[jlgaddis]

I put together a few "ADS-B receivers" recently (using Raspberry Pis, RTL SDRs, etc.) and, for a few days afterwards, was watching all of the aircraft in my vicinity pretty intently.

I live a few miles from the Monroe County, Indiana, airport, KBMG, and (on 16 November 2015) saw a small airplane go over my house that had just taken off from there (heading east at altitude 2700 feet). I looked up the tail number, N721AL, and saw that it was registered to the US Department of Justice.

A little bit of Googling (the tail number) turned up an article [0] entitled "Track 115 Aircrafts the FBI uses for surveillance". I was left wondering why they'd be performing any such surveillance in my area (if that is, indeed, what they were doing), as we're not exactly a "hot spot" of criminal activity, but I suppose no one is exempt.

[0]: http://blog.enigma.io/track-84-aircrafts-the-fbi-uses-for-su...

[swordswinger12]

Nice to see a fellow Hoosier on HN - I went to school at IU and lived in Monroe County for several years. Anyway, the plane could have been involved with the Crane naval research center: http://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/WarfareCenters/NSWCCrane.asp...