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Old 4th Aug 2010, 01:27
  #1824 (permalink)  
jimjim1
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
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JD-EE said:
Bearfoil (re 1810), satellite radios don't work every time.

...

Worst of all, satellites are not there when you need them. If your first awareness of a problem is the plane falls off on a wing in a massive stall - and ACARS goes off beam to the satellite. Worst yet, you are about mid way on a route between Perth and any place in South America - you are over the South Pole. You have no satellites to speak with.
I am sure that you know more of this than I do however I think that you are perhaps exagerating the issues.

1.
I understand that Irridium works all over the globe without dead spots and can work with small hand held battery powered phones and omni antennas. With the resources available on an airliner surely there is no problem at all to phone home with at least positional information every few seconds. I would imagine that it would work for a very large proportion of the time.

2.
I would be surprised if phased array antennas were not available for non-irridium satellite work. These can be steered I would guess pretty much instantly. The technology exists to track and shoot down artillery shells and other more sophisticated missiles, I cannot believe that tracking a geostationary satellite from an aeroplane is beyond us.


All this reminds me of the landing gear weight sensor discussion. The technology was done and dusted decades ago, but for some reason there seems to be a flux of dissent explaining why it is too difficult or impractical.
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