Re the standby list. They could have been easily sitting a max ZFW with cargo, even if they were not full of passengers. I do flights like that on the triple all the time.

Here it is
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...x-JORS.svg.png

Post 2282:

"We do not know anything about the cause. We only know all comms were gone."

Not a leading question, but do we know the comms were gone? Or can we only say they / it stopped communicating?

I've passed on a request to Air Force HQ to look at their Jindalee data..and if they can't disclose anything to at least tell their own P3 crew where to look.

They will most likely ignore my request anyway.

I had to ask.

Car Nicobar airport only 500 miles NW of Penang
 

Car Nicobar airport is only 500 miles NW of Penang, another 300 miles further NW from where Malaysian radar lost the trace of the unconfirmed object.

Here's how the Indian Express of 23 February reported the Indian Home Ministry's assessment of the Nicobar islands ....

Andaman and Nicobar Islands a potential terror hub: Home Ministry | The Indian Express

The island was over-run by a tsunami a few years ago. Is the airport still operational?

''Jindalee''

The Aussies are not going to advertised the full capabilities of Jindalee.

For sure it can 'look' future than what Wiki indicated.

In reply to #2283.

Based on meteorology from Mar 1, NOAA Hysplit shows these winds on Mar 7, 17:00 UTC:

http://s4.postimg.org/44ogeh8ml/Screen1345.jpg
http://ready.arl.noaa.gov/hypubout/11641_trj001.gif

The star is the point of lost radar contact at 17:22Z. (Model time used is 17:00Z.)

The red triangle shows the position of a floating (not falling) object at FL350 (10,668 m) at 18:00Z.
The blue square shows the position of a floating (not falling) object at FL230 (7,000 m) at 18:00Z.
The green circle shows the position of a floating (not falling) object at FL164 (5,000 m) at 18:00Z.

According to this model, the wind at FL350 was about 085 deg at 10 kn. Wind at FL164 was about 100 deg at 20 kn.

Fliegenmong - we can argue semantics but I am happy to say she has been cabin crew on 777s for ten years most recently on Qantas. If you said she was just a passenger she would be very cross indeed. She regards herself as very experienced and highly trained. I only relay her comments, where do you know that she is wrong? I will refer back.

I'd be fairly confident that if they had the range they would already do that. The big issue is if they did have something and how to disseminate it!

Normally with modern systems the display shown to the controllers is totally synthetic and is made up of information from different radars and from other sources such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance (both Broadcast at half Herz and sometimes Contract every 10 minutes). The radar information is normally 'digitized' at the remote radar sites, this process can remove some of the primary radar noise. Similarly the secondary radar normally will have up to 20 'hits' on the aircraft even out at 150 miles less than 10 and the response may be discarded. The digitized signals and other position reports from other sensors are then fed to the control center where a 'multi-sensor tracker' changes them into 'tracks' these are built as soon as the aircraft transponders switch on on the ground and are continually updated with sensor positions as they are received. Filters are then used to ensure that there is no jitter due to slight inconsistencies in the reported positions. It is these tracks that are sent to the controller display processors.
The tracks are correlated with the known flight data of the aircraft so that the controller can access flight data by clicking on the position symbol, but also the flight data can be used by the tracker to 'expect' when aircraft will turn. If the aircraft is tracked and late the surveillance processing can update the flight data processing so that times remain correct. The system can also alert when aircraft deviate from cleared levels etc.

What the controller sees is entirely synthetic and the controller has no control over gain etc. It is not normal for an ATC controller to use primary radar only indeed many will switch it off to reduce clutter. However, once an aircraft is being tracked the primary response is 'correlated' with the other track data, so that if the aircraft transponders cease for some reason the labeled display will continue with just the primary response if there is one. If all surveillance sensor data for a track is lost the systems may coast the position symbol for a period along the projected ground track sometimes modified by flight plan track data. This is actually quite common in oceanic areas where position reports may be only every 10 minutes on ADS=C. (Coasting can be seen on systems like Flight Aware.)

