Blackhawks over North Shore?

[Gareth Forwood]

Hi all,
I just heard a very loud noise over my place in Roseville and got a glimpse of what I think was a Blackhawk flying very low (maybe around 500ft or so). Anyone able to confirm if there were any military chopper flights around or if not what it might have been?
Cheers.

Edit: Webtrak shows an unknown aircraft (not a helicopter symbol) flying over at 183m (600ft) at the same time with notation Beacon: 6000

[Mike C]

I am watching 4 blackhawks flying over 2RN as i type.

They have been flying around all day.

I've noticed alot of military activity today in the Sydney area. C-130's, C-17's, CL-604's.

Anything special happening?

Practice for a US visitor perhaps?

[Nigel C]

According to this thread they'll be doing exercises for 3 weeks...
http://yssyforum.net/board/showthread.php?t=5006

[Mike C]

"Helicopters will be flying around with or without lights between 2pm and 11pm (AEDT)."

"Up to four helicopters will fly at low altitude over Sydney CBD on March 9, 10, and 17."

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news...0303-phmm.html

They are in the air now.

[Philip Argy]

The four of them flew in convoy up and down the Parramatta River about four times between 5.30 pm and 10 pm yesterday.

May be connected with the visit of the Indonesian President (who I believe will be on a Harbour Cruise in Sydney tomorrow) or may be just a training scheduling co-incidence.

[Mark Grima]

Was standing outside in Mosman at about 8:30pm last night and heard a bloody loud noise and immediatly thought about the Blackhawkes, was looking hard for it, knowing that it was not very high and after looking for a few seconds saw one sole flashing red tail light, hard to tell but I'd be surprised if it was any higher then 1,000 foot. Could not see anything totally lost in the dark night sky, not even a slight outline of aircraft.

Was actually quite an amazing experience.

Cheers

M

[Jeff T]

Yes Mark, they fly over my place everyday and night while these exercise's are on, I live quite close to Holsworthy, and even when they are right over my place at night they are still very hard to see, its amazing how blacked out they are against the sky, even on a clear night, actually, they stand out a lot more on a cloudy night.When they are in groups, its usually only the rear one with a red light flashing, the others are blacked out totally.

I've tried to get some good pics of them during the afternoon, but whenever I have a chance, its usually overcast and the lighting is terrible.

Jeff.

[Philip Argy]

The blackhawks are flying up and down the Parramatta River this afternoon - about 30 passes since lunchtime, which is starting to get annoying frankly as they are not too quiet at about 500 feet!

I don't know whether it's the same two or multiple teams of two (from the frequency I assume the latter) but I wish they'd return to base so the kids can finish their homework!

[Grahame Hutchison]

When I drove up the Warringah Expressway at around 3pm this afternoon, one of the Blackhawks was hovering just above a building in North Sydney. I had the sunroof open and wondered what the heck the noise was at first.

[Danny G]

Blackhawks deliver the SAS/Commandos to a site to extract hostages etc so i have always wondered why they use such a noisey helicopter ?