The older generation couldn't either mate, as was demonstrated time and again.

What are you flying? DC-3's?
The aircraft involved was an A320.

.

I know very well what you are talking about. You are talking about outdated equipment and your skill in the black art of using it. Bully for you.
It's all wrong, if you use it wrongly. But the modern gear is easier to use. So less often dangerously wrong.

I'll lay a penny to a pound that (if this was indeed a cb encounter) it came down to pilot decision making, not equipment shortcomings. And by the way - by pilot decision making I refer to the kind of hard choices forced on pilots every day, when ATC refuse course deviations.

ATC refuse deviations que! ATC or CB ? Mayday I'm deviating. Having said that I have never been refused point blank.

Shock and fire resistance no longer mean heavy since the advent of Kevlar, Carbon, honeycombes and foams. Current commercial combined recorders are only a couple of Kg.

Deployable Combined Data Recorders have been used successfully and usefully by the US Navy since 1993.

The NTSB(US) recommended in 1999 that two Combined data Recorders should be used, on separate power grids, both with RIPS. One should be deployable, both should be spatially separated (eg tail and nose). The FAA(US) is still thinking about it having been given 3.5 million to do so.

The SAFE act mandating the NTSB proposal has been introduced 4 times to Congress, most recently in March 2014.

Basically Airbus has said it will implement this proposal on their wet long range new builds A350 and A380. The proposed recorder performance massively exceeds current legal requirements, I do not see a big problem with certification and if Airbus did they would probably not have released the info. If EASA green lights it, I do not see how the FAA can object especially as they have a 15 year old NTSB recommendation for it.

As to uploaded ground based weather radar data, this is as I understand it already available using ADS-B. NextGen and Single European Sky would probably mandate it.

BUT! a lot of this applies to North America/Europe. Other airspaces may have to comply in order to fly to and over the US/Europe but for example in the case of MH370, just because they physically can do ACARS over satellite, does not mean they feel like paying to do so. Even the Marshall Islands have their own, technically independent, CAA.

I said exactly the same, right up to that highlighted line. I can't agree with that.
Maybe this is a misunderstanding. What do you mean by 'stronger'? More amplitude?
What is being debated is frequency band. That's where the systems have changed notably.
If you have a land or ship borne system you may be able to produce enormous beam amplitude, but on an aircraft you don't have that luxury. Varying the frequency band varies beam penetration for a given power output/amplitude.

but this is what boofhead detests. Raw data is best! For him.....

I mentioned the ITCZ in West Africa. In relation to a severe incident/near accident caused by ancient WX radar. It was NASA who charecterised the CB as a super-cell in the incident report (based on WX sat data).
Having seen the aircraft after the event, and spoken with my colleagues, it was no ordinary CB. NASA commented that the flight probably only penetrated the outer edges before they turned/got spat out. They also speculated that further penetration would almost certainly have resulted in a breakup.

I have no opinion on the severity of the storm involved in the AK crash. We don't know.

Then I assume you never fly in China airspace.

In extremis, yes of course, a PAN or even MAYDAY may be your last resort. But most pilots are reluctant to do that, rather than attempt to negotiate a compromise with ATC.
Because 'going nuclear' might cost you your job and/or your freedom in some parts of the world. Hard choices for sure. That's why we get paid such BIG BUCKS. :rolleyes:

and......
Even though this guy is clearly BARKING MAD, I completely agree with him!

:p

Heck, they found AF 447 and there is some question about the entire "truth" of that event due to only parts of the CVR being released (per standard practices).

@ glendalegoon: Amen Deacon! (in re wx radar information flow)

BARKINGMAD: Likewise inclined. Suggest training and cockpit culture is the area most helpful in such prevention efforts.

In order to help find out that where the problem was, and propose solutions, and possibly adopt them (if not too expensive), and suggest that non EU/US CAAs adopt them too ... and prevent the problem ...

you need to find the wreckage and the data recorders.

Which is why the NTSB recommended deployable data recorders in 1999!

Barkingmad:
If it helps to reassure a bit, the airline I work for has been focused on stall recognition/recovery for the last six months of recurrent training/checking in the simulator. All our pilots have now been exposed to this and we are acutely aware of the problems that AF447 encountered. I'm sure my Company is not alone in this, I'm sure many others will have taken the same approach, even before this accident (if stalling/unreliable airspeed is involved, of course). The industry is generally good at learning from incidents/accidents.

Algol, Yep still wouldn't fly through a T/S. & have had no problems (deviating) on the odd occasion (very Few) that I have been in Chinese airspace.
It is worrying then that ATC are now putting aircraft at risk. I wonder if this fact will be a factor in this instance. If only the SLF realised what aviation has come too.:hmm:

Until we get the data we do not know the chain of events which led up to this accident.

It's possible this accident may not be weather related or weather may be a small factor along with other factors which currently we are not aware of.

Anyone who wants to see radar freq. vs. rain can take a look here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvTkVj5-uv0
This isn't POWER, it is FREQUENCY.

Ice pack : Again , you do not seem to understand that ATC is not there to put aircraft at risk regarding weather. ATC has another function , proactive weather avoidance is not their task. Also you have to realise that most ATC centres do not have weather radars superimposed on their radar displays.

In this case, ATC allowed the crew to deviate horizontally, as requested. The climb was delayed , but for the correct reasons. If the crew percieved a risk, they could easily have overuled ATC and climb, (and maybe they did) .

