@Sheep guts

At 17.30Z, the only flight in the air above Kota Bharu was China Eastern Flight MU5093, going south towards Singapore at 37,000ft.

@DCrefugee

So there saying there is more than six pings?

Flight plan change
 

costalpilot #6388

tell me how anyone would know what was entered into the flight plan

Incidentally, at the KL press conf today, it was questioned and denied. They were sure that no other flight plan was on the plane.

This begs the question as to who entered a new flight plan - turnback - zig-zag -then out over the wide blue ocean towards the South Pole.:suspect:

@ ExSp33db1rd
 

The current generation of transponder control heads use push-buttons to enter the code, so the code does not 'change' until the fourth and final digit is entered. The older rotary controls would of course scroll through the digits as they were changed, so if you paused mid-entry, you'd get an undesired code - some of the more recent rotary units have a few seconds 'pause' built into them, such that the code isn't 'set' until you stop turning the controls for 3-5 seconds (yet again negating the need to select STBY).

I don't think I've seen a nodder in years. The more modern three dimensional radars are usually stationary antennas with electronically scanned/steered beams. There are also stacked beams and multipath radars that do the same. Not sure what the new MADGE system is.

When an aircraft is maneuvering the size of the primary response can vary considerably particularly aircraft with large vertical surfaces like the T7. All I was pointing out was that sudden increases in signal can cause quite large errors in the primary systems height finding.

I think that the last nodder I watched was at Lindholme :)

I've posted on this report by NST 5 days ago: Radio contact with MH88, but this alleged communication between MH370 and MH88 was never confirmed by other sources.

And the INMARSAT data shows that the aircraft did not go dark due to total power failure as power was still on to the SATCOM.

While it is difficult to follow the repeats of assertions of denials of assertions of corrected information .... :confused: It is apparent that the INMARSAT data is believed by the Australian, New Zealand and US maritime reconnaissance who are flying out into the middle of nowhere and also by the Chinese who are searching again in potentially reachable areas. I rather doubt that these new searches would be happening due to a PR statement.

What is clear is that the public (which unfortunately includes us) is not being given the full picture - for obvious reasons.

John Young AMSA briefing
 

John Young AMSA (Emergency response division) briefing was very interesting.
Acting on information from NTSB He explained that:

The wording here is crucial, it implies that all pings were received and from that, a 'join the dots' plot can be derived. This would be the first confirmation that all pings were received, not just the last one!
Unless the Australians are assuming this is what NTSB has done, this would indicate the aircraft has been plotted heading due south or of course due North as the arcs are mirrored!

FWIW: every satcom I've worked on has gotten its position data from the FMS.

Working satcom implies working FMS to me...

BBC News, which is usually very reliable, is reporting that the aircraft must have been flying at 8:11, although the reasoning behind this hasn't been revealed.

Apologies if this was already posted:

AMSA :: Australian Maritime Safety Authority

Most recent John Young press conference (excerpted on BBC):

https://drive.google.com/folderview?...1dxMzdSTHRMeW8

Summary update for 20 Mar 2014:

http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documen...H370search.pdf

And the link to more media at the bottom of the PDF:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?...W8&usp=sharing

He cites the NTSB several times. The NTSB seems to have stopped posting after 12 March, with only one other release prior, on 8 March.

Press Release March 12, 2014

"NTSB UPDATES STATEMENT ON MISSING B-777 INVESTIGATION MARCH 12

National Transportation Safety Board investigators who traveled to Kuala Lumpur over the weekend are assisting Malaysian authorities who are leading the search efforts for the Boeing 777 that went missing five days ago.


Investigators with expertise in air traffic control and radar are providing technical assistance to the Malaysian authorities who are working on locating the missing jetliner.


The NTSB plans no further releases of information on the investigation."


