r/Whatisthisplane

Just saw this plane out my bus window.

Been circling around for a while is it just practicing or it it doing a job?

This aircraft at Simi Valley on Wednesday , photo from Ventura County fire dept.

Sorry for the poor picture quality, it flew past unexpectedly and sounds like a helicopter kind of. Obviously doesn’t look like a helicopter. My best guess is an Osprey due to what looks like a large prop on the left, the vertical “tail” on the right side. I checked flightradar 24 and there was only one small jet showing anywhere remotely near by, and still likely far from being visible ( >15 miles away in the mountains)

Was grilling in my front yard and heard a beautiful engine sound. I looked up and these are the best pics I could get with my phone.

Spotted these today headed off the coast

A Facebook reminder dug up this picture from 2013. IIRC this photo was taken at SAN.

The closest I can come up with is the Panavia Tornado, but the air intake shape is different. I'm thinking it's something either American or European and would be plausible to see on an aircraft carrier.

Circling late at night near UCF in Orlando. Thing popped up on a ADSB Tracker map with no call sign and no info but a path that matched what I’ve been hearing, and it promptly disappeared. It has a spotlight that was visible on one of its passes. It’s flying pretty slow as well.

Hard to tell from the picture but on the back there seems to be a triangular light array, and it lights up in the order back left, top, back right (with respect to the direction it’s moving which is left to right in these pics ) and then repeats. It’s been circling for a fat min now.

Any ideas?