Major Exercise or National Emergency?

[Bob Kohm]

Likely just some kind of big unnanounced exercise (we usually get notice so as not to start panics), but speaking as someone who lives between the White House, the Andrews AFB flight path and Fort Belvoir and on the Langley AFB-DC flight path, something is up this afternoon. There have been tons of Army & USMC helicopters racing back and forth, flights of obviously armed Apaches circling here south of DC, USAF F-16s & USN/MC F-18s overhead, etc. I've seen this twice-- on 9/11 and to a lesser extent the night the Shock & Awe campaign started. Flights of armed helicopter gunships with Kiowa scout choppers attendant, though, is just weird, only seen that once before a few months back, but figured that was some kind of a photo promo flight. Military copters are a daily, usually hourly, sight around here. This is something else.

Here's for hoping it's a drill.

[joncarlos]

There was a plane hijacked this morning in Amsterdam. Maybe related?

[JudeBaldo]

There was a plane hijacked this morning in Amsterdam. Maybe related?

Looks like a false alarm.

http://news.yahoo.com/dutch-send-f-16-fighters-intercept-schiphol-bound-122814763.html

[Bob Kohm]

I'm guessing it's some sort of major drill, as the President is actually speaking at a rally right now in Charlottesville. Just damned odd.

[Don Quixote]

I'm guessing it's some sort of major drill, as the President is actually speaking at a rally right now in Charlottesville. Just damned odd.

It may just be a drill, it may be in reaction to something we haven't heard about yet, or it could be a photo-op type "I'm TOUGH" deal that just happens to coincide with the Republican convention. I vote for the first one, hope it isn't the second, but don't completely rule out the third.

[Bob Kohm]

It may just be a drill, it may be in reaction to something we haven't heard about yet, or it could be a photo-op type "I'm TOUGH" deal that just happens to coincide with the Republican convention. I vote for the first one, hope it isn't the second, but don't completely rule out the third.

1. Probably. 2. Probably not. 3. Give me a break.

[Hornsby]

I suspect it's a part of this exercise...

US Special Operations Command decided that downtown Minneapolis would be a perfect location for military games involving Black Hawk helicopters and dozens of troops.

Low-flying Black Hawk helicopters conducted military training exercises in downtown Minneapolis Monday night, hovering majestically outside of apartment windows of surprised local residents.

Some Minneapolis residents have taken videos of the Army’s utility helicopters as they passed over bridges, hovered outside their windows and flew over the city.

“Yep, that’s the view outside my window,” said one YouTube user as two of the giant vehicles stopped outside his 28thfloor window for 10 seconds before soaring down Marquette Ave.

The helicopters were on an urban environment training assignment ordered by the US Special Operations Command. The exercises will continue until early September, but the military is refusing to give out exact training locations to prevent crowds from gathering to watch.

http://rt.com/usa/news/black-hawk-downtown-helicopters-766/

[TranaGreg]

sheesh, you'd think that they'd at least inform the citizens of the city in question ... waking up on the 28th floor to find an armed Black Hawk hovering outside my window would be, well, a bit disconcerting.

[Bob Kohm]

Could well be, Horns, although that would be a surprising amount of coordination between USSOC and the other branches TG, they usually do which is why this struck me as so strange, especially after that dumb lowlevel photo op over lower Manhattan a few years back.

[Steve]

sheesh, you'd think that they'd at least inform the citizens of the city in question ... waking up on the 28th floor to find an armed Black Hawk hovering outside my window would be, well, a bit disconcerting.

You Canadians are so jittery.

[Judge Jude]

You Canadians Are So Jittery would be a good name for an American rock band.

[TranaGreg]

You Canadians are so jittery.

hey, you'd be jittery too if Oklahoma had a 28 story building.

[Midnight Otter]

hey, you'd be jittery too if Oklahoma had a 28 story building.

Or buildings at all

[Steve]

You Canadians Are So Jittery would be a good name for an American rock band.

That's a good shtick. Can I borrow it sometime?

[TranaGreg]

That's a good shtick. Can I borrow it sometime?

I think Apple holds the patent on it already.