At nominal CG
 

(Optional)

SaturnV;
If you check back to the Phase 3 search data, it was proposed to send a French navy patrol vessel from Cayenne, French Guiana. I doubt anything has changed.

Found a black box from AF447...

French investigation agency says black box of crashed AF447 found

Old Carthusian

It is difficult to be churlish with one who admits to being old. I do not share your consummate confidence in AB and AF. BEA and the Judicials, perhaps. BEA has done as expected, no comment. I think there are at least a few in the Boardroom of ABAF who were ready to......."Move along, nothing to see here"

AF, for example had to look at the threat of a strike to replace equipment it was ordered to do prior to 447's ill fated recipient of the very thing addressed by the equipment changeout. UAS or not, AirBurst or not, etc., action is not (was not) done as precautionary, or even as required, and it can be argued there were dead people due a dragging of the feet...... Yet you insist AF and AB were Johnny on Point to find the evidence of an accident they likely had a hand in causing?? Not sensible prior to argument.

Brazilian newspaper "O Estado de São Paulo":

"The Office of Investigations and Analysis of Civil Aviation (BEA, its acronym in French), France's government agency that is investigating the cause of the crash of Flight 447 with Air France, expects to extract data from a black box found in this Sunday in about two weeks. Although not examined yet, the piece of equipment seems to be in "good shape", which increases the likelihood that technical information from the flight have been preserved."

Possible scale
 

Here is a suggestion for a possible scale.
I have "squared up" the top image, so an exact correspondence of objects is unlikely.
The red arrows are all vertical and of equal length.

http://pickyperkins.home.infionline.net/scalefield.jpg

If this guess is correct, it seems likely that the MU was found in the central region of the debris field.

Might the bottom right-hand object in the top image be a wing?

FDR found
 

Bea:
Information, 1 May 2011

Looks in relatively good conditions:

http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol....r1.reduite.jpg
http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol....r2.reduite.jpg
http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol....r3.reduite.jpg

Aljazeera is reporting that they will send it to Paris to analysis in 8-10 days.
Air France crash recorder recovered - Europe - Al Jazeera English
Also the recovery of the bodies has started.

Nice job PP! I was actually using your image to try to scale mine as well, so I'm glad you posted.

I am now guessing the object to the east is a wing with a substantial piece of fusilage, and the object to the south is the other wing. Engines, APU, landing gear must be in the field above the southern wing-like object. There are two other symmetrical objects in that field.

I believe you noted previously the A330 wingspan is 60.3m.

I have yet to see any photo with a rock in it, so I am guessing all of the returns are debris. The recovery team "lucked out" in a sense (seems like a terrible thing to say...), because I'm sure this would be much more difficult in rocky undersea terrain.


http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/31/debrisscaled.png

Oh, do tell? Is it because the drawings, diagrams, and literature do not in any way indicate there is a wire antenna? Is it because the far end is short circuited to the "larger" "sort of ground plane?"

{^_^}

And here is the main field scaled with Picky Perkins' estimates:

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/153...edenlarged.png

snowfalcon2, I was wondering if anybody had picked up on the missing pinger. That was supposed to stay attached. So the crash must have been a humdinger to break it loose.

(I also note that Honeywell got some sort of nice product placement in the pictures.)

{^_-}

Bearfoil

Why do you say that AB and AF had a hand in causing this accident? Are you privy to something that we others aren't? No one yet knows how the accident happened. There is a lot of informed and knowledgeable speculation of which you have been an honourable part of but lets not go too far and let our prejudices run away with us shall we?

Be better if the recovered CSMU was sent straight to Honeywell for readout.Could be a tricky data extraction process,may as well be attempted by the best qualified hands the first time.

Navy boat to wait!?
 

"Le Figaro" 01MAY:

Le Figaro - France : AF 447 : une premire bote noire a t repche

.../...

Le module récupéré dimanche doit encore être transporté au BEA où il sera décortiqué dans une dizaine de jours. L'objectif est maintenant de repêcher la seconde boîte noire, celle enregistrant les conversations dans le cockpit, avant que la marine nationale vienne chercher le premier boîtier afin d'acheminer les deux enregistreurs en même temps.

.../...

