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MH370 and military primary radar.

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MH370 and military primary radar.

Old 17th Mar 2014, 19:08
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TOFO

Occam's razor?
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Old 17th Mar 2014, 19:18
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Navaleye

You could perhaps see tracks out to 250nm if the aircraft was flying at 40,000'. If it descended to 10,000 then, assuming your antenna was 60' above the waterline, your horizon would be somewhere in the region of 132nm. If it descended to 5,000 the it would reduce to about 96nm - on a good day with a following wind. (Calibrated Range for Type 1022 was 225nm.
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Old 17th Mar 2014, 19:30
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Fully agree. Sorry did not provide enough detail. I could still watch a very large area and simply don't believe this could have fallen of the plot.if it goes to 96 miles, then I'd go for a 992.
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Old 17th Mar 2014, 19:39
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Navaley

Sorry if that came across that I was having a go at you - I wasn't. H0wever, there is just so much complete c**p being sprouted on the internet about this (especially the BBC!) that I thought we had better explain everything in simple terms - just in case the sciolists come here for "facts" for their next "scoop" on the story. sorry NE! Bugger - can't even spell your name correctly now - sorry again!
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Old 17th Mar 2014, 19:56
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No offence taken Sir. There is so much not being told here if defies belief.
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Old 17th Mar 2014, 21:19
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FOX3:

just the info. I needed. Many thanks.
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Old 17th Mar 2014, 22:11
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Occam's razor?
sort of (had to wiki it tho )

I guess my point is, everything so far is explainable by anybody who understands aviation. You don't have to reach for Hollywood scenarios, when there are far simpler scenarios that have yet to be discounted. The problem is of course if the aircraft has gone down without trace in an unknown part of the ocean, we will likely remain clueless until somebody stumbles across the debris and recognises it for what it is.

And please note...I say "if". Best keep an open mind.
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Old 17th Mar 2014, 22:23
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What radar does Diego Garcia have ? and its coverage ?
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Old 17th Mar 2014, 22:30
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Diego Garcia appears to be about 1 000 nm from the nearest point on the arc they are searching along for the jet.

On the map, Where the caption reads '35,000 km above', DG is approx where the 'o' in 'above' is.
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Old 17th Mar 2014, 22:37
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but it wasn't an unidentified track. It was an identified Friendly track which turned round - and if the operator didn't know it's flight plan why would he assume it wasn't planned to?
ORAC - Yes, I accept that as far as it goes, but doesn't the "friendly " assumption cease to be valid (or least shouldnt a seed of doubt be sown) at the point that the IFF is switched off and and voice transmissions cease. I'm assuming some liaison between civilian and military ATC here, maybe that's a rash assumption.

And dont forget that up to the point they were highjacked, all four aircraft involved in the events of 9/11 were "friendly".

PS Latest nonsense all over the news tonight - it has been established the the co-pilot/first officer made the final transmission. Shock horror, aircraft captain delegates routine transmissions to the RHS - that's never happened before!
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Old 17th Mar 2014, 23:38
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All major naval powers have highly developed acoustic technology using both stationary and mobile microphones. With frequency discrimination the range and sensitivity of such devices could be useful. Are there any figures for the power of the black box transmissions that supposedly last a month?
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Old 17th Mar 2014, 23:44
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Deep-water Black Box Retrieval - November 2009, Volume 13, Number 09 - Archive - Hydro International

The maximum detection range is determined primarily by the frequency and the transmission power, with an initial source level of 160.5dB re 1µPa @ 1m, which reduces to 157.0dB re 1µPa @ 1m, after 30 days. The quoted maximum detection range is 2-3km, although this is influenced by environmental conditions.
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Old 18th Mar 2014, 00:24
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Diego Garcia appears to be about 1 000 nm from the nearest point on the arc they are searching along for the jet.

On the map, Where the caption reads '35,000 km above', DG is approx where the 'o' in 'above' is.
Fox

Thanks for that

So assumption must be that as they savvy regarding radar coverage and holes in it then area heading towards DG spreading out hundreds of miles from DG would also be off limits.

I work on assumption that anything heading towards DG gets picked up way way out.................just a hunch.

I think aircraft is still in Malaysia / Indonsia ........easier to organise and hide where as everybody suggests 5-6 hours away.
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Old 18th Mar 2014, 06:56
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I think aircraft is still in Malaysia / Indonsia ........easier to organise and hide where as everybody suggests 5-6 hours away.
Thanks for so aptly making my point. TBC...I have an open mind and rule nothing out, but lets unpack your sentence...

Easy to organise and hide a full 777?? Not hole up on some deserted strip and issue ransom demands, but HIDE a 777 and CONTROL 250+ passengers/crew away from the searching world's eyes.

How many players do you think this would take...several hundred, several thousand? I doubt such an enterprise could be ventured without some degree of state input, so you appear to be suggesting/implying the collusion of the state where you think the bird is? At Entebbe the hijackers were given state support, and that wasn't even remotely covert.

