Centosphere
Um, where did you find the raw uncompressed images to look at? All I saw were pictures taken of a video screen at a slightly oblique angle. The smooth looking area was dark. The image was jpeg. The jpeg probably smoothed the image a little. And it could also be smoothed by other effects mentioned since my comment. It's WAY premature to make anything big our of it.

deSitter....
(me mumbling) Video == vidicons. Stills == film. The blooming looked so "vidicon" that my mind fastened on that forgetting vidicons are hardly high definition toys. My bad.

Quote from Machinbird:
On a local level within the aircraft, Whatever was below greatly influenced the damage pattern above.
The FDR may well have been thrown up into THS structure with the initial hydraulic induced debris flow.
I really suspect that the THS structure was then pushed up and aft out of the aircraft, throwing the aft part of the VS upward and forward and taking a bite out of the rudder bottom as it passed by.

As a non-structures man, am reluctant to try and add to his compelling description, but it might be worth developing a point I made last night. I was speculating that the large surface area of the tailplane (OK, I'll call it the THS) would cause it to decelerate faster than the fuselage forward and aft, just as Machinbird implies. I wondered if this might cause the fuselage to fail forward as well as aft of the THS.

It seems very likely that the APU tailcone would break off. But I notice that some posters seem to be referring to the whole of the rear fuselage, aft of the pressure bulkhead, as the tailcone. Looking at the cutaway sketch posted by PJ2, and Machacha's picture (re-posted by susu42), it seems clear that the aft pressure bulkhead is forward of the front of the THS. If I understand correctly, the THS screw-jack acts on the front spar of the THS, and the photo shows it something of the order of 2 metres aft of the pressure bulkhead and DFDR/SSFDR chassis.

So, as I speculated earlier, how about the fuselage failing also between the pressure bulkhead and the screw-jack? In that case, the SSFDR chassis and/or memory module might not be "thrown up" into, and then with, the THS.


PS
Can anyone tell me what the large bare-metal strut in the middle of the photo is for?

Quoting the BEA:
The wreckage was found to be mixed up. I wonder, could the aircraft after its initial relatively flat impact have bounced and cart wheeled on the ocean surface, mixing the wreckage at that time, or did the mixup occur during its 3,900 meter descent to the ocean floor? If it cart wheeled, the CSMU's trajectory after it broke loose may have been such that it was thrown some distance from the rest of the tail section before starting its descent (and the same goes for the APU). It may also explain why the engine found was detached from its pylon.

JD-EE,

Yes I know I promised to keep quiet, but I feel an obligation to answer this...

"Um, where did you find the raw uncompressed images to look at? All I saw were pictures taken of a video screen at a slightly oblique angle."

This seems to be an application of Occam´s Razor, but let´s confront the full consequences of this approach:

a) if you´re BEA or someone hired by them, you would need the raw images, and probably you would even use software to enhance the images _ you would never use compression algorithms that delivers loss of information. That´s my problem with the "compression artifact" thesys. Alas, the rest of the image is very crisp and detailed.

b) if you have the files of all raw images you dream of, why the hell you would use a picture from a monitor in the much awaited press release? Have you seen at least one other picture like that yet?

Again: maybe there is nothing in this issue after all, but some things seems illogical.

Now, back to the low profile...thank you for your attention.

PS: someone back the thread came with one good explanation: maybe the ROV took the picture after being closer to the chassis, probably looking for the CSMU. This seems to be a sensible explanation, better still that the "human remains" hipothesys, imho. I don´t know the amount of dislocation the ROV creates, but depending on the distance of the soil to the hovering ROV, this could indicate the nature of the soil below, that I believe is not very thick in mud.

Photo
 

Looking the edge traced version of the now famous photo, I cannot see any alteration, nor compression artifacts.

All the contour lines in the blurred area are in line and linear with the rest of the contour. It is just darker, so I'd say that the blurring is because there is sand/mud flying over the central area, perhaps because the ROV has moved the box a bit to see if the CSMU is there or not. Definitely not because of any alteration.

http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_6N...ssi10_edge.png

Yep, but we are not they. We are looking at press release images intended to show the unwashed masses what has been found, not images for detailed anaiysis.

Remember, this is a photo of another photo (or maybe even just a screencap from video stream) on a monitor, with all the losses that entails, before we even get to compression

If bandwidth and storage are infinite, then you'd never use lossy compression They aren't, and trade-offs are made.

Because you want (commendably) to show the world what you've found in a timely manner, not provide the world with the highest resolution for analysis.

