Cheeks. Why be a pr!ck?! Are you saying that they are not doing a good job? Do explain from your ivory tower.

Nobody was discussing whether the crews were doing a good job or not. The discussion was about whether MPA sorties were useful and appropriate in the search MH370 or whether they were a waste of time and money.

Personally, I've got no idea whether that search was appropriate or not, I'd be interested in what experts in the field think. If you're going to try and stifle any debate or discussion on this subject by imagining some form of personal attack on the crews involved and then working yourself up into a lather of indignation on their behalf whilst strengthening your argument by name calling, you might not have identified the 'prick' in this discussion correctly.

Jeez....

The last thing I am is worked up...

Stifling debate??!! Hardly. Just trying to stick up for the guys that are trying to bring an end to the question of what happened to the families that lost their loved ones.

Sorry for sticking up for the good guys. I'll try harder next time.

Regrettably the desire to over pitch the requirement to reinstate our LRMPA capability - which can and should be intelligently and coherently argued by those who know how we maintain maritime security - has led to some embarrassing, emotional and overstated claims in regards the abilities of MPA in searching for debris, without a datum, across a wide open ocean area (not just here, but also on Facebook, by people who really should know better).

Lets get a grip shall we.

First, Search and Rescue is not, and never was, an essential MPA task. It is nothing more and nothing less than a "nice to do" PR mission. Let's not get emotional where the defence of the realm is at stake. We did SAR because we could, not because we had to. Whatever SAR responsibility the UK government has can be met through non-military resources - and so they should. I am of course well aware that the SAR rescue task was formally established, my (well known) point is...it was not what we there for and it was not a wartime priority.

Second, the Nimrod would have performed no better and no worse than any other MPA platform down there...although I suspect that is slightly optimistic in the MR2's case as a combination of it sh1t comms fit and relatively poor endurance would left it struggling to maintain any sort of meaningful on task period. [And if you are reading this pointy eared one...by the time the MR2 went out of service it did not have an AAR capability.] Point of order, modern MPA are optimised to look for submarines - electronically and acoustically. They ain't optimised to look for random beacons at random frequencies and if you want a good visual platform, go dig a few PBY out the desert.

Third, this sad incident has got absolutely **** all to do with this nation's requirement for an MPA capability. Let it go.

Fourth, without fail all the maritime aircrew I ever met were (and still are) bad-assed MF forged in the life school of hard knocks. Most of them will never the read the bollo posted on here, but if they did they would just LTFAO and sink another cold one.

Well said!!

There will be a debate at some point on the utility of all the sensors/ platforms used in this disaster. One thing to think about is the performance of the satellites. They have had a role and provided some datums based on what appeared as possible debris. Clearly the full imagery data has not been available and what was seen at the various datums has not been reported in the press. But what is clear is you need to get eyes in the datum quickly. In the first case to locate survivors and in the later days to ensure surface vessels do not transit 100s of miles to search an area with nothing in it.

MPA are best suited for this mission. Negative information can be important.

Well said The old Fat One.

It beggars belief that people think an argument can, or should, be made for the reinstatement of military MPA, based on the ability find a sunken civilian airliner. IT'S NOT WHAT THEY'RE FOR.:ugh:
Military MPA are involved in this search because there are no dedicated air assets for finding sunken airliners - so you use what you can.

As I said above, skill and luck might result in a find. Let's hope so. But whether a military MPA does, or does not, find said airliner, has absolutely no bearing on the role, requirement, or ability of military MPA.


Sun.

precisely

in the same way that soldiers are not actually there to build walls of sandbags against floods

it's usefull to have them if there is nothing better but its not what theyare paid for

I presume that is an accurate description of your good self, TOFO ??? :ok::D:ok:

Cheeks - Providing they've got an audio capability from their sonobuoys, operators should be able to detect frequencies well above the pinger frequency - albeit they'd be detecting the sub-harmonics in the first instance. I've personally detected and localised 50kHz +

However, hormonic/sub-hormonic frequencies are ALWAYS much weaker than the primary frequency - and thus can only be detected at much shorter ranges.

My wife gets implants for this, seems to help.

A sight for sore eyes?


RN website: Royal Navy ship ‘works 24/7’ to pinpoint missing flight transponder