And the next bit of teeth pulling would be ... and which 2 wpts where these ???

aviation watcher,

Why do you assume that? Do you have much formation time, especially over long routes? I've flown across the Atlantic without the foggiest notion of the navigation, just when I needed to refuel.

GF

Interesting inteview on the Hannity show with General McInerny. He retired as Vice Chief or Staff of the Air Force and appears to have significant intelligence connections. A week ago he was saying don't ignore Pakistan. He was back on tonight making the case stronger. Some of the information he mentioned was that he believed the aircraft was in the Taliban controlled areas of Paksitan (Western?) where there were 3 airfields capable of handling the plane. He said that he beielved both pilots were complicit and that they did NOT turn off their communications (VHF, HF,SATCOM) and that US 'vacuum cleaners' would be expected to pick up their communications with their destination. He believed that the pressure will build on Pakistan and things will come to a head in 24-28 hours.
He also said that the US Navy would not have pulled its ships from the Indian Ocean unless they knew something. Also, Israel has gone on a higher state of alert, somenting they would not have done without intelligence.
He is, by far, the most believeable individual commenting on the situation.

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2014/03/18...anded-pakistan

Quote:
Put it in your flight planner from where it went missing then was sighted (if it was sighted ) in Maldives from where it was last known and you end up DIRECT LINE TO Somalia.

Why did the US Navy ships stop looking and go West with 7th fleet.

Because at the time it was supposedly sighted in the Maldives it was 8hr 45 after it left KL, a trip entirely over water and would have long before run out of fuel and buried itself in the ocean:ugh::ugh::ugh:

Not true, the apparent turn at waypoint VAMPI is a perfect setup for a 45 to 90deg intercept for a formation join, just need to adjust speed and heading to allow for the join target being early or late.

I think we all agree (and hope) the authorities have more information than has been publicly released.

I wonder if the Inmarsat satellites are really the information the authorities are going on. It certainly does sound plausible. However it does seem an odd coincidence that the claimed level of precision should just happen to produce a result of 40 degrees.

It also took a few days for this information to come out. While this delay does make sense, it also makes sense if there was a need to develop a plausible explanation in order to protect true capabilities.

The US has likely invested heavily in the area of tracking airliners - especially post 9/11 when primary radar was unable to track large jets flying around 2 of the most important US cities. They also have plenty of experience tracking phones - and have spent many years delivering "air mail" on the basis of real time phone intercepts.

We will likely never know. But it is possible the search is not quite the needle in the haystack that it appears. Hope so anyway.

Quote [platinum flyer]
Also, Israel has gone on a higher state of alert, something they would not have done without intelligence.
They suspect Iranian involvement.

It's around 1700nm from the Maldives to Mogadishu in Somalia. IF it was at the Maldives at 0615 local (0915 KL) there would have been an additional 0911 ping (which has not been reported, and the 0811 ping would not have been along the arc shown unless that ping arc was a false report,

Apart from which, if it were only as far west as the Maldives, 7 hours after it went missing, then it must have been going very slowly (~250 knots), and probably would not have had enough fuel to make it much further west, anyway.

Presumably whomever was in control would have entered a waypoint into the autopilot to take it to the southern Indian Ocean. Wouldn't setting it to 90°S be the simplest? The eastern of the two tracks devised by the NTSB is close to a direct track toward the South Pole.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/532...x2-700x467.jpg

Back tracking NTSB positions
 

The graphic below is using an equidistant projection, and has a 40° and derived satellite elevation arcs drawn on it from backtracking the data provided by AMSA / NTSB. The red tracks represent the two speeds used by the NTSB and an assumption is made that the aircraft passed well to the west of Aceh, North Sumatra, to avoid PSR detection.

All times shown are UTC, commencing with the LKP at IGARI (1720z) and a possible PSR position at 1822z, all interconnected by an orange track to intercept the possible backtracked position west of Aceh.

