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.

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.

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

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.