8 March release:


Press Release March 8, 2014: NTSB positioning team to offer assistance in investigation of Malaysia Airlines 777 event


"NTSB positioning team to offer assistance in investigation of Malaysia Airlines 777 event
March 8

The National Transportation Safety Board has a team of investigators en route to Asia to be ready to assist with the investigation of the March 8 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 event. The Boeing 777 went missing on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.


Once the location of the airplane is determined, International Civil Aviation Organization protocols will determine which country will lead the investigation. Because of the lengthy travel time from the United States, the NTSB has sent a team of investigators, accompanied by technical advisers from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, to the area so they will be positioned to offer U.S. assistance. The team departed from the U.S. tonight.


The country that leads the investigation will release all information about it."

As far as it goes, as long as the days are passing by, i can only deduce one simple thing:

We have here a 1000 piece Big Puzzle...and we only have Twelve of them... :rolleyes:

Pinging 101
 

Tracking flight MH370: ACARS and transponder - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The head of aviation at the University of News South Wales, Professor Jason Middleton, helps explain just how these systems work and why there is no exact location for the plane.
A rough location can be extrapolated by measuring the time it takes for the ping to be picked up by two satellites.

"[Investigators] are actually using not the signal itself, but the time of reception at different receivers," Professor Middleton said.

"So if you sent out a ping of some sort and it arrives at two receivers and you're exactly halfway between, you can expect that ping will be received – milliseconds later – at the exact same time at both, because it's got the same distance to travel.

"On the other hand, if you're two-thirds closer to one than the other, then that one will receive the signal more quickly than the other."

Professor Middleton says you can use that satellite data to identify a rough line on the surface from where the signal most likely originated.



Any guesses where the second satellite is? The further apart the greater the doppler effect.

If two satellites are used it would be almost impossible to spoof a signal from a fixed point, an idea I raised earlier. You would need to send two pings a split second apart in a way where only one ping was received by each satellite.

For those that want to keep the dream alive that the aircraft has landed;
A drone could have shadowed the flight then turned off and mimicked the ping, but not many drones have speed and endurance to cover the route.

Pingers located on water and land that were activated in sequence.

911 conspirators still claim that ACARS was received after aircraft had crashed.

There was a fast moving ship at the southern search area in the middle of nowhere, a few days ago before the search area was announced..

On the net, so easy to cast doubt on the plausible eh?



Mickjoebill

Flash8

It does not do anything to the AC bus. It is a software selection only which has no effect on the electrical busses.

No, there is really only one arc with a bite taken out of the middle to eliminate the area covered by the adjoining satellite which did not receive a '0011Z ping'.

When John Young says 'sequentially' he is probably indicating the use of earlier 'ping rings' in the calculations. I suggest that if so, these would be a series of running fixes from the last reliable co-location of radar fix and 'ping ring', using max and min ground speeds, which would branch out into some but not all of the final arc.

There is no second satellite. There is only one INMARSAT satellite that picked up the pings. They have used the response time delay to determine the distance only and that is relatively imprecise.

See this: TMF Associates MSS blog » 2014 » March

It's extremely well written and right on the money in terms of details.

ARINC data bus
 

A Q. for 777 avionics techs; could the ARINC data bus be damaged / destroyed in a way that prevented Transponder and ACARS transmissions, but in a way that still provided position information to align the SAT antennae and allow 'pings' ?

@the WAWA ZONE quoting me/ignoing what I wrote
 

Here, what part of my summary did you miss?

The wording here is crucial, it implies that all pings were received and from that, a 'join the dots' plot can be derived. This would be the first confirmation that all pings were received, not just the last one!
Unless the Australians are assuming this is what NTSB has done, this would indicate the aircraft has been plotted heading due south or of course due North as the arcs are mirrored!

New BBC video report, which includes one of the Australian search and rescue people talking about the hourly pings being used to help with possible locations. This means they do have information from all of the pings, but it isn't being made public, as suspected:

BBC News - New clues in search for Malaysia Airlines MH370

Space Jet
 

They're saying there's more than one ping and they have their records.