The high-res images are probably still on the boat (why waste sat bandwidth sending hi-res back to land - the search professionals are on the boat)

The hi-res image may still have been only on the ROV when the photo was taken and sent back for PR (it might even be screen cap from a video stream - not sure how we'd know from a photo of a screen)

Chris Scott

PS
Can anyone tell me what the large bare-metal strut in the middle of the photo is for?

There are two penetrations in the footprint of the VS atop the Hull. Given the stout appearance of your strut, and its angle, my guess is it is an extension of the VS Spar into the Hull, for strength's sake. This is a mere guess, so be gentle.

infrequentflyer789,

Good takes. Let´s see:

I do agree. Nevertheless, I never saw a "loss mode" like that. Degradation from copy should be evenly displayed all around the photo, not localized in a spot.

The same objection holds. Besides, you don´t need "infinite" storage, only the storage needed to store the output of the sub cameras. And since the data can be transmited (after all, we are seeing the images), the storage on board is practically infinite.

Not a reasonable assumption because: a) I can´t believe bandwith is a problem to an Alcatel owned ship; b) sat bandwith is not that expensive comparing with all the past, present and future costs of this operation; c) top level brass at BEA probably wants all the information management right under their wings.

Zeroninesevenone,

Maybe you´re right. Anyway, thank you for demonstrating to some uneducated fellas here that THERE IS a blurr after all, and it is not a figment of my imagination! :ok:

Seems to me to be a duct, wrapped in an insulating blanket. Look at the 'knee' at the top.

I repeat my belief that the darker area contains finer sediments because it was sheltered from currents by the box. The deposits on top of the inverted chassis show that sediments have been moving.

bearfoil,

That's what I thought it might be, but it seems off to the port side of centre, so I think HN39 is right: it's trunking, not a strut!

Which brings me to my next two questions.
(1) What is the grey-painted member like an inverted "Y" – is it THS-related or fin-related?
(2) What is the complex apparatus that the operative is fiddling with?

Chris Scott

I'll plod ahead, since I have no shame. The engineer appears to be working on an assembly that has bellcranks, pushrods, Hydraulic pumps, plumbing and some intricate looking mechanical architecture. Ignoring Hazelnuts at my risk as ever, if the "Strut" is the Rudder post, the assembly may be RTL. I see Hazelnuts "knee" and he could well be right, especially since I thought RTLU was in the VS. I'm better at diagrams. Then again, it could be a conduit for the Rudder hydraulics, along with the RTLU hydraulic power. Cheers.

My mind keeps connecting the orangish cast in front of the chassis with the darker area behind it. Can't come up with a theory on what that connection might be, though.

On the other hand, maybe they felt this overwhelming urge to voluntarily release a photo with something they wanted to hide in the frame. Cropping the photo or taking one from another angle might arouse suspicion, so they altered it. Craftily, they did this in a way that's immediately obvious from a glance at a low-res copy. After all, no one would believe that an organization capable of locating and exploring a wreck on the ocean floor while engaging in a sophisticated deception scheme would be so clumsy about altering a photo. :rolleyes:

Chris;

The operator is working on what I believe to be the Rudder Control Unit. The control rod that the BEA notes is bent rearwards, would be located at the top of the unit, not visible in the photo. I'm not sure what the round structure is - could be channeling or it could be structural - it's difficult to say where it is - underneath the RCU, or behind it nearer the airframe structure. There seems to be some robustness about it, especially on the bottom attachment - what we can see of it, anyway. I thought it may be APU pneumatic supply because of the shrouding but the source I have shows that plumbing to be on the starboard side. Still, manufacturing changes could involve routing changes, etc. The upside-down "Y" structure I believe is part of the rudder control cabling channeling, to do with the rudder mechanical control which is aft of the RCU. The sources I have aren't that definitive at times.

Considering how the pipe is plugged in the upper right corner of the 'rear part' in the photo posted by NeoFit #222 on page 12, must be very, very low-pressure hydraulics.

Hmmm, looking at the damage pattern I do see heavy compression damage but almost no longitudinal damage at all.
In a high- speed forward impact you would however expect the latter.
So for me this image is a strong indication of a 'pancake' arrival attitude.

Also it is good to see that it has not sunk much into the silk so the bottom fortunately appears to be rather firm. Which is good news regarding chances to find the CSMU.
Looking into the very open structure in the back I'm also confident the CSMU is not resting cramped in another structure, especially since it has a rather streamlined shape which makes it hard to get entangled somewhere. Try to fix a cylinder somewhere without bolting it to a support...

