Originally Posted by
silverstrata
And I note that this morning the UK national newspapers are saying that there were no turns left and right before the aircraft disappeared. So another piece of the puzzle has just been taken off the table - the autopilot may still have been in control.
A long way back on this thread someone mentioned that these 'turns' may have been a misinterpretation of radar returns of sections of a broken aircraft falling in different directions.
It all depends on the rotation rate of the radar and the turn rate of the aircraft. It is easy to get a 'stroboscopic' like effect. I was once 'fortunate' to work with a back to back radar with a high beam and a low beam that rotated
very slowly. An aircraft in a left hand orbit could appear to be orbiting right. It is not possible for anyone to confirm what the real motion is if a return is from something that is turning at a rate that is close to that of the radar head. If the turn rate is just slightly less than the radar rotation it will appear to be turning in the opposite direction the same and it will appear to be nearly stationary.