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Originally Posted by Niner Lima Charlie
(Post 8862710)
From AvWeb:
Beginning in 2017 any aircraft, GA included, with ADS-B out transmitting at 1090 MHz will be automatically tracked and the precise location of its last transmission anywhere on earth recorded. At last week's ICAO High Level Safety Conference, Aireon LLC, which is launching the first space based global air surveillance system, announced that the headquarters for its Aircraft Locating and Emergency Response Tracking (Aireon Alert) will be at the Irish Aviation Authority's North Atlantic operations center in Ballygirreen on the west coast of Ireland. Once the Iridium constellation of satellites carrying the ADS-B receivers is complete, any airline, search and rescue organization or any other group needing "last known" information on a flight can get it for free from Aireon. VP of marketing Cyriel Kronenburg told AVweb it will work for all aircraft equipped with 1090 MHz ADS-B and the mystery of Malaysian MH370, a Boeing 777 which hasn't been found since it disappeared a year ago, prompted the ALERT service. So under the Aireon/Iridium scheme everyone would now start searching the South China Sea again. :ugh: The argument about making it impossible to switch off ADS-B has also been rehearsed numerous times. The Aireon idea is a solution to a different problem. It might have helped with AFR447. But that would also be solved by Aireon's competitor INMARSAT providing free tracking for ADS-C equipped aircraft. The problem of what to do when someone in the cockpit (crew or savvy hijacker) decides to close down all on board active tracking systems has yet to be solved. |
A simple autonomous device, located in tail, transmitting position from a integrated GPS through Inmarsat each minute... Seems simple enough.
Fitted with internal batteries which could be charged only on ground from AC system, no link to flight deck required. |
I guess you mean something similar to the device involved here:
Ethiopian Airlines 787 Dreamliner fire caused by emergency locator battery | WJLA.com |
Originally Posted by Skyjob
(Post 8863095)
A simple autonomous device, located in tail, transmitting position from a integrated GPS through Inmarsat each minute... Seems simple enough.
Fitted with internal batteries which could be charged only on ground from AC system, no link to flight deck required. Some basic improvements would help for tracking aircraft oceanic aircraft. However, my understanding is that the wrecks of both AF447 and QZ8501 were located within a couple of miles of the last electronic datapoint. So for accidents, we are talking about a technology that might shrink the search area a small amount and might speed up the investigation, but not fundamentally change anything. For someone who wants to disappear and can fly the aircraft, I think all of the ideas proposed so far are either unsafe (high power complex equipment with no off switch) or relatively easy to defeat. |
Yeah, electronic devices that can't be turned off are a great idea .... :eek:
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Originally Posted by Skyjob View Post A simple autonomous device, located in tail, transmitting position from a integrated GPS through Inmarsat each minute... Seems simple enough. Fitted with internal batteries which could be charged only on ground from AC system, no link to flight deck required. Some basic improvements would help for tracking aircraft oceanic aircraft. However, my understanding is that the wrecks of both AF447 and QZ8501 were located within a couple of miles of the last electronic datapoint. So for accidents, we are talking about a technology that might shrink the search area a small amount and might speed up the investigation, but not fundamentally change anything. For someone who wants to disappear and can fly the aircraft, I think all of the ideas proposed so far are either unsafe (high power complex equipment with no off switch) or relatively easy to defeat. This remains a bizarrely unique event and re-equipping the entire aviation fleet on the strength of it is unwarranted. |
Originally Posted by Dont Hang Up
(Post 8863934)
Well put. Hopefully enough to avoid going round the "how hard can it be?" cycle for the umpteenth time on this thread.
This remains a bizarrely unique event and re-equipping the entire aviation fleet on the strength of it is unwarranted. |
The 'landing' in the Hudson was a ditching with significant g as the engines went into the water.