HN39;

Thanks for the reminder about Neofit's post, (#222) - I hadn't seen the photos.

I believe that the large dark pipe is pneumatic supply from the APU. The APU pneumatic bleed plumbing runs along the top port side of the APU and through the APU firewall (in the tailcone structure) and joins the top right-hand side fitting where we can see the APU pneumatic pipe (yellow capped), about ten inches in diameter. It is of the same "insulating" material as the dark pipe standing almost vertically on the starboard side, which we see in Machaca's linked photograph of the operator in the tail section. I think the small attached wire (left side of the vertical pipe in Neofit's image), to the larger pipe, carry the APU Bleed-air Duct Sensing Elements.

In Neofit's linked image of the aft fuselage, the fixtures at the mid-point of the two cross-frames are the forward fastening mounts/pivot points for the THS.

That rear frame is an interesting structure. Trying to understand the thinking behind it, I guess the need to 'mount' the THS within the fuselage structure dictates it, i.e. the need to disassemble the double links at both sides when 'inserting' or removing the THS. Just curious how these links look like after the event.

HN39, I'm not an engineer and know nothing formal about structural work. That made clear, my sense of the triangles thus formed is that they receive, then transfer and distribute mostly-vertical loads of the horizontal stabilizer to the larger aft-fuselage structure. The very beefy forged/milled joins between the top and bottom of the aft section where the THS is mounted appear to mean business in load-bearing. The aft frame (APU tailcone structure) is, IIRC, similar in the bracing seen here but of course, smaller. Perhaps too, these twin-braced major frames counter "twist" (as viewed from the rear), which would come from loads borne by the vertical stabilizer hoops shown earlier, which would be transferred to the lower structures through the hoops.

All this of course a complete guess and could be wrong, but it "feels right"...I would welcome corrections.

I hope they have a "shopping list" of items to grab for the return to the surface if they don't find the recorders they are searching for on a particular run. With all the travel time going down to the wreck and up to the ship, It would be a shame to waste the opportunity. I would sure like to know the THS position. Recovery of the THS actuator would be key to a lot of questions.
Full nose up trim? Normal cruise range trim? Full nose down trim? The last would be the result of a crew attempt to recover the aircraft-unsuccessfully.:sad:

Hi mm43,

The only purpose of my comment was to remember it is possible to locate buried ferrous and also other metals with simple devices.

The "oscillating tuned circuit" being moved to nearby not visible metal objects is a simple solution. There are other approaches.

The rationale is: A metal (ferrous or not) changes the environment of a coil and this can be detected. How? Can be by the voltage at coil terminals. This is used in aviation, the "Eddy current tester" for metal checking.

I must study if at salt water, high pressure and salt sand burying a small aluminum (Dural, Avional, Hiduminium) part; To check if the issue is more complex at this environment.

My intention was not to correct you with the bold red. Was to remember we are able to locate not just ferrous.

On the IC memories (non volatile) i commented just to remember the magnetic fields generated by locators will not affect recorded data.

Stay sure my comment was to ADD and in an assertive way communicate to clarify inform what i am convinced.

Sometimes we can fail and learn from errors. With a good and constructive intention this can be just a small CAT (clear air turbulence) in our "learning route". To further reduce the "error rate".

Re the 'altered' image.
Sorry to restir the mud....
Does anybody really know the origin of this picture?
All that's obvious so far is that it was "photographed" from a video monitor, presumably on the "Ile de Sein", since it's in colour.
Probably already a digital "photograph".
Then it made its way, via various intermediaries, to what we've finally been looking at.
How many more stages of 'processing' by all kinds of weird and wonderful software did it go through, before WE got a look at it? There are already obvious JPEG artefacts.

The picture does show the FDR chassis quite clearly. What else do you want? Maye there were some human remains next to it.... and if so, kudos to the BEA for publishing the photo without those.....


PS Maybe one of our conspiracy experts could re-position the CSMU in that "grey area" and do a "Capricorn Two" ?

ChristiaanJ,

Consider we are in early stages of the investigation we could imagine what we will see from them...

I am considering to sometimes "change my software" and exercise thinking like an active conspiracy expert. Likely will be funny.

And eventually opening our minds to the "unthinkable"

:8 :confused:

Flight Global - new A330 cut-away
 

Seeing there is continuing discussion on the components located in the area of the THS screw jack, and the apparent ducting, it is timely to note that Flight Global on 2011-04-01 published a new high resolution (4,500px × 2,501px) cut-away of the A330.

