Help identify object on belly of So-Cal Helo

I'm back in my home state of California and was visiting family in Culver City, CA while at the 1600 block of S. Wooster St. on Sunday 9/11/11 I heard some very low helos buzzing the neighborhood. Despite being in southern California I still found there persistence and altitude to be odd so I headed out to have a look-see. I expected them to be police helos searching the area, but they were were civilian/commercial with a white/yellow/red color scheme. The main helo caught my eye it had a metallic rectangular object attached to the belly of the air-frame above the skids. Which looked out of place to me, my initial hunch being that it was the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attack that it might be some kind of radiation detection device, especially with how thoroughly and methodically they were scanning the neighborhood and surrounding area.

I was hoping that one of the resident aviation gurus might be able to identify what the rectangular object is. Sadly I did not have my trusty SLR so I hope the resolution of my camera phone will cut it.




Any ideas?

Thanks in advance and I apologize for the long winded post.

luggage box?

similar thing here

im not a helicopter expert though so its just a guess!

the previous post seems pretty legit so I have to go with that. I have a buddie in the Marine Corps and another in the Army who both do work on choppers and aircraft. I will see if I can get them to take a look and give some advice.

It's the time of year for water dropping helicopters.
Maybe that's what we're looking at.

I believe so.
Firefighting Helicopter

reply to post by BigDave-AR


Don't know if this helps, but this is what we had flying overhead a few weeks ago.

www.doh.wa.gov...

www.pnwlocalnews.com...

That is without a doubt a water tank. I'm 100% on that. I've seen several.

Here is the helicopter you saw, for a closer perspective:



alternatively, here is one that is very similar:

It is a water tank. I just came across this youtube video. watch the helecopter in the beginning. looks almost identical to the one in the pic. It is a LA county fire firefighting chopper.

www.youtube.com...

check here as well

www.youtube.com...

the 0:53 mark here

www.youtube.com...

LA COUNTY FIRE HELIATTACK SQUADRON 16 out of chilao in the angeles national forest!

reply to post by PresumedInnocent


I was going to start a thread on this bastard! Buzzed my place every day a few times waking me up. Thought it was WW3 and ran to grab the AR lol. Thank you SO much for that one!

reply to post by BigDave-AR


Whatever it is, the helicopter is a Bell/Huey 412...larger, suped up version of the original Huey. An additional engine and additional rotor blade.

I actually forgot that I posted this and never checked it out again not sure what was wrong with me on this one.

I do appreciate all that answers and wish I would of thanked you all sooner.