The reasons for the ELT's failing - broken antenna, going underwater etc are well known. So now get a couple of engineering undergraduates to design them so that they work! It is not difficult but it appears that the manufacturers are perfectly content to deliver equipment that demonstrably fails EVERY time it is needed. Note that if the ELTs worked on MH370, it would have been found within 7 hours of going missing. How much has been spent searching for that aircraft again? Probably enough to design,manufacture, purchase and fit a nice shiny new functionalELT for every widebody flying. Instead off go the avionics engineers fresh from their total failure to create a functional ELT, trying to sell ever more sophisticated tracking devices that will also fail, but bring in far more income. A question that operators should ask the avionics industry is: "If you cannot create a working ELT an extremely simple device, why should we trust you to create a sophisticated tracking device?" |
Why don't you read about what ICAO are actually doing...
406-MHZ ELT Specification Development - ICAO |
ATSB update to the Senate.
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In the previously linked video, classification of sonar targets is described into 3 levels, with level 1 warranting "immediate investigation", level 2 being a "man made object" and level 3 being of "some" interest
In the event of not finding any level 1 returns will the relatively few in number (8) level 2 returns be investigated? Also, Peter Foley says there are well over 100 class 3 targets, not 200 as quoted earlier. |
MH370 - What is the current situation?
Good to see MH370 finally getting some air in Australia.
ATSB update to the Senate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7Mw...ature=youtu.be Some interesting facts I was not aware of. Here is a direct quote from Hansard - Senate papers Page 156 Senate Tuesday, 24 February 2015 RURAL AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRANSPORT LEGISLATION COMMITTEE Senator BACK: Mr Foley, can you just give us a very brief update on the progress of the MH370 recovery and the number of vessels now in the recovery operation? Mr Foley: I am the Program Director, Operational Search for MH370. We have currently got four vessels working in the search area. Three of those are contracted jointly by the Malaysian and Australian governments. They are the Fugro vessels—the Fugro Supporter, the Fugro Equator, the Fugro Discovery— Senator BACK: Those are the Dutch vessels? Mr Foley: Dutch mother company. The actual local company is based here in Australia. It is Fugro Survey Pty Ltd. The contract is with them as the Australian entity. The fourth vessel, GO Phoenix, is actually contracted by DefTech, a Malaysian defence contractor. Senator BACK: Can you tell us approximately the number of square kilometres of the priority area that have now been searched and what does that represent percentage wise—35, 50? Mr Foley: We have done about 24,000 square kilometres, which represents about 40 per cent of the initial priority search area of 60,000 square kilometres. Senator BACK: Can you give us some indication when you think that that balance of about another 3½ thousand square kilometres— Mr Foley: In what sense? Senator BACK: When will you have completed the search of this priority zone? Mr Foley: We anticipate that 60,000 square kilometres will be completed towards the end of May. Senator BACK: Can you give us any indication whether the four vessels have come up with anything of interest or promise? Mr Foley: The four vessels have certainly identified various objects on the sea floor, which may be man-made. But at this point—we have expert analysis of the sonar data and imagery—there is nothing that indicates that it is likely to be an aircraft debris field. There are some isolated objects which, by and large, could be man-made but we have not positively identified any of them as such. Senator BACK: Are you saying that preparations are in place in the event that wreckage is found? Mr Foley: Yes, we have been making preparations. As you may be aware, we requested expressions of interest for a recovery operation. We ran a 25-day open tender process through AusTender. That closed last week. We are in the process of assessing those expressions of interest to participate in a further tender process for the recovery operation. Senator BACK: So there was a level of interest, competence and expertise to do that? Mr Foley: There was a good response. Senator BACK: Thank you. Mr Dolan: Senator, if I could just make clear: governments have not yet decided or authorised recovery. We are making preparations against the event of— Senator BACK: I can understand that. Thanks, Mr Dolan. Senator STERLE: These four items—are they the size of a suitcase or a desk? Mr Foley: More than four, Senator Sterle. We have a system of classification. We are very careful in the way we treat the sonar data in terms of its acquisition, how we gather it and indeed how we assess and analyse it. We have a system of classification for objects, so we have three levels, if you like—one, two and three. Level 3 is items of potential interest—an object detected on sonar of some interest. Level 2 is likely to be something that is a bit more interesting, probably man-made. A level 1 object we need to investigate immediately. It could be an aircraft debris field. We have not had any level 1s. We have, to date, according to my memory, had about eight level 2s. And we have had well over 100 level 3s. I would hazard a guess that some have the dimensions of a shipping container, but we do not know until we get photo imagery. You are not taking a picture with sonar. Senator STERLE: Thank you. |
Just heard on the Australian news that they (don't know who 'they' are), will be putting forward 15minute tracking onto planes flying over remote areas instead of the 30-45minute intervals.