From what I have heard so far, I am not sure weather alone is the reason of this crash . But a bit of patience, with both recorders recovered now we probably will know soon enough .

It is also things like FTC and STC to reduce clutter and I am sure lots of digital processing now.

"Sensitivity Time Control (STC). This feature reduces the impact of returns from sea state. It reduces the minimum SNR of the receiver for a short duration immediately after each pulse is transmitted. The effect of adjusting the STC is to reduce the clutter on the display in the region directly around the transmitter. The greater the value of STC, the greater the range from the transmitter in which clutter will be removed. However, an excessive STC will blank out potential returns close to the transmitter.

Fast Time Constant (FTC). This feature is designed to reduce the effect of long duration returns that come from rain. This processing requires that strength of the return signal must change quickly over it duration. Since rain occurs over and extended area, it will produce a long, steady return. The FTC processing will
filter these returns out of the display. Only pulses that rise and fall quickly will be displayed. In technical terms, FTC is a differentiator, meaning it determines the rate of change in the signal, which it then uses to discriminate pulses which are not changing rapidly."

Radar Systems


island_airphoto
Anyone who wants to see radar freq. vs. rain can take a look here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvTkVj5-uv0
This isn't POWER, it is FREQUENCY.

The military currently have developed an integrated battlefield radar picture that takes all radar sources painting any target and integrates them into a composite 'objective' picture. Any fighter can then switch their radar off if necessary for stealth purposes and still get an accurate presentation via data link of the targets computed 'as if' from their individual perspective.

Similarly with TCAS we share our info on relative positions.

The recent extreme storms in Brisbane Australia demonstrated that extreme cell pictures vary, dependent on the relative direction of the radars. The weather radar North of BNE showed a quite different picture to the one South of BNE especially regarding the all important gaps between major cells.

It would seem not to difficult to integrate ground and air weather radars into a composite picture, particularity relating to dangerous cells. This is even simpler than the battlefield situation because we fly on narrow air routes in ideal, reciprocal directions.

Just a thought about the ejectable CVR/FDR issue. How about having a duplicate copy of the memory modules stuck into the vertical stabilizer. It seems that this is the first thing to be shed from the plane, and also seems to float -- not to mention that it is big enough to identify in a search.

Think of the AA A300 crash out of JFK, the AF 447 crash in the Atlantic, and now this Air Asia crash. The first thing found was the floating VS section.

On seach costs .. answer to John in YVR
 

John, all the points that you mention are valid. They show part of why it is complex.

In my view there is no such thing as 'true' costs. In all cost calculation (and its foundation on costs collection and allocation) there is a lot of subjectivity.

Subjectivity returns at the beginning of the 'top' search costs calculation. P.M. Tony Abbott used a 'common' (common in both government and industry) statement early on in MH 370 when he said something like "we have these (navy) ships anyway, so there is no (extra) cost". That is a different viewpoint from what I would take, that is starting with the statement that all activities and all asset uses carry costs.

When the search took longer, the costs came 'out in the open', because part of the search was outsourced (costs published). And part of the naval assets had to return to the missions/activities they were on when it all started. If not, then they would have to add a line item in the navy budget for new assets and for certain deepwater search systems.

One of the easy parts of this is, that many or most of the costs are known or familiar. In aerospace design that can be different, there you sometimes have to calculate with 'technical costs' because the systems or components have never been manufactured before.

... this idea that every single step anyone takes or nut & bolt wasting away in a store always needs costing and charging (to someone or some budget or other) irks me..

really, not exactly proactive forward thinkkng govt. And what better exercises
and real life experience & training is there than being out there and doing stuff..
rather than twiddling fingers in offices, docks barracks.

if Tony Abbott is happy then let them get on with it... if the British Govt.
hadn't sanctioned the (novel) recovery of the Comet Papa India and
given Sir Arnold Hall & Farnborough a blank cheque in the early fifties and then
paid for a fully Public Enquiry... it could have been many years for
the full facts of metal fatigue's random scatter to be fully accounted for
in design. Plus all the other spinoffs... tank testing etc.
Doubt anyone was wasting time cost counting back then when all those facilities
and staff existed
bean counters eh? How much do they cost to house & feed :)

ATC watcher
I was replying to Algol.
What part of :
Quote:
In extremis, yes of course, a PAN or even MAYDAY may be your last resort. But most pilots are reluctant to do that, rather than attempt to negotiate a compromise with ATC.
Because 'going nuclear' might cost you your job and/or your freedom in some parts of the world. Hard choices for sure. That's why we get paid such BIG BUCKS.
Un Quote
Didn't I understand.

Furthermore, major Cb cells containing lightning are easily tracked from above by satellites and could be fed into an integrated dangerous weather picture.

(Another major advantage in the military use of data integration is that strike aircraft can track multiple targets behind them and release multiple missiles that quickly loop overhead after release to take care of following bogies. The aircraft in front have a missile range advantage then because their missiles are travelling with the relative 'wind' giving a missile major drag advantage.)

For a long time we have relied on doppler radar to sort static rocks from moving clouds on descent into terminal areas. The airfield radar has an advantage in that it's looking up away from the terrain. Even this level of integration in the terminal areas would be a great help, especially in low wind velocity conditions.