The ducting referred to above appears to carry APU services (including fuel) and may also carry the fuel transfer line to the trim tank in the THS.

I suspect that the detail afforded will help in identifying objects as the are presented by the BEA.

EDIT :: Though of the A300 empennage, the cut-away below shows a similar general arrangement to that found on the A330.

http://oi56.tinypic.com/30nemfd.jpg

PJ2;
I'm an engineer but not particularly knowledgeable about structures. At first sight, the rear frame appeared to me to be more complex than I felt to be functional. Next, I realized that this picture explains how the THS is assembled to the fuselage. The top and bottom thirds of the frame are one-piece forgings or castings, and are permanently fixed to the fuselage skin and stringers. The connecting parts between them are removable. I suggest these 8 removable elements need to be removed to put the THS in its place, and are then re-installed to attach the THS to the fuselage. Does that make sense?

An interesting description of what happened to an Israeli sub when it hit the bottom (2,900 meters) after experiencing an out-of-trim catastrophic hull failure.

(Unfortunately, the description is not from an official Israeli document. The sub was ex HMS Totem, commissioned in 1945, so maximum operating depth was apparently about 100 meters.)

All the oceanographic 'experts' badly missed the final position as well.

Search and Discovery of the Israeli Submarine Dakar

INS Dakar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

mm43,
Thanks for the link, and the picture you posted.
I would expect that the people on the "Ile de Sein" have those pictures at hand somewhere, but also the SRM (structural repair manual) of the A330, which is usually a lot more useful to identify 'bits and pieces'.
But for us 'at the outside trying to look in', those pictures should be some help.

RR_NDB,
I "like" :rolleyes: 'conspiracy stories', especially to try and understand where they come from.....
Like UFOs, chemtrails, the Habsheim and Concorde crashes, the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, the 'fake' moon landings, etc.
Always worth "keeping an open mind", but usually the 'conspiracy stories' have the 'moonbat' signatures written all over them.

mm43

Most excellent diagram. On this A300 one sees three towers, keel to spine, of four faces, with extensive bridgework, that support each saddle which in turn receives the three pins that mate the VS to the Fuselage. They are extensive,and impressive. Take note also of the "lateral rods" detail.

Though the 330 has the rods, the superstructure that fixes each saddle through the fuse and to the keel are not present. What do you make of that??

I thought we'd been there before....
'Redesign' may be the simple answer...... I think you're on to a red herring, bear.

Purely from memory, I think the A300 has conventional (dural?) structures for the fin and tailplane. The A310 (1982/3) was, I think, the first Airbus to employ major composite structure; the fin is composite (made in Spain?). A similar fin may be used on the A300-600, which was contemporary with the A310. The A320 may take it one step further, as I think it has composite fin and tailplane. The A330/340 certainly have composite fins; not sure about the tailplane, err.. THS.

All the above is off the top of my head, and needs verification and/or amplification.


PS
Also purely from memory, the A300-600R was the first to use a tailplane fuel-tank, followed by the A310-300. But I suspect their tailplanes were made of conventional materials.

Better HF
 

JD-EE

I´ll use this to say you:

IMO a/c HF antennas could be more effective. Signals from ground stations would "better trigger" a/c receivers SELCAL; Signals from a/c would "better jump" over squelch thresholds of ground station receivers and crew could better communicate when VHF is out of range.

The efficiency of a C47, L1049, C130 (old versions) antennas were better than the "jet age" solutions.

Who compare? Old crews are retired and younger crews didn´t use older solutions.

I had the privilege to hear BOTH types and the difference is clear to me!

We are talking about antennas and NOT ATU´s!

And efficiency of an antenna can be it´s capability to deliver a good signal to the back of your a/c. It´s not related to "thermal effects".

Negative! This can be very important in certain situations!

Remember the "Threshold effect" in FM. We can think in an analogy when the ground station is under local QRN, etc. May be the difference in receive or lost the a/c call.

And every pilot know how difficult is HF in many situations. And always you can blame MUF, "propagation condition", noise, etc.

With better antennas at a/c and ground stations this could be completely different.

IMO the jet age, the SAT availability and other factors will not mention now reduced the "effectiveness" of a very good and reliable way of comm, the HF.

FYI, this is not the antenna. Is just the element to "feed RF" to the VS. The other way (the DUAL) would be to "lift electrically)" the VS (through a china insulator) and feed the base of the VS with an ATU (L and C).

Very good engineers (mentioned by Graybeard 26th Apr 2011, 10:18) worked and invented adequate solutions.


