Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[Buster Hyman]

..Is Australia short on vessels? ...just wondering..no heli on Success either..yet it has a pad?

Others, with better knowledge will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that it doesn't always put to Sea with a Sea King on board and, if it didn't have one when tasked with the search, I doubt they would have waited.

[500N]

That is my understanding as well. It doesn't always have one on board.

They can always pick one up in Perth

[Avtrician]

They can always pick one up in Perth

Nope, no Seakings (do we have any any more?? not sure) or Seahawks kept over in the West. Only here as needed. No Black Hawks of fighters either

[500N]

I know. But we have C-17's that can fly them over !

[imaynotbeperfect]

Is Australia short on vessels? ...

Wantion ... ..Is Australia short on vessels? ...

Maybe not quite the armada fielded by some of the world's super powers but probably consistent with a population of 25 million

[onetrack]

500N - The cyclone has dissipated into a weak low pressure system, and the cloud and moisture associated with it, is dispersing into the Southern Ocean and the Bight. However, the weak low pressure system is now producing another buildup of heavy cloud, West of Shark Bay.

The search area is again being traversed by a cold front with increased cloud, and the likelihood of moderate weather and good sea conditions with vastly improved visibility isn't looking good for today, either.

It's been noted by oceanographics experts, in line with my prediction hundreds of posts back, that debris from MH370 will appear on the West Australian coastline in the not-too-distant future.
I trust any fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean have been notified by AMSA to keep a sharp lookout for MH370 wreckage.

Australian weather satellite and lightning tracker

[Hogger60]

Supplier Sam, Kudos to you sir.

Finally someone who has expertise with the 777 fire warning and suppression systems to debunk many of these so called experts. This post should be read aloud during all of the Media's nightly Circus Clown roundup, and made mandatory reading prior to anyone posting anything at all having to do with their half-assed theories of what happened to MH370, because they have their CPL and they "know" how it all works at 35,000ft.

Bravo

[lomapaseo]

Accident Investigation

Supplier Sam

Now you’re going to say to me, what about Swissair? To which I’ll say, no modern jetliner is lined with insulation blankets made of tinder and oily rags, and no competent designer wires up a disreputable pile of entertainment boxes so the breakers won’t trip when it arcs.

This kind of belief doesn't carry weight among those charged with investigating air accidents.

We have been faced with too many lessons unlearned by those who think they have done it right this time.

All avenues are open until facts are in evidence.

[Sheep Guts]

Fuel burns ?

From Boeing Data for B777-200ER.
Long Range Cruise. Engines RR Trent 892
All up Weight at start of distance, 200.0 Tonnes
Time in hours and minutes, fuel burn in 1,000s kg

Distance -------------- Flight levels
(nm)_______100__________200___________300____________400
_________Fuel Time______Fuel Time_______Fuel Time________Fuel Time
_600_____11.5 1.50_______9.1 1.37________7.5 1.28_________6.6 1.22
1200_____23.3 3.18______18.8 3.12_______15.6 2.52________13.9 2.38
2000_____38.5 6.08______31.2 5.21_______26.4 4.45________23.5 4.19

Nice table it's a little weird when you look at your kgs/hr check. Take for example the FL100 column.

600nm. 11.5 Tonnes in 1:50 equals 6.38 Tonnes/hour

1200nm. 23.3 Tonnes in 3:18 equals 7.06 Tonnes/hour

2000nm. 38.5 Tonnes in. 6:08 equals 6.31 Tonnes/ hour

Surely it would burn more in the first 600nm?

Is there any tail trim tank fuel with 38.5 Tonnes left?

[Lost in Saigon]

Originally Posted by DriverAirframeOneOf

Still don't see the range comparison at throttled back low speed below 10000' vs Planned Cruise speed at altitude.

I guess...tell me the range at assumed fuel load from when turning southbound at max hold speed at ~10000'...
This very slow speed might cross the southern Inmarsat LOP very far north at more or less 90 degrees relative.
Maybe just south of Jacarta, Indonesia, where it was shot down on visual approach to Jakarta Airport after being watched on military radar all night long - at just after 8 am local at the time of the last partial Inmarsat handshake...Maybe...
Or maybe it just ran out of fuel flying slowly eastbound crossing the Inmarsat LOP south of Jakarta...

