Anyone know why a black helicopter (sorry I could not make the tail # out) would be flying extremely low over 271 in Cleveland today.
The helicopter had a guy outisde the copter and it appeard like he was taking video. He hovered no more than 100 ards off of the ground and very slowly made his way north bound.
Just throwing out ideas…was it the police helo they use to monitor traffic, etc? I remember at Cleveland National Airshow they had a police helicopter make a slow pass down the flight line to “approximate” the crowd size every day, but I can’t remember anything about that helo. I’ll look through my pictures.
Saw no police activity. Traffic on 271 did not even slow down.
Checked all of the local airports that I know of and found no helicopter takeoffs
Should clarify as well that it was not marked as a police unit. It was black with the letters in red.
Nobody?
Like I said, I could not even find where a helo took off anywhere in cleveland. Check Burk Lakefront, Hopkins, and Cuy. County and nothing. I will check Arkron Canton as well.
This one?
Helos don’t often fly with an IFR flight plan, which means FA won’t be able to track it. That’s not uncommon at all.
Nope.
Looked more like a Bell 206, but keep in mind I don’t know helicopters.
Definately no words on the copter aside from the tail #.
Helos don’t often fly with an IFR flight plan, which means FA won’t be able to track it. That’s not uncommon at all.
That explains why I can’t find it but what the heck was it doing?
The world may never know. 
The above chopper belongs to US Helicopters Inc and they provide choppers to various news outlets across the country. I still think it was one of their choppers working for a local CLE news station that you saw. If you look around their website, there is a couple pictures of black helicopters and they do own some Bell JetRangers,
A mysterious, black, almost unmarked helicopter hovering slowly over a highway? Hmmm…
Will. Are you on vacation in Cleveland?
Was there a police chase in the area?
You very well may be right.
Not knowing helo’s my guess of a Bell 206 would fit right in with these guys. What were they fliming is the question?
The helo was above the North bound lanes on the east side. The pilot faced the helo towards the office buildings and the camerman was always facing the freeway.
My office sits right there and I heard the helo coming and then it was would stop in a location for about 5 minutes then move norhbound 100 yards or so and stop again for minutes.
Only thing that is puzzling is that these guys promote a camera that is not highly visible and remote controlled mounted on the belly. This Helo had a guy hanging outside of the open side door. Now keep in mind, this in cleveland and temps are in the 20’s so they guy had to be frezzing his but off.
No police chase
Are you sure it had no designating markings whatsoever?
Cleveland PD has N952CP and N951CP which are both MD 369’s. They don’t look much like a 206, but from a distance/weird angle/weird lighting, I think they could be mistaken.
opshots.net/gallery2/index.p … s&id=15202
EDIT: just read your new posts…coulda been a film chopper.
It definately was not that helo but could have been the same model.
As I recall, the tail # was listed towards the rear rotor and not below the main rotor, but I could be wrong.
So can anybody tell me if the tail # on a copter has to be below the main rotor? Perhaps I was not paying enough attention…all I know is that I could not read the darn thing.
On the freeway there was NO activity. Cars were not even slowing down.
Searched for photos of N952CP and N951CP. Paint scheme on the helo I saw was different so unless they re-painted them recently they would have not been what I saw.
On a mission to find out what was up here…
Here’s the fleet list for US Helicopters,
planedesire.com/aircraft/des … tml?menu=1
Gotta run but I did find that N155TV is black although it’s supposed to be SLC based,
maybe on of the others are black and working a charter for a film crew in CLE.
Could have been filming for a comercial, tv show, movie, stock footage, a new IMAX movie about the interstates in Cleveland, etc, etc, etc…
I wouldn’t be too freaked out.
I am not freaked out just curious. You just don’t see this type of activity very often.
I don’t know of any movie being filmed in Cleveland. Most are being done in Michigan with the tax incentives the state gave.