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It's called Automatic Dependent Surveillance Contract - ADS-C
It is and has been used extensively in Australian airspace for a number of years. It entails the aircraft establishing a "contract" with the ATC centre through a satellite link - aircraft downloads positional and other info at the contract rate. This is usually 30 minutes but can be varied by the controller with jurisdiction - in fact he can "one shot" a position at any time and can increase the rate in case of emergency. In between downloads, the position is extrapolated by the ATC equipment. The procedure is being trialled of setting the default contract to 15 minutes. The give-away is the "Dependent" bit - can still be turned off in the cockpit and bingo the aircraft's real position is purely supposition. |
Yes ADS-C is part of Future Air Navigation System 1/A (FANS 1/A) that also includes CPDLC and ACARS. The system was put into use initially by Boeing in the late 1980's so it has been around for around 4 decades. The ADS-C contract can be with up to 5 ground stations world wide. The ground stations as you say can re-contract without the pilot even knowing and request other position reports or reports on level changes and leveling etc etc.
ADS-C is being extended in Europe and USA to use VHF Data Link (2) (VDL-2) and will be used to control aircraft flying business (user preferred) trajectories. So one of the new messages will be Extended Projected Profile (ADS-C EPP) a series of up to 128 waypoints and pseudo waypoints ahead of the aircraft with their associated attributes/constraints such as speed, flight level, time. (Pseudo waypoints are for example Top Of Climb, Start Of Turn). Again the ground can ask and your FMC will reply you don't even know it has happened. This is all part of ATN-Block 2 Hey but don't stop the ICAO meetings and standards people re-inventing things the avionics salesmen love it. :rolleyes: |
Robbovic
That too was my initial (puzzled) reaction - it seems all they are doing is creating an automatic contract change trigger which increases the ADSC update rate whenever there is an altitude or route deviation event? And I am certainly a little confused at the meedja fanfare this is receiving. From the CBC article linked by Johno8; Houston warned that new method being trialed would not necessarily have allowed air traffic controllers to monitor Flight 370 — whose transponder and other tracking equipment shut down during the flight — to the point where it crashed. "I think we've got to be very, very careful because you can turn this system off," he said. "What would have happened while the system is operating, we'd know exactly where the aircraft was. If somebody had turned the system off, we're in the same set of circumstances as we've experienced on the latter part of the flight of MH370." So we are back to square one anyway...the point of the exercise being...? |
Is the point of the excercise that they will make ADSC subscription compulsory in the relevant airspaces?
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That's it?
Reuters: Australia says hunt for missing MH370 jet may be called off soon
(Reuters) - The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 cannot go on forever, Australia's deputy prime minister said, and discussions are already under way between Australia, China and Malaysia as to whether to call off the hunt within weeks. (...) The search of a rugged 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq mile) patch of sea floor some 1,600 km (1,000 miles) west of the Australian city of Perth, which experts believe is the plane's most likely resting place, will likely be finished by May. Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told Reuters that a decision would have to be taken well before then as to whether to continue into the vast 1.1 million sq km area around the primary search zone if nothing has been found. Discussions had already begun about what to do in that event, including the possibility that the search might be called off, said Truss, who is also transport minister. |
Discussions and possibility are the key words. All very prudent to reevaluate the data instead of just continuing to spend money.
Mind you I suppose the scientific community wouldn't mind a complete hi resolution map of the Indian ocean:p |
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