc.....I'm sure that someone (DB? Brian? agricola? PBP?) said it wasn't something they did.
I've never been aware of them doing it as a proactive operation. Although there have been a number of instances where they have noticed a particularly hot roof and it has turned out to be a factory, all the ones I have known (a colleague in the same office as me dealt with one) have been found by chance whilst doing something else.

That said, there is no reason why they couldn't scan with the IR camera if they felt like it and pass the intelligence to other units to invetsigate further (a hot roof on it's own would not be sufficient for a search warrant). I can't see them ever actually going up simply for that purpose though - they always have a long list of jobs to do.

[Mrs Magpie]

Well some sort of notice is being taken about Joe & Josephine Public's pissed-offness about too many helicopters

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6053224.stm

[Roadkill]

Well they have infra-red as standard I believe, because that's how they catch people hiding in bushes, wheelie bins etc.....I'm sure that someone (DB? Brian? agricola? PBP?) said it wasn't something they did.

As far as I remember, that was Eddie E. Wasn't he a former head of the drugs squad, or something? Certainly a retired copper with a fair old knowledge of drugs issues, anyway, and a really interesting poster. Shame he doesn't post any more.

IIRC he said something about the usual way of growhouses being detected was either snow melting very quickly on the roofs, the smell, or the owners being indiscreet. I'm sure he said that helicopters weren't used proactively, anyway.