"The module recovered Sunday should still be transported to the BEA where it will be decorticated in about ten days. The objective is now to recover the second black box, the one recording the conversations in the cockpit, before the French Navy comes to take the first box in order to take both recorders at the same time."


Le Point 02MAY:

La principale boîte noire de l'AF 447 retrouvée - Le Point

.../...

Dès que les deux enregistreurs auront été retrouvés, un navire de la marine nationale viendra les récupérer sur l'Île de Sein pour les emmener en Guyane. Il semble exclu qu'une escale soit prévue au Brésil par crainte d'une saisie de ces pièces essentielles au déroulement des enquêtes technique et judicaire. Puis, à bord d'un des avions de ligne quotidiens depuis Cayenne, les enregistreurs seront acheminés au Bourget au BEA qui dispose des bancs spécialisés de lecture.

.../...

"As soon as the two recorders are found, a ship of the Marine will join The Ile de Sein to take them to (French) Guyana. It seems excluded that a stopover is planned in Brazil for fear of a seizure of these essential pieces to the technical and judicial investigations. Then, on board one of the daily flight from Cayenne, the recorders will be conveyed to Le Bourget where the BEA has the specialized reading benches."


NB: Airlines operating between Cayenne and Paris (Orly) are Air France and Air Caraïbes.

The first article in "Le Figaro" puzzled me because it is clearly stated that the Marine ship would wait for the second "box" to be recovered before going to Cayenne. It seemed amazing to me that the Authorities would wait, considering the utmost importance to start analysis of the DFDR as soon as possible.

The second article in "Le Point" simply confirms my interrogation while adding kind comments about Brazilian possible seizure.

My personal feeling is that the CVR might already had already been located and might be recovered soon. It is the only way where we can admit to waste a so much valuable time.

Edit: "Le Figaro" has slightly amended its article. It should be read:
"The module recovered Sunday, sealed and stored in water should still be transported...

@PP your correlation between the two sidescans is truly correct

the distance vertical between the lines then is 4.3m (14 feet, but I am not shure if the french underwaterspezialists will use pied´s or meters) , the distance horizontal between the "mayby line nummbers" is 50 m

TWT wrote:
I think you are alluding to the Perpignan accident? Those recorders (same models as on AF447 btw) were recovered after just 2 and 3 days, respectively, from a depth of only 40 meters. Nevertheless BEA spent a whole month on unsuccessful attemps to read the memory cards and then gave up. From the report: "They were examined at Honeywell, manufacturer of the recorders, in the United States on 5 and 6 January 2009 in the context of an International Commission of Inquiry. Some short-circuits were discovered on the cards. Eliminating the short-circuits allowed a complete read-out of the data."

But it seems that BEA have learnt from this experience and are getting better. Here's a summary of their participation in the Yemenia crash: Point d'information, 30 juin 2010 . I've found no English translation on their website, so here's my own attempt:

Thanks noske,that information is appreciated

Quote from Le Figaro, translated by Squawk Ident:
"...The objective is now to recover the second black box, the one recording the conversations in the cockpit, before the French Navy comes to take the first box in order to take both recorders at the same time."

(Thanks for the fluent translation, by the way.)

Quote from Squawk Ident:
"The first article in "Le Figaro" puzzled me because it is clearly stated that the Marine ship would wait for the second "box" to be recovered before going to Cayenne. It seemed amazing to me that the Authorities would wait, considering the utmost importance to start analysis of the DFDR as soon as possible."

I don't infer that this understandable plan is non-amendable. They've got about three days to find the CVR memory-module. My guess is that, if that "objective" (finding the CVR before the naval ship arrives) is not achieved, plan "b" will be launched. "DODAR", as we used to say: a continuing process.


PS
Looking at some of the work presented here in the last 12 hours or so, I'm amazed at the perception, cunning and expertise of other contributors to this thread.

The BEA submitted its report</span> to the Comorian authorities</span> which published never anything, of fear of causing offense</span> Yemenia and the Yemeni authorities.</span>

Chris Scott told:
I guess you are right. The next three days might be interesting to follow, hopefully. I hope we will have a good news about the CVR very soon. May DODAR be with us! (and also Google and our favorite Forum...)

Regards