I recently had the experience of having a helicopter circling round and round over our neighborhood, and kind of freaking people out. And by recently I mean early Sunday morning. And by kind of freaking people out I mean I had neighbors reaching out to me saying they were locking themself inside their house (was someone looking for a fugitive?) and posting on Nextdoor in a tizzy wondering what was going on.

Because it went on for nearly two hours.

Buzzing our neighborhood.

Circling over our houses.

On an early Sunday morning

RUDE!

So I set out to figure out who was doing it, and why.

First I called our local city police non-emergency line, to see whether they had any idea what was going on, or at least whether they could tell me who to call. They had no idea, and transferred me the country sheriff.

The country sheriff also had no idea what was going on, and told me to call the local FAA office out of Denver.

Of course, have I mentioned that it was SUNDAY? So of course nobody answered at the FAA.

Now I was getting frustrated and started thinking further outside the box.

It occurred to me that there are places that offer helicopter tours out here, maybe it was one of their tours, although what would be so special about our neighborhood that would warrant extended circling to get a closer look was beyond me. Still, we do have the Celestial Seasons plant nearby (I highly recommend the free tour, the mint room is amazing!); and we have a fantastic view of the foothills known as the Flat Irons. Anyways, it was all I could think of, so I called one of the tour companies.

And surprisingly, someone answered! Like, a real live person – on a Sunday!

I explained what was going on and he immediately said “We don’t have any ships in the air right now, but let me see what I can see.”

This told me two things: 1. These guys have a way to check on all air traffic in the area, and 2. They refer to helicopters as “ships”.

Within moments he said “Oh, yeah, I see your guy.”

And I said, “What are you looking at? Is it publicly accessible? Like could I access it??”

And he said, “Sure! It’s a public database, it’s at globe.adsbexchange.com.”

And then I said, “Ohmygod that is so cool! LOOK at all the planes and helicopters!” (I did get a chance to use my newly acquired lingo of “ships”, but more on that in a minute.)

Look at all the pretty colors!

Then he said “See your guy right there right over your neighborhood? Click on him.”

So I clicked on the helicopter icon, and it brought up his flight path (proof that it was the right one and of what he was doing), along with a ton of other information, including the registration number (known as the ‘tail number’, because it’s on, you know, their tail) which is what you need to find out who owns the darned thing and call them to complaint.

And I said “Ohmygod!!! THANK YOU!!”

He was really cool, but I’m not going to name him or his company because I don’t want to get him into hot water with his helicopter colleagues.

At that point is was simply a matter of plugging the tail number into Google along with the word “helicopter” and it led me right to the company to whom it is registered.

And you can bet I called them!

But guess what? I’ll bet you’re thinking that it was probably a contentious call. And you’d be wrong.

The company to whom this ship is registered is in Virginia. And of course I’m here in Colorado. But as soon as I gave the guy in Virginia the tail number, he immediately said “Oh yeah, that’s one of ours, let me see what he was doing.”

And he looked it up and said “He’s doing power line surveying for your local power company, Xcel Energy.”

And I said “I appreciate that, but early on a Sunday morning? Like, any other day, but…Sunday??”

And he said “If you’d like we can let Xcel know to not survey your neighborhood on the weekend.”

And I said “Gosh, that’s so nice of you, Saturdays are fine, it’s just that it was early and on a Sunday.”

And we bid each other a polite goodbye.

And then an hour later my phone rang and it was the guy in Virginia calling me!

And he said “I spoke to the pilot, the reason he kept circling was because there was a LOT of air traffic in the area so he had to keep circling to stay out of the way. And the reason it was so early was because it’s dangerous to fly when it’s really hot, and it’s been so hot there lately, so they can only really fly early in the morning before it gets too hot. (It’s true, it’s over 100° out right now as I type this, at nearly 5pm.) But, he said, he was still going to tell Xcel to please not have them flying over our neighborhood on Sundays.

Anyways, now you too can look up whatever aircraft is bothering you around your neighborhood.