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What the nine debris finds may tell us about the MH370 end point

duncansteel.com

11–20 of 31 posts

Re: What the nine debris finds may tell us about the MH370 end point

#11
post #8

I keep thinking they need to put a black box on the top of these planes that auto ejects at the first sign of crashing and can float etc.

Or just continously upload the data to the internet, should be quite feasible these days with satellites everywhere.

>Or just continously upload the data to the internet, should be quite feasible these days with satellites everywhere.

That would probably be a bit too much for existing satellite communication systems; while most flights wouldn't need to transmit such a signal most of the time (If a plane went missing over, say, the Midwest, we'd find it!), frequent transmissions from every flight over sea, for instance would probably overload today's networks - meaning you'd need to launch new satellites to provide this service, meaning it would be outrageously expensive, meaning it wouldn't happen.

However, if we relax the requirement to, say, once every five minutes or so, at least you'll have a much better idea of where something went down than 'Probably somewhere in the southern hemisphere.'

Re: What the nine debris finds may tell us about the MH370 end point

#12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just continously upload the data to the internet, should be quite feasible these days with satellites everywhere.

If they had sent position, altitude and heading every minute (which requires very little bandwidth) literally millions of dollars would have been saved with both AF447 (which had ACARS info every 10min) and MH370

You seem to be underestimating the extent of areas in the world where bandwidth is effectively zero in all practical scenarios

Re: What the nine debris finds may tell us about the MH370 end point

#13
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had sent position, altitude and heading every minute (which requires very little bandwidth) literally millions of dollars would have been saved with both AF447 (which had ACARS info every 10min) and MH370

You seem to be underestimating the extent of areas in the world where bandwidth is effectively zero in all practical scenarios

Iridium is available pretty much everywhere, you don't need much bandwidth to transmit your location.

Re: What the nine debris finds may tell us about the MH370 end point

#14
post #8

I keep thinking they need to put a black box on the top of these planes that auto ejects at the first sign of crashing and can float etc.

Or just continously upload the data to the internet, should be quite feasible these days with satellites everywhere.

Installation does not seem to be cheap. If you watch the timelapse [0], it does take a while to do that. Although I know Rolls Royce engines already do send their data to satellite, but I am not sure by which means.

What I am interested, is feasibility this: nowadays you can buy sailor lifejackets with personal EPIRB which pings the satellite with your location. I am sure that is a lot of waste weight, but then, Lufthansa is still serving food with steel utensil, so maybe its not as bad.

Also, randomly searching info about black boxes, I've found they have option for 90 day pinger batteries. Perhaps that could've aided MH370 search.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvwtfxPwac

Re: What the nine debris finds may tell us about the MH370 end point

#15
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had sent position, altitude and heading every minute (which requires very little bandwidth) literally millions of dollars would have been saved with both AF447 (which had ACARS info every 10min) and MH370

You seem to be underestimating the extent of areas in the world where bandwidth is effectively zero in all practical scenarios

No I am not. You can use satellite communications for that.

See this for possible alternatives: https://www.bea.aero/uploads/tx_elyextendttnews/flight.data....

Re: What the nine debris finds may tell us about the MH370 end point

#16
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just continously upload the data to the internet, should be quite feasible these days with satellites everywhere.

Installation does not seem to be cheap. If you watch the timelapse [0], it does take a while to do that. Although I know Rolls Royce engines already do send their data to satellite, but I am not sure by which means. What I am interested, is feasibility this: nowadays you can buy sailor lifejackets with personal EPIRB which pings the satellite with your location. I am sure that is a lot of waste weight, but then, Luft…

All the planes that disappeared recently (MH370, Egyptair, or AF447) all already had txt based systems that were sending home txt based maintenance messages. All it would take is to also ping a gps coordonate every minute. Doesn't seem very complicated to me. Probably doesn't even require a hardware upgrade.

Re: What the nine debris finds may tell us about the MH370 end point

#17
post #11
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just continously upload the data to the internet, should be quite feasible these days with satellites everywhere.

>Or just continously upload the data to the internet, should be quite feasible these days with satellites everywhere. That would probably be a bit too much for existing satellite communication systems; while most flights wouldn't need to transmit such a signal most of the time (If a plane went missing over, say, the Midwest, we'd find it!), frequent transmissions from every flight over sea, for instance would probabl…

Over the midwest, the chances of survival are much greater than in the sea. Finding the wreckage immediatly is even more critical.

Would a GPS coordinate every minute really be such a strain on the systems?

Re: What the nine debris finds may tell us about the MH370 end point

#18
post #9

I keep thinking they need to put a black box on the top of these planes that auto ejects at the first sign of crashing and can float etc.

The challenge would be to make such a device fully autonomous while yet being safe; someone intentionally trying to fly the plane into the great void, never to be seen again is an exceedingly rare scenario. It is, however, an option such a tracking device should try to stay on top of. Hence, it would be best if the crew could not disable it. The problem with that design decision made, of course, is that it would be a…

These "problems" are already solved in black boxes. What is actually missing is constant transmission of GPS data through every flight.

Re: What the nine debris finds may tell us about the MH370 end point

#19

I keep thinking they need to put a black box on the top of these planes that auto ejects at the first sign of crashing and can float etc.

Not sure how it would reliably detect the first sign of crashing given planes routinely fly through storms. You could make it detach under high pressure so it releases say 50m down if the plane is sinking.

Re: What the nine debris finds may tell us about the MH370 end point

#20
post #19

I keep thinking they need to put a black box on the top of these planes that auto ejects at the first sign of crashing and can float etc.

Not sure how it would reliably detect the first sign of crashing given planes routinely fly through storms. You could make it detach under high pressure so it releases say 50m down if the plane is sinking.

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