Originally Posted by
overthewing
@OldObern
I'm afraid I'm struggling a bit to understand what you mean - can you clarify? When you say that do you mean that the plane's position would have been on the 50-degree arc rather than the 40-degree?
I was trying to understand / envisage where the arc would be based on an earlier ping.
I now see all they can tell is the range based on the "elevation ring" , believe there are two arcs because they know it wasn't in that middle area, and the ends of the arc are based on fuel/range.
So when the aircraft was on one of the other rings , say for argument 50deg the arcs would be continuous, infact it may be the entire circle and anywhere inside or outside of it based on fuel.
Obviously a phone satellite is only concerned with range (angle of elevation) not where on the circle you are so each aerial ring is a 360 deg coverage