The east track has been overlaid with light blue and hourly positions placed on it using a GS of 470 KTS.

Earth-SAT elevation angles are shown for the estimated arcs.

http://oi61.tinypic.com/2i07sq0.jpg

As the projection used is Equidistant, the tracks appear to be diverging to the west. If stretched in a polar direction, i.e. Mercator projection, those tracks should form a straight line and cross all Lat/Long at constant angles. However, if a way-point a large distance away has been entered into the FMS, the aircraft will be following a great circle path and a curved track on a Mercator projection is what one would expect.

Chinese said to have very good radar
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/wo...h.html?hp&_r=0

The Indian and perhaps Nepalese military may have more exact knowledge of where and how low Chinese primary radar reaches -- not that I think they will share that with us.

The Chinese of course want attaches to think that everything will be detected and tracked.

Mind you, taking a Turbo Porter on a smuggling run down a Himalayan gorge looks much more doable than in a T7.

Remember that there's not much point running primaries in a mountainous area without an interceptor force that can get to low level traffic sneaking up a valley.

A mountaintop primary getting an echo from a target below it needs software to separate that echo from the ground behind it.

These concerns stated, the Chinese primaries could be as good as advertised.

awblain

But they wouldn't need the return path time (I think that is what you meant).

If they had the Inmarsat ping, and another satellite in a different orbit recorded the same ping, that would help.

From the Inmarsat data they would have the absolute time the ping was sent. They would have the time the 2nd satellite detected the ping. They could then calculate distance from this 2nd satellite (which would be at a known location at this known time).

That would give them 3 spheres with which to work - known distance from Inmarsat, known distance from 2nd satellite, and surface of earth.

Wawa
 

I think the best information you are likely to get on the waypoints is in the attached link. Putting together what separate unrevealed sources close to the investigation have stated with what Malaysian authorities have revealed publicly. They have publicly acknowledged the aircraft was heading north west about 320km from Penang at 2.15am, which adds up with the "sources" state.

MISSING MH370: Radar data suggests plane flown deliberately toward Andaman - Latest - New Straits Times

@ RatherBeFlying
I am sure the Indians, Pakistaniis and Chinese all have very very good coverage of the disputed area.
Recent wars have been fought there over territory (and not all is probably heard of it).
The do not need a fighter to check a target. A missile can do the job quicker.

Wouldn't be the first time in the past few days that the USS Kidd made a move to a different area of operations before new MH 370 intelligence was publically revealed:

USS Kidd sent to Indian Ocean after 'indication' of Malaysian jet crash - Washington Times

Could you mirror those routes to the north please?

Heading East?
 

All talk has been about a/c heading North, West or South. Any possibility it could have doubled back in an Easterly direction? Don't :ugh: me #JustAsking ;)

The ACARS will have been current position and next 2 waypoints from the active flight plan. It's one of the standard ATSU and AOC ACARS messages.

There are plenty of documents online which describe the different types of ACARS services and their message formats.

Rigbyrigz,

ACARS is not going to report positions in an 'emergency route' i.e. Route 2, it will only report positions of the active route.

It's not overly difficult to 'accidentally' execute Route 2 (or Route 1 if Route 2 is in use). If, without thinking, you went to the Route page, activated the other route and executed it then the machine (assuming LNAV engaged and A/P in CMD) would turn towards the active waypoint, which may not be in the direction required. HOWEVER, it is extremely easy to remedy the situation and it does not require disengaging autopilots or random climbs to FL450. A simple push of the HDG button and you can then 'manually' steer it until you get the route situation sorted out and then re-engage LNAV. None of the theatrics you describe are necessary nor likely.

@jmmilner: thank you for answer.
You could be right: I have not enough "data" to exclude this... but I am not conviced :confused: Hope I can try again soon!

May be someone ask this question in the next conference: are all the known phone numbers of the pax been searched for connexion or a simple "ping" on the 03/08 after 01:20?