PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore
Old 29th Dec 2014, 10:29
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Mahatma Kote
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Antipodes Islands
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Technology Status?

I can buy an INS for $150 that has integrated GPS and three axis-accelerometer, gyro and magnetometer, along with barometer.

It knows its absolute position within centimetres and its attitude to better than a degree in each axis.

This unit is derived from full scale INS so I ask the question why there is a problem on modern aircraft when pitot tubes and whatever are blocked / misreading?

I understand there is a difference between actual air speed components and true ground-speed, but why is this high precision information source not used? Or if it is, why are things like pitot tubes more important and overriding the absolute measurements? Especially over extended period of seconds to minutes?
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