Gainesville Regional Airport

Gainesville Regional Airport has two runways. RNWY 10/28 (7500' long) is used for large aircraft. RNWY 6/24 (4100' long) is used for lighter planes. Pilot Wx Briefing Tel. #: 1-800-WX-BRIEF.

 Tower/Tfc Advisories........120.500
 ATIS........................127.150
 Clr Dlvry...................121.700
 Grnd Cntrl..................121.700
 Flight Svc. Center (FSS)....123.650
                             122.500
                             122.200
                             122.100 (rcv only)
 Control Tower...............119.550
 Apch Cntrl..................124.720 JAX
 UniCom......................122.950, 119.550 CTAF
 Ch. 109.....................116.200

Medic Flights

 ShandsCair helicopter.......461.625

Alachua County Sheriffs Office (ASO) (freqs)

 ASO helicopter..............Uses normal ASO unit frequencies

Gainesville Police Department (GPD) (freqs)

 GPD helicopter..............Uses normal GPD unit frequencies

Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) (freqs)

 FHP Spotter plane...........154.920 (car-to-car, mostly used)
                             154.905

Fire/Rescue (Alachua Co./Gainesville)

 Firefighting aircraft.......118.925
                             118.950

Forest Service Region 8 (freqs)

 Aerial detection............168.750
 Forestry helicopter.........###.###
 Spotter plane ("AIR-1").....(Forestry Ch. 8)
  (AIR-1 coordinates ground units, tractors, water drops, etc.)

03/25/2000: Information from a Forestry Service friend who shall remain unnamed confirms that the Forestry Service also happens to own a push-pull-engined `SkyMaster' plane that often does some SAR, searches for drug deals going down, and sometimes maps the forest with RADAR. This may be the SkyMaster that was `dive-bombing' Whitney Mobile Home Park that I mentioned on the main page.

Civil Air Patrol

 Simplex.....................148.150
 Repeater....................148.150 (143.900 input)

Sat., Feb. 19, 2000: Does anyone know if ASO or some other local agency is testing or looking at a new helicopter?

Sunday afternoon about 1pm, a new helicopter was apparently performing maneuvers (testing?) over Whitney Mobile Home Park, and out over the nearby forest area, sometimes hovering, also flying backwards, sideways, forwards, back and forth. Its engine sounded very unusual, and initially had me worried the pilot might be in trouble. Pretty scary. However, Gainesville Regl. Airport reports its a "new, hi-tech" helicopter. They said that it was parked at GRA after the event. They thought that ASO might be looking at a new chopper. The engine when it whined loudly sounded just like an Asplundh tree shredder. When the chopper would hover and turn, the noise from the engine would disappear only to be replaced with very loud, heavy thapping of the blades in the air.

The chopper was colored red on the bottom, with a thin red striping on the sides of the midbody, and whitish grey on the top. It had skids, and there was an extra bar above each skid on both sides. Unlike in the clip-art on the right, the rear struts holding the skids were fin-like, at the very rear-end of each skid, and colored red. Also unlike in the clipart, the rear horizontal stabilizers did not have vertical fins. Tail rotor was enclosed, like a Dauphin; or like the ShandsCair helicopter. Though I took video of the final minute that the chopper hung around, I was not able to zoom in close enough to see the ID number or any identifying logos.

I'd like to know what service this chopper was tied to, and what they were doing, and if its something I should think about listing here as a new air vehicle in our area.

Update - 25 MAR 00: Conversation with the ASO helicopter pilot at the 2000 Hurricane Expo confirms that ASO was indeed looking at/trying out a new helicopter that day. At first he couldn't remember but after mentioning certain facts about it he remembered.