A viewing guide to the helicopters flying over Washington, DC
Be sure to also check out the fantastic CopterSpotter program (Twitter | Telegram|Annual Report), which shares live reports of sightings. More details below.
Commonly Seen
DC’s Community Helicopter Tracking Platform
Since 2020 Andrew Logan’s CopterSpotter system (@HelicoptersofDC on Twitter/Telegram) has collected over 17,000 user submitted helicopter sightings. In April 2022 they rolled out a computer vision program that gives instant answers to residents wondering “What’s that helicopter?” You can browse their dataset above, or hit the “+” to submit a sighting. You can learn more about the project in Andrew’s Def Con Talk.
Photo Credits for this page
Disclaimers
- This website is inspired by and entirely made possible by the really neat and generous work of websites like Foxtrot Alpha and folks like u/celocanth13, as well as several other generous folks that I’ve outlined in the credits.
- I’m sure I’ve got some errors on this website and that they are of my own doing. Please let me know if you see anything wrong by filing an issue and I’ll try to correct it asap. :)
- I’m aiming for both beginner and expert audiences here, but I’m sure I’ll often miss that sweet spot. Thanks for putting up with the attempted balance.
- For practical purposes, I’m keeping the focus of this site on DC proper. There’s a good number of really neat VA and MD helicopters as well and sometimes the line blurs but for now, I’m going to try and keep focused on only those that end up flying in DC itself.
- A reasonable person may ask if it’s irresponsible to bring more attention to some of this information. I’ve gone back and forth on the matter before but subscribe to the criteria articulated in a 2005 Federal Geographic Data Committee - Homeland Security Working Group presentation on this topic. It’s a great talk and I recommend it for your consideration.