AF447

[mm43]

More Current / Wind data

Hyperveloce;

The spoiler you referred to was I think the port outer which was picked up by a merchant ship north of TASIL on 13 July. If it had detached on account of an overspeed event, then that would help to explain its recovered position not falling within the range of expectation provided by the surface current/wind data. This would also fit in with the high Gs roll/bank to port and the high speed descent toward the suspected crash site as postulated by you in a recent post.



I have extracted the Quikscat mean surface (+10m) winds from the NOAA site and determined that the mean surface wind at 3°N 30°W for the period 1 - 7 June was from 069.3°T x 11.06 knots (5.69m/sec). The vertical stabilizer has a very low profile to windage, in fact the only significant airfoil was the small piece of empennage skin rolled up and inward on the forward end. The leeway for the v/s shown on the graphic below was 221°T x 11.1NM with reference to the general position of the 5 bodies recovered on 7 June. Without knowing the precise timings for either position (which could have been any time between sunrise and sunset) there is some room for positional error.



The effective windage factor calculated from the graphic is 0.74% which doesn't seem unreasonable. Applying the same factor to the Quikscat data provides a leeway of 249.3°T x 12.8NM over 6.5 days. Sun shadow on a photo taken at the time of the v/s recovery indicates that the sun was near or on the meridian, i.e. 1400z. However, when comparing the Quikscat data with the MSL analysis during the period in question, the wind vector should be more northerly. Putting that aside, the calculated result puts the v/s where it should be +/- a couple of miles.

mm43