Here are some numbers for GE powered B777-200LR Long Range Cruise......

[nitpicker330]

777's don't have a trim ( tail ) tank

[Uncle Fred]

Regarding the search, what height of wave brings about whitecaps, foam, and heavy spray? What height of wave then brings about the breakers that one sees in the video that was posted from the Telegraph? Does merely a confused sea cause a lot of foam or does there need to be a good blow over the water as well.

What I am trying to understand is how calm the sea and wind needs to be for even decent SAR spotting? I know they deploy in pretty foul weather, but I can imagine that a lot of white on the water makes the challenge a difficult one at best.

[UnreliableSource]

Inmarsat

Thanks for the thorough explanation US. Do you mean 24/7 sampling at 3+ GHz could be taking place in the sat? I understand the reasoning but doubt the practicalities.

No. At an earth station the incoming RF effectively filtered and downconverted to extract a section of the RF they care about. This downconvered segment is called an IF, and will be a much much smaller chunk of bandwidth.

So the sampling is done on earth, and it is done over a subset of the spectrum.

[Sheep Guts]

Thanks Nitpicker and Lost in Saigon,
I stand corrected. Gosh I hope they find this thing.

[onetrack]

Another unsettling factor here, is that a leading marine geologist, Robin Beaman, from James Cook University. has pointed out that the seafloor in the aircraft search area is largely unmapped - and there's a chain of undersea volcanoes in the region, the Southeast Indian Ridge.

He's pointing out that the "complex terrain" of the Ridge will make underwater recovery difficult at best - and the lack of 3D sea floor mapping will only exacerbate the problem.

Australia's only sea-floor mapping vessel, the RV Southern Surveyor, was retired in December, and its replacement is still undergoing sea trials.
To say the timing of the aircraft loss was unfortunate as regards our sea-floor mapping ability is an understatement, to say the least.

[StrongEagle]

flt001

Looks like the search conditions today will be very difficult, how they can spot a 20m piece of wreckage in this, professional indeed.

Somewhat frightening video from search boat here. (Telegraph UK)

Ref post: http://www.pprune.org/8401233-post8158.html

Complete fake...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aow2ErSP3dQ

This video was taken Jan, 2013 and probably in the North Atlantic where this LPG carrier normally makes short runs.

It's a small boat, relatively speaking, and hard to fathom exactly where it would be delivering LPG deep in the south Indian Ocean.

[G0ULI]

Uncle Fred
Beaufort wind force 6 will cause white caps to form and make it virtually impossible to spot smaller objects in the water.

Try google for images of the various sea states on the Beaufort scale.

[AirTrafficOne]

Military Interference

Like millions of others I'm watching this saga with intense interest. I just flew as pax 6 sectors with AirAsia through Malaysian airspace. I'm a former Captain rank ATC (in an Air Defence environment too) and civilian ATC and pilot. I'm going to throw this in there.
Not much talk of military interference causing the loss of this aircraft. Just say there was a SNAFU (or deliberate) downing. Just say. The country involved steams its ships to the crash site and collects all the debris and bodies.
The Malaysian Air Defence RADAR is spoofed by Mil ECM. Unless you have a very experienced operator, complex spoofing is very hard to detect. How 'hardened' against this type of attack is the Malaysian system? We don't know.

Equally, we have no idea how 'hardened' the Inmarsat system is against a similar spoofing attack.

All have to agree that this is whole event is just bizarre.

There are NO SATELLITE IMAGES ANYWHERE that show a B777 IN FLIGHT along a pathway to the southern Indian ocean? Are you kidding me? None?

Please don't go into attack mode - just throwing it in there... Nothing I've seen so far makes much sense...

Cheers

[nitpicker330]

I was referring to your FL450 comment.
I earlier posted data regarding the difference between real Altitude and Indicated pressure Altitude being up to 2,500' different.

[Hogger60]

AirTrafficOne
There are NO SATELLITE IMAGES ANYWHERE that show a B777 IN FLIGHT along a pathway to the southern Indian ocean? Are you kidding me? None?

I think there are most probably satellite photos of it, just not photos that any military organization (maybe US NRO?) who has them is going to release to the public.