Helicopter: Sikorsky HH-60J Jayhawk

[RA40]

Maybe someone here might clue me in a bit on these or the the HH-65 Dolphin helicopters.

Beginning about last week, pairs of them have been flying regularly past our place in So. Cal. Sometimes in fours. One night and it was a pretty dark sky so I couldn't make out the shape clearly, as each pair flew by I noticed one of them was blacked out...no marker lights, strobes...appeared sterile of markings. Usually I associate this shape with the USCG but the un-lit one was black and the other was grayish I thought.

Los Alamitos air station is about 10 miles away but seldom do we see mil-air traffic this far north. Any ideas about what may be going on in the LA, OC region of So. Cal?

A few months back a low and slow moving FA-18 passed by so it was really odd to see one of those.

 

[alpg88]

jayhawk is a modifyed blackhawk, dolphin is totaly different ac, even in the dark they are easy to tell apart, jayhawk has a tailrotor, dolphin has a ducted fan. they sound different too.
what they were doing above your place, idk, may be training flights, maybe something else.

both are normaly search and rescue choppers, usually coast guard operates them.

 

[Vinniec5]

DEA or ATF possible, both have HH-60's they use for surveilance for pot growers/smugglers. My cousin lives in Alpine and he has seen a huge increase in Meth labs and pot farms being seized since the 2003 fire. Alot of people setup camps in the National Forrest that his Horse farm butts up against

 

[Lightraven]

Formation and low level night flying sounds like military special units--especially if blacked out. I heard some kind of news alert on L.A. radio recently that LAPD SWAT would be doing these exercises, though that could be code for Delta or DEVGRU, also.

I heard a funny story about SEAL 6 doing runs in little birds in L.A. from a SWAT guy who was with them. Didn't go over well with the locals because nobody gave them any warning.

 

[Vinniec5]

imagine some guy walking his dog at nite and a loach comes down his block blacked out. He's gonna need a pooper scooper for more than his dog

 

[LowBat]

Well CDF has been sending resources to No. Cal. for a wildfire that broke out yesterday, but what you describe sounds more like a series of training operations. I don't know why one would black out in civilian airspace.

 

[Vinniec5]

If its a LAPD SWAT exercise like Lightraven heard very likely they are training with NVG and flying in formation one Helo lights on for civilian aircraft to see and one blacked out to train using only NVGs to pilot the Helo I didn't know LA SWAT had HH-60's thats wild.

 

[RA40]

Thanks for the possibilities. Usually I hear-see the ghetto bird and news copters flying about. I don't get a long look at these when they fly by. One sounds traditional while one has a distinct whine. That is what got me curious since it sounded different.