I'm not saying it's impossible...I'm saying it is massive mind stretch to get there, when there are several mundane, ordinary (tragic) explanations.
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Old 18th Mar 2014, 07:11
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OFO

If we're hypothesizing, who's to say the pax are still alive? If this is nefarious, the prize could be the plane, not the pax. A lot easier to manage the scenario way as well.

That said, my bet is they're all on the bottom of the ocean.
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Old 18th Mar 2014, 08:48
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ORAC - Yes, I accept that as far as it goes, but doesn't the "friendly " assumption cease to be valid (or least shouldnt a seed of doubt be sown) at the point that the IFF is switched off and and voice transmissions cease. I'm assuming some liaison between civilian and military ATC here, maybe that's a rash assumption.
Very rash.

Malaysian ATC had chopped the flight to CHM and had an acknowledgement, then the aircraft left cover, with the SSR disappearing as it, apparently left radar cover eastbound - a totally normal transfer at the FIR boundary, why would they call anyone?

As a scheduled flight the flight plan would have been a repetitive stored flight plan in the database at CHM, but cancelled/delayed flights are a day to day occurrence so, unless Malaysian ATC called they'd they wouldn't know there was a problem, and it wouldn't be triggered and loaded at the boundary gate as the appropriate flight/SSR didn't appear, so why would they take any action?

Malaysian ADGE would have identified the track as friendly after take-off and continuously tracked it, so it was never an unknown, so the system wouldn't provide an alert.

This was carefully planned. The only point where it might have raised an alert was if the ADGE radar operator thought the behaviour of the flight was suspicious in turning around and called a superior. But without the flight plan would he suspect anything? It could have been a test flight, a medical turn back with an emergency on board, a military flight leaving the airways structure at a planned point en-route to an operating area, a naves. Gut feeling is that he'd have been quite happy as long as the blip had an A or F on it and wouldn't have done a thing or had a suspicion.

Won't stop him and his bosses getting it in the neck though; bound to be a BOI and sh*t flows downwards....
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Old 18th Mar 2014, 10:13
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Easy to organise and hide a full 777?? Not hole up on some deserted strip and issue ransom demands, but HIDE a 777 and CONTROL 250+ passengers/crew away from the searching world's eyes.

How many players do you think this would take...several hundred, several thousand? I doubt such an enterprise could be ventured without some degree of state input, so you appear to be suggesting/implying the collusion of the state where you think the bird is? At Entebbe the hijackers were given state support, and that wasn't even remotely covert.

I'm not saying it's impossible...I'm saying it is massive mind stretch to get there, when there are several mundane, ordinary (tragic) explanations.
You need a strip to take a 777..............on assumption its not going to take off again.

Controlling 250 people is easy, Pilot tells them we have an emergency situation and need to put the plane down at an emergency field, once landed evacuate to a control area / shed, 10 guys with guns now in control with passengers tied up.

People will trust the Pilot because they conditioned to do it as why would a pilot hijack his own plane. Pilot or CoPilot in on it then its all on.

Mobiles easily controlled as into an area with no coverage OR take down coverage for a few hours.

Best case scenario you hold passengers in one place, worst case.........they a hindrance and in the way who know too much.

Hiding a 777 is easy, camouflage netting strung up does that if not have a large shed. If already in places for weeks before hand and just moved to get aircraft in then even less noticeable.

Now aircraft is valuable in one piece but no buyers.

However broken down into parts and fed into blackmarket then it starts to become valuable to those who can use and there will always be people who can use.

Issue will then be moving the parts, airfield would need to be close to sea where not a lot of people in a place to notice so can ship out engines and broken down parts.

The total number of people needing to be involved tops out at 50 with biggest one issue getting the engineers who can strip it down.
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Old 18th Mar 2014, 10:33
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Thanks for the detailed info ORAC, I'm probably making the mistake of comparing things with the excellent service we used to get from RAF (and other NW European) military radars way back in the 70s. In those sort of circumstances, I would have expected Northern Radar, say, to contact the appropriate civilian ATC authority to ask, for example, if they knew anything about an unidentified contact approaching the coast.

Mind you I do recall the occasion when they asked us to look out for "friendly traffic" on a reciprocal heading, just as two Badgers flashed past on our starboard side. But then, nobody's perfect.
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Old 18th Mar 2014, 10:43
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Now it looks like the yanks are drip feeding some "sensitive" data into the mix from some of their satellites. It must be difficult hiding where the source of information comes from and the fidelity it has to offer!
Some very sophisticated search a/c are now scouring North / NW of Australia as a consequence.
You can bet your bottom dollar that the US have a recording of the last few track miles this a/c took before falling off radar.
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Old 18th Mar 2014, 11:05
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Racedo,

Your scenario is not remotely plausible and you under estimate massive difficulties at every step...but I tell you what...I'll buy it.

Now give it a probability.

I'll give it 0.01%

and I give this...

That said, my bet is they're all on the bottom of the ocean
99.99%

And I really hope and pray that I'm wrong and one of these fantastical scenarios that has the souls on board still alive is actually being played out.

Enough said, the circumstances will emerge eventually.
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