Voltage feed like in Zepp is "out of question" IMO in a modern airliner.

To be continued by editing.

New materials VS and it´s RF current handling capability
 

Graybeard,

I have a high respect to EMI/EMC and i am addicted to safety.

In this case i indeed don´t see problems:

1) The shunt feed "excites" the VS metal structure with the high current (at feed point) going to large section aluminum parts.

2) As far i know the "new materials" is not to (or cannot) "receive" RF current. The RF current will "prefer" to be circulating in metal sections. In an all plastic VS you can integrate a wire to "carry" the current.

3) I did not see a relation to the "hard input" to AA587 rudder to our discussion. RF could damage the new materials VS? They tested, for sure.

4) One dangerous issue is, like i commented before, EMI/EMC to yaw damper system like ChristiaanJ commented on Concord.

Obs. B787 was hit by a lightning bolt during a flight test. And survived.

The currents in this situations are much higher than the ones delivered by an HF transmitter even if the operator keeps it at maximum power with high noise in the microphone.

I will investigate this issue asap.

ChristiaanJ

I think the 330 may be in a late, though not final, stage of completion ?? It could be a re-design, as you say.

Neofit's linked images (post #222) are excellent, but of an A320.

The section 19 and tailcone structure of the A330 is significantly larger and more robust:

http://i337.photobucket.com/albums/n...-ERGsect19.jpg

Green-dot,

Get a bucket, fill it with water. Get a spoon full each of sand, potting soil, metal filings from drilling or a lathe. Drop the sand in 3 cm from the center. Drop the metal filings in the center. Drop the potting soil in 3 cm the other side of center.

Now imagine the results of dropping those items into a 4000 meter column of water.

I think you can imagine your way to an answer for your question. (They are neatly sorted by the rate at which they fall more than anything else by the various currents they fell through. Note that the debris field is WAY larger than the plane's size.

RR_NDB, read mm43's message again. He cited the ferrite and brass tests for coil tuning. Ferrite or iron will tend to lower the tuned circuit frequency. Brass brought near a coil will reduce it's inductance (acting like a shorted turn) and raise the frequency. So he got the idea that you can detect anything either magnetic or conductive. (Under salt water this may face some interesting effects when looking for aluminum rather than steel.)

RR_NDB,

We are addressing this within the AF447 frame work. The planes are normally heard adequately loud at DAKAR, judging from what I can hear from planes going out over the Pacific with a poor antenna on my receiver. If DAKAR experiences high noise levels THEN the transmit antenna efficiency makes a difference.

On receive if you can disconnect the antenna, replace it with a dummy load, and then observe a decrease in noise as heard in the speakers or on the signal strength meter, there is no improvement to the antenna that you can make that is meaningful. I know there is ham lore that says you gotta have a preamp on the receiver to get best results even at 160 meters. 'Tain't so, McGee. I've carefully tested it. And actually listening is easier with attenuation cranked in enough to lower the noise out of the speakers if the AGC is tuned right. (I doctored my R-390A to prove this. It has a VERY nice gain distribution in this regard.)

At frequencies above 14 MHz the antenna input impedance may become fairly high. But, come to think on it, the coupler elements should have little difficulty matching the higher impedance at a higher frequency. The circuit element value range needed is well within range of a tuner that can tune down to 3MHz.

Your second message prompts as reply that I am interested in your observation that a non-conductor can make an antenna. Your message is nonsense because the VS is fiberglass with little or no metal in sight, so far as I know.

Please do slow down and think first. (I know, I have the same problem.)

Here is a bit of idle speculation.
It regards the pingers. Yes, the batteries are deader than dead by now.
The actual oscillating element on the pingers must have a characteristic frequency (by oscillating element, I mean the item that transmits the vibration to the water.)
If you could excite this with a pulse of the appropriate frequency, and if it were nearby, you might receive a slight signal back from the oscillating element after the exciting signal cut off. This signal would have a characteristic amplitude decay over time which should be easy to characterize from experiment with similar pingers. You would also receive echos of the original pulse as it bounced off more distant items, but these would not have the characteristic decay signature.
You might also be able to transmit an odd harmonic and receive back some primary signal, but my math is a bit stale in this regard.
With the number of EEs looking at this thread, I'm sure the darts will be flying if it won't work. Fire when ready.

If something like this would work, it might help find pingers lightly buried in silt or beneath other objects. On AF447, I would be most surprised if the pingers are still attached to the memory modules.

I'd pondered the same idea in the search for landmines. I felt however the power of the ping would have to be beyond substantial.