427 SOAS CH-146 night Ops.
Monitoring from Belle Isle.
LION 498 & 462 (427 SOAS CH-146 Bell 412‘s)
124.700 Windsor twr, LION 498 + 1, Squawk 4701, 10:11pm. LION 498 + 1, north bound departure approved, 10:12pm.
Then the Detroit PD came around & chased everyone off the Island because it closes around 10pm. I did not know that. It turned out to be a good thing because I went & parked behind Cobo Hall (Air Conditioned) in Downtown Detroit, & was able to watch the Helo’s approach & depart the Chrysler Building in Downtown Windsor right across the Detroit River. It was really something to see. The wind was mostly out of the north, so they did most of their final approaches from the west & south west. A few times they would fly in front of the Winsor Casino over the river heading west bound, & then pull up & make a hard left turn after passing the Chrysler Building then hover over the Chrysler Building. I’m glad I went down there to watch them do this exercise.
The first exercise was 2 Helo’s (498 & 462) in formation approaching the Chrysler Building with no lights. The lead helo would hover over the building while # 2 was further back & behind him. While the lead was hovering for a little bit, # 2 would go around # 1 & head east up the Detroit River then # 1 would follow. Now # 2 is in the lead, & # 1 is 2nd. They repeated this multiple times. The second exercise was just 1 helo doing multiple approaches to the Chrysler Building. I didn’t know that both Helo’s left & a third helo showed up until he left and called Winsor tower to report that he was inbound to land as LION 488, 11:47pm. As soon as he landed the Dynamic Duo (LION 498 & 462) came out to play, 11:50pm. They split up & did separate approaches to the building, & I’m thinking they have to be talking to each other. So I sat down in the car & put the PRO-97, & PRO-2055 in signal stalker mode on UHF air only. Finally the 2055 got a hit first on 383.700, 11:54pm. Yeah!! It was more like Boo when I realized it was totally Encrypted (Green Comms suck). I’m not to surprised being that they’re a Special Ops Group. They joined up & did formation approaches again, with no radio chatter on 383.700, 12:12am.
124.700 Windsor twr, inbound to Windsor @ 12:30pm. Landing Apron 1, LION 498 + 1. Landed 12:34am. Wish I had a video camera to record what I saw. Most of the approaches they did were below the tops of the buildings in Downtown Windsor, then they would pull up over the Chrysler Building & hover. I’m sure a lot of people were not happy in Downtown Windsor with all the noise they were making. I was across the Detroit River & it was pretty loud sometimes.
When the CH-146’s had their lights on this was the pattern. 2 Green lights on the right side 1 high, & 1 low. 2 Red lights on the left side, 1 high, & 1 low. 2 White lights on the tail right next to each other. When the lights were on they were on, no blinking. They didn’t start blinking until they headed back to the airport.
