"RWA
- The ACARs messages go via any of one 4 (soon to be 7) operation Inmarsat sateliites (plus backups). The SATCOMs is continously tracking the satellite on which the A/C has logged-on."
Thanks, and welcome, Dan Air UK - only meant in fun, but I can't resist quoting a WW2 divisional commander (forget which one) who once said at a briefing,
"The next fellow who fires an obscure acronym at me is going to find himself bloody RIP........"
I'm pretty sure that 'SATCOMs' means 'Satellite Communications,' and also that you mean the ones fitted to the aeroplane, not the satellite itself or the ground station. But I can't be sure, given that the only serious radio I've ever used is military Radio Telephony.
'.........should allow any ACARS messages to be transmitted within a few seonds in normal circumstances and certainly in less than a minute if the Ground Earth Station is operating normally.'
My question was, could the fact that (as far as I can tell from the transcripts) the ACARS (sorry for the acronym
) messages appear to have come in batches about one minute apart mean that the aeroplane was bucking about a fair bit and the aircraft antenna kept 'losing its line' and having to line up and' re-connect again?
The reason I ask is that, if that's so, it suggests that, for the four-minute period we're discussing, the aeroplane was flying more or less normally. Maybe bucking about a bit, but certainly not upside down or in a vertical dive, because the satellite antenna would have had 'NFC' (No 'Ejaculative' Chance'
) of lining up at all if that were so.
The reason that it's important to me is that, as far as any of us know, the signals ended either because the aeroplane had either dived straight down into the sea (at a descent rate of the order of 8,000 feet per minute) in that four-minute period, or had a catastrophic event (like a high-altitude break-up) which cut off all communications?
Hope you don't mind me pulling your leg. Return the compliment any time. But I guess that you can see why I'd like to know for certain.........
PS - ex-Dan Air customer, used to fly a lot with them from Newcastle and Teesside.