Help out in the search for Flight 370..

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/malays...terror-link-to-its-nationals-on-jet-1.2576620

 

"If a pilot disables the transponder — which can easily be turned on and off — all the air traffic controller will see is a radar blip. That’s roughly the same amount of data a controller received tracking flights during World War II."

"In this case the countries’ radar coverage likely didn’t overlap. So if the pilots failed to check in, turned off the transponder and pulled the circuit breaker to the ACARS, the airplane would be completely off the grid — taken off the air, so to speak."

Quotes from article below

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...flight-gird-aviation-expert-article-1.1723111

 

my questions:

1) do these ATC centers have "primary" radars?
2