Data is recorded at almost every point in the process with greatly differing accessibility. The recordings at the radar heads will be mainly for maintenance purposes not normally for investigation. Once information comes into a center it is recorded again mainly for maintenance and fault finding. All data delivered to controllers for their use is recorded and stored in accordance with ICAO rules which is normally 28 days or more. Most centers will have almost immediate playback capabilities for incident resolution.

Jindalee "official range". Apparently it can do much better. It just might have been able to see this event. Someone would have had to have it on and recording though.

From our Wiki Friends

allowing it to have both long range as well as anti-stealth capabilities. It has an official range of 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) but in 1997 the prototype was able to detect missile launches by China[6] over 5,500 kilometres (3,400 mi) away.
Jindalee uses 560 kW as compared to the US's OTH-B's 1 MW, yet offers far better range than the US 1980s system, due to the considerably improved electronics and signal processing.[7]

Qouted myself.

Did a simple check on flightradar24 map, and it looks to be around /roughly 380 Nm between last radar spot and "200Nm NV Penang".

Roughly gives a ground speed of 460-500kt, depending on actual time if/when it turned westly. Seems plausible to me.

Seems like it doesn't have the range required to 'see' that far north. But it is impressive and explains why Cobham's coastwatch contract ends in 2020. :(

The Iranians appear to know what happened

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/malaysia-ai...1.html#n7aeQdr

Some of the theories on here are getting quite impressive!
Seems like the South China sea could be the most logical place to look, this 'fire in the sky' 300km off Vietnam is at least in the same vague direction it was heading.
Making some assumptions here, but if they pilots suffered a 'major mechnical issue' (however it was 'induced'), this could send the aircraft off course, but the pilots main issue would surely just be trying to control the aircraft before trying to get the direction sorted?

G.W.

That's a definite keeper. I am passing it on to all my curious non-aviation friends.:D

Hello, my first contribution to this thread.

I was a Radar Operator on Jindalee OHR.

Yes Jindalee does work very well, obviously i cant say how well or i might be in a wee bit of trouble.

Jindalee is a HF based skywave radar, it bounces radiowaves off the ionosphere onto the target.

Have a look at the correlation between HF, the ionosphere and usage at night, and you will understand that picking up MH370 would never happen, even if Jindalee could see that far.

Rather than Australian OTH radars, if you want ocean surveillance information, talk to the US, and perhaps Russian (?), operators of what might perhaps be orbiting SAR radars. That would especially rule out any implausible trip over the Indian Ocean until the fuel ran out.

Ok, I'll jump in.. I don't normally speculate (I'm a heavy Captain for a US airline with a lot of overwater experience in an ac like the 777), but I will add this, with CPDLC, HF, VHF, ACARS and SATCOM, I'll find some way to get a message out under duress.. especially CPDLC, for it's a couple of key strokes.. would take me.. 5 seconds, tops.

- Chances of complete loss of comm on the 777, very, very slim...

- Bomb explosion we would have found the pieces long ago...

- I don't like structural failure theory cause it would have led to disintegration of airplane and then aircraft pieces would have already been found...

my theories fall into these two areas:

1. Hi-jack (terrorism from outside or crew)
2. Hypoxia event leading to incapacitation of all life on board.. (has happened in the past)

In reply again to #2283:

The upper winds measured by weather balloons launched by the Kota Bharu weather station are different from the ones calculated by NOAA Hysplit.

( University of Wyoming - Radiosonde Data )

Kota Bharu Mar 7, 12Z sounding:

FL350: 020 deg at 10 kn.
FL230: 060 deg at 23 kn.
FL164: 095 deg at 16 kn.

Kota Bharu Mar 8, 00Z sounding:

FL350: 020 deg at 15 kn.
FL230: 090 deg at 17 kn.
FL164: 100 deg at 24 kn.