Some topics of interest for the weekend love it..
But first Hitch brings up some very valid points in supplement to his weekly wrap focus on the new DAS..
:
SteveHitchen In some respects there has been quite a bit of culture change within the RAAF over the past 20 years; roles for women is the obvious one. However, the culture of most military (if not all) is that the rules shall be obeyed without question. What we need now is someone who is going to say "the rules don't work and are even damaging; we need to recognise that and move on to a new set of rules." Is there a lot of that going on in the RAAF? I agree that there has been more culture change in the RAAF in the past 20 years than civvy street, but that says more about civvy street than the RAAF. I honestly hope Mark Skidmore is the man, but his appointment doesn't appear at first to be a good match to what the Forsyth Report said was needed.
Sunny if you go to the
Bounty Divers website you will eventually find this link -
Norfolk Island - Bounty Divers- Crashed Pel Air West Wind that gives a good description of that dive on the PelAir wreck:
Bounty Divers managed to dive on the crashed Pel Air West Wind a few months ago after the area ban was lifted.
We did not get all the way down to the aircraft as this dive was just a reco dive to see if we thought it was possible and/or safe.
As you can see from the footage the fuselage is in two pieces. The rear part is shown very clearly, but we could not see the front section at all. The rear section is the prt that we want to have a look at as is has all of the important parts in and on it ie. the wings, the engines etc.
We have some extremely good divers on Norfolk Island and Bounty Divers will be going down to have another look as soon as the weather permits.
The wreck is sitting at 54m. The video footage was taken from 40m initially and then we moved down to 45m. Before we go any deeper than that we have some serious planning and safety precautions to take care of first.
Hmm...so did they get there?? And who or what roped off the tail of VH-NGA and placed a buoy on that rope?? Was it the Vic water coppers rover...
...or someone else??
Moving on to the "K" post on social media - of which I have somewhat of a fascination...
Currently on the t.w.i.t.t.e.r-verse one of the most hit on hashtags is #MH370, so much more than #MH17 - why is this so?? Well I believe it is because people have an extreme fascination for a mystery or - God forbid - a possible conspiracy. Social media therefore provides the perfect platform for people to get involved by actively searching for any snippet of information to help feed human nature's natural inclination to solve a mystery.
While on #MH370 came across a couple of snippets..
..of interest in regards to the "K" post above. The first was from an app that allows you to expand or make longer t
ts:
MuOne:
“If Inmarsat are still holding some cards close it seems ATSB are complicit?
“I still think, it will be the Malaysians (Indonesians, and maybe Thai?) that deserve the stick, for holding back on radar data release.”
I’ll ask again: to the degree that information is being withheld (and that appears to be the case — and by more than one “party” here), how would that be done WITHOUT the complicity of the other stakeholders? Put another way, if Malaysia and Indonesia are the only culprits here, why haven’t they been fully outed? There are competing interests here. And the aviation industry lives (or dies) on certainty — and the flying public’s belief that it’s statistically safer to travel by air than drive a car or cross the street on foot...
...Very clearly, the “authorities” – whether we’re talking about Malaysia, ATSB, AAIB (UK), or the FAA – have convergent interests here. But they have divergent interests as well. In that regard (and before we put ALL of the obfuscation around MH370 in Malaysia’s lap), do people recall what Duncan Steel said about the French (BEA) getting stonewalled?
Remi Jouvet, a member of the French delegation sent to Malaysia, said “The plane was made invisible intentionally.” But UK’s AAIB refused to give MH370 ping data to the French who were INVITED by the Malaysians, because of their expertise gained as a result of AF447. So the French left Malaysia empty-handed.
Ok then there is the many millions of links (to more & more information...
) that is provided by the many social media platforms...the amount of information available to any individual on the planet is (pardon the pun) absolutely mind boggling!
Again using #MH370 for yet another Australian connection:
The Aussie Connection
...Summary: The Aussie connection and high politics
We see that the military commander at the critical hours of MH370 was probably an Australian officer not a Malaysian. This may help us understand the Australian involvement later during the search after MH370 in the Southern Indian Ocean.
The FPDA exists for more than forty years and against all expectations has flourished. Its secret is that it was kept quiet and undemanding. It's not a formal mutual defense treaty and formally the five sides are required only to consult each other in case of defense emergency. The Malaysians are playing "hard to get" and feel smug that the Australians are trying to please them.
Into this delicate web the MH370 affair fell like a bomb. Most Malaysians wouldn't like to hear that an Australian officer is commanding their air defense and if he made a fatal mistake in this case the FPDA is in real danger. We should remember that the FPDA is crucial to the US in its plans to contain China and it'll do whatever needed protect it...
Hmm interesting...yet another AVM diligently following Govt orders...
MTF...