Originally Posted by dicks-airbus
riginally Posted by dicks-airbus View Post
Why bother going to FL450 and then back to FL295 and making a lot of unexplainable turns?
Too many whys
The lobe patterns for some primary radars may limit their high altitude coverage.
The routing may have been designed to skirt the presumed edge of some search radars.
The reduction of height to 295 may also have been planned to get below long range cover of the ground radars.
A Question for Engineers and T7 pilots
Given that
1 Malaysian police said there were witnesses on the coastal area near the turnback path of MH370 who saw a/c lights and heard a loud bang
2 an oil rig worker (on the oil rig Songa Mercur, off south east Vietnam) ( about 360nm from turnback point saw a “burning in the sky in the direction of the plane for 10 to 15 seconds,
3 Compressor stalls can be transient and intermittent or steady state and severe. Indications of a transient/intermittent stall are usually an intermittent “bang” as backfire and flow reversal take place. If the stall develops and becomes steady, strong vibration and a loud roar may develop from the continuous flow reversal. Quite often the cockpit gauges will not show a mild or transient stall, but will indicate a developed stall. Typical instrument indications include fluctuations in r.p.m., and an increase in exhaust gas temperature. Most transient stalls are not harmful to the engine and often correct themselves after one or two pulsations.
Turbine engine thrust varies directly with air density. As air density decreases, so does thrust. While both turbine and reciprocating powered engines are affected to some degree by high relative humidity, turbine engines will experience a negligible loss of thrust. (US Private pilot ground school source)
Can the "sound and light show” at turnback point be explained by the above?
Can pilot perform such deliberate aerobatics in the lower reaches of the stratosphere for whatever purpose and recover?(Radar signals recorded by the Malaysian military appeared to show that the missing airliner climbed to 45,000 feet (NYT).