WEDNESDAY JULY 23 2014 NEWS 11

V1 - NTNE01Z01MA

JSF haspower torock youTHE Joint Strike Fighter willbe more than twice as loud asthe F/A-18 Hornet at maxi-mum thrust – to people stand-ing on the ground the planewill sound like the inside of anightclub or a rock concert.

A draft Environmental Im-pact Statement for the aircraftreleased this week said the“military thrust” of the JSF was110 decibels. But the reportsays the plane will minimisethe use of thrust during ascentand over populated areas, andwill limit the use of afterburn-ers during takeoff.

“The aerodynamic dragcharacteristics of the (JSF) air-craft enables the use of re-duced thrust settings duringlow altitude cruise procedures,resulting in lower noise levels,”the report said.

“Conversely, the thrustavailable in the (JSF) aircraftengine can produce highernoise levels during militarythrust procedures, althoughthese procedures would gener-ally be conducted at a distancefrom populated areas.”

The report compares theJSF to the Hornet and says thedifference between the aircraftwill be “negligible”.

The new fighter planescould, however, disrupt somesensitive bird populations inthe Darwin area.

“Noise disturbance may in-crease over important habitatfor migratory shorebirds, suchas at Tree Point ConservationArea and Shoal Bay CoastalReserve,” the report said.

“Noise disturbances fromthe proposed flying operationsof the aircraft will be of shortduration and intermittent, al-lowing migratory shorebirds toresume feeding and roostingquickly. Migratory shorebirdsmay already exhibit some de-gree of tolerance to militaryaircraft noise disturbance asthey potentially inhabit areasaffected by the current flyingoperations of the Hornet.”

The NT News reported yes-terday that the JSF would flythe same number of times eachyear as its predecessor.

“As the proposed flying ac-tivities and operations of the(JSF) are planned to be similarto the Hornet, these environ-mental noise levels are gener-ally predicated to be of acomparable magnitude tothose noise levels.”

Large-scale snake sightings despite chillDESPITE the winter chill thathas this year blanketed CentralAustralia in ice and subzerotemperatures, an unusualnumber of snakes have beenspotted slithering around.

Local resident Kristy Swiftwas surprised when her seven-year-old son Levi showed her a

black-and-white-striped snakein the backyard.

“He came in and told me hesaw something that looked likea snake,” she said.

At first she didn’t quite be-lieve her son because “in all thetime I’ve been here, we’venever had any (snakes).”

But upon spotting the tinycold-blooded reptile, Mrs Swift

began wondering how it cameto be in her backyard in themiddle of winter.

“But it’s good to know thatthe kids are cautious,” she said.

Mrs Swift called AliceSprings Reptile Centre direc-tor Rex Neindorf, who ident-ified the bandy bandy inminutes.

He said he was also alerted

to a large, venomous mulgasnake on Smith St last week.

The week before he wascalled to the hospital for asnake bite after a person wasbitten on a remote station800km form Alice Springs.

“Even in winter time snakescan still be out,” he said.

“It’s just a warning for peo-ple travelling in our region.”

Alice Springs Reptile Centre director Rex Neindorf with the baby bandy bandy snake Picture: BARRY SKIPSEY

Double trouble lands him in deep endA TERRITORY swimmingpool maintenance boss caughtdrink-driving while unlicensed– twice – has been banned fromthe road for at least 15 months.

Brandon Charles Andrews,who worked for 25 years in theRAAF, pleaded guilty to twocounts of driving unlicensed,and low-range and medium-range drink- driving when he

faced court. Magistrate HughBradley told him a “man ofyour maturity should under-stand drink-driving is a seriousproblem in the community”.

Andrews blew .051 when hewas pulled over on the way toRoyal Darwin Hospital onApril 3 this year – after havinga beer at the Parap Tavern –unaware that his licence had

expired about six weeks before.On May 13, he was caught witha reading of .110 on TempleTerrace, at Palmerston.

The court heard Andrewscame to Darwin from RAAFBase Tindal after the Kather-ine flood in 1998.

He was yesterday bannedfrom driving for 15 months andfined a total $1100.

Traders pleading for police presenceA SPATE of violent and anti-social activity in the Nightcliffarea has business ownerspleading with the Governmentto restore a community policestation in the area.

A recent brutal domestic at-tack in broad daylight couldhave been avoided if policewere closer to the area, saidAlly Fitzgerald, owner of Ally’s

Barbershop in Nightcliff. Butthere has not been a true policepresence in the area since theclosing down of the policestore front operation in 2012,business owners say.

“Since the police beatstopped, it’s become more of aproblem,” Ms Fitzgerald said.

“I have lost business. Some-times the language and shout-

ing is so bad we’ve hadcustomers walk out.”

Labor MP for NightcliffNatasha Fyles says a full policestation is needed in the com-munity, which she says theCLP Government promised.

Deputy Chief MinisterDave Tollner called accusa-tions that the area is under-policed “nonsense”.

By JESSICA BROWN

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+618 8404 0400 | stpeters.sa.edu.au | @SPC_Adelaide