sideshow 0 Posted February 23, 2009 Report Share Posted February 23, 2009 I was sitting at home yesterday afternoon when i heard sirens goin off for about 3 minutes. i figured they sounded really close so i Walked out the front of my house and looked up ??? ???There was the plane doing circle work with the sirens on, i had mi hopes up but just out of curiosity i decided to keep my eyes peeled on the water looking for shadows.After watching the plane fly off i had one more look and seen a shadow right on the sandbar. the tide was an incoming,,, a few more closer looks with binoculars.....I found out that all this shadow was, was a seal!!!!!!!! .hissy. .hissy. ::)I did keep looking for more shadows, but seen none!!!!!!!!!!!!!Do you think these planes should make sure they are 100% sure before sounding the sirens?? but really do these planes even do anything other than just spotting sharks??thanks lloyd Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ranger 48 Posted February 23, 2009 Report Share Posted February 23, 2009 I believe the planes are only for spotting, and as for the sirens, they may have been alerted by the plane, or the plane may have been called in to spot something which was noticed from land, after the warning was already sounded.Regardless, it's much safer to have a false alarm getting everyone out of the water for a short time just in case, than taking any risk with lives, as if anything unforeseen DID happen without an alarm being raised, heads would roll and someone would ultimately be held responsible as a scapegoat! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
thefunkychicken 0 Posted February 24, 2009 Report Share Posted February 24, 2009 Gday Sideshow, Ranger, and allThose planes fly at their minimum legal altitude which is 500 feet above ground level which is about 153 metres. :icon_e_geek:Given SA's climate and latent air movement, they do tend to bounce around a fair bit, thus making positive identification of a dark shaded object in the water a bit of a hit & miss exercise. ???I have no knowledge of who would be flying the aircraft or who be acting as spotter (I am sure that there would be one person dedicated to flying the aircraft and nothing else). My best guess would be that the pilot would be one of a very many aviation course students needing to spend time flying an aircraft and the spotter is most likely from the same group (or perhaps someone invloved with surf lifesaving organisation, please correct me if I am wrong).Flying endless hours over Adelaide beaches in a small, cramped, noisy plane which is bouncing around and giving you a headache and a sore back does tend to shorten the temper and dull the nerves. And make it hard to sight object in the water even with good binoculars. They may have seen a seal or a ray and mis-identified it, or a shark further out from the beach than the seal you saw and thus started the alarm. My best guess for their process of starting this alarm would be a radio or phone patch to the water police - to the best of my knowledge, any surf lifesaving clubs would not have the necessary hardware to transmit on aviation radio frequencies. :-\I have no specific knowledge of the shark spotting patrol's procedures in SA but all I can think is "thank Christ they sounded the alarm". They could sound off 100 false alarms but when it is the one that is not false..... thank Shit they did.I hear them buzzing over my house day in day out but I'm sure we share the same thought that we're glad they're there.Now, if I can just get them to spot that school of fish and SMS me......... .hissy. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
moose 1 Posted February 24, 2009 Report Share Posted February 24, 2009 The plane is operated by UNI SA and the spotter is someone from either UNISA or SES. The plane is used to spot sharks in the summer months and is all to do research for the uni. The biggist problem they have is that they are flying as slow as they can go to stay in the air and it takes them 1km to complete a full turn. I'm not bagging them but if they see ANY thing in the water they presume that it is a shark (I have first hand knowledge of this as I get the phone calls from the police). There is a seal floating around at the moment around Semaphore and it is a rather large one. The procedure for the alarm is if they see a shark in the water they just sound it to alert swimmers in the water, then phone the air control tower at Adelaide airport, who then phone the police and the police then phone a WHOLE stack of people/organizations that are on a shark alert network, fishwatch,Surf Lifesaving SA, VMR etc etc etc. The Surf clubs don't have aviation frequencies but on the weekends and on the hotter (36 or over) arvos the Helicopter is in the air, along with the lifesaver Jet Rescue Boats on the water to provide support. The advantage of the helicopter over fixed wing is that the helicopter spots a shark then can come around confirm sighting and by comming lower to the water heard the shark out to sea, fixed wing just keeps going around and around and around, most times loosing sight of the shark. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
sideshow 0 Posted February 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2009 yea thanks to all of you for keeping me up to date.. now ive got a better understanding why they alert people and also yea my house is just south of semaphore so it was probalby the same seal :icon_lol:and they do take it seriously,, which is really good to hear!!!!! :)thanks lloydand yea i would love to recieve an sms everytime a shark is spotted :icon_lol: :icon_lol: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Shark_Fisho 1 Posted March 9, 2009 Report Share Posted March 9, 2009 u should've swam out there and see if it was a shark or not LOL :icon_lol: :icon_lol: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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