Planefags alert! We are starting a chopper exercise starting in the Eastern Time Zone then progressing westward as night falls.
A list of US Civilian Helicopters is under development. This is to help distinguish EMS choppers from law enforcement, private transport, and other purposes. The .CSV file can be imported into a spreadsheet and then you can sort by Registration No., Purpose (EMS), Location…
US Civilian Helicopters → https://pastebin.com/ehFFXcs1
The purpose of this nightly exercise is to capture evidence of some actual arrests/extractions.
Direction from squad leader Red Arrow earlier today:
What does an extraction look like?
First off, it will most likely occur after dark.
Definite proof will be a medical helo with a TRP callsign State Trooper chopper in formation, with a Blackhawk at a discreet distance in trail. If that formation heads to a military installation, then Bingo!
(This also works with exec jets in pairs, one with a call sign, one with no cal sign in close formation headed somewhere close to a military base, such as Manassas Field, near Washington.) Regional airfields are easier to keep sterile when moving targets and they don't attract as much traffic as international airports.
Last Christmas, when New orleans got blacked out, I counted a dozen and more Medevacs headed towards NO but they didn't land there, they landed at John. L. Stennis airfield nearby (actually the NASA Museum). If there was an emergency at NO, surely they would have gone directly to Louis Armstrong International.
It's all about patterns of behaviour. You've been watching Medevacs and Police for a while and there haven't been many State Trooper flights recently. That may be about to change.
Please feel free to ask questions.
Recon7, over.