Hexagonal flight path for Predator drone over Minneapolis

[geezer]

A friend sent me an article about US government spy planes monitoring George Floyd protests. It included a screen shot of a Predator drone in Minneapolis on May 29. The flight path of the drone was roughly hexagonal. Does anyone have any idea why the drone would fly a hexagonal flight path rather than a circular flight path?

Since this is my first post to this forum, I can't include a link to the article. However, if you Google "cnn politics spy plane", you should be able to find the article and see the screen shot of the flight in question.

Thanks in advance,

Tom

[Oblivian]

If it is was fast/tight or mlat. A circle path is not always possible to plot nicely. Remembering the data can be every 2-6s with bits in the middle filled in.

But at a guess one with with straight lines will also allow more stable video/camera sessions than constant tracking

[geezer]

Thanks for the quick reply. Knowing nothing about drones like the Predator, I assumed it would be controlled by very sophisticated software, so getting it to fly a circular flight path would be a trivial task for an operator.

Tom

[Oblivian]

Yeah push a button and go
but, with most military stuff I would be surprised if it was sending its position data, so was more likely to be calculated (mlat) and the server not being able to keep up and plot a nice shape in a small space

Often see Police helis over LA do similar. End up with what looks like a child scribbling the path

[geezer]

Oh, so a Predator doesn't use GPS or some inertial navigation system for getting around? It depends on control signals from a ground server? I don't know what mlat is, and don't have time right now to read what I just found on the WWW, but I'll check it out tomorrow.

Thanks,

Tom

[Oblivian]

No GPS data sent (so people like us with receivers can receive where they are) but altitude for ATC use only. Military use satellite and encrypted comms for position data over ADSB.

By using time received signal to ground. You can find position of something giving its height only. The same as ground rotating radar.

Thats the crux of MLAT. It's outlined in the FAQ/about.

[Patrick Reeves]

Looks pretty symmetrical

200610130541-20200610-surveillance-flights-demonstrations-3-exlarge-169.jpg

[Oblivian]

That tends to back up my 2nd suggestion then.

More straight time for monitoring

Guess it's also not an mlat case looking at that. Spose at low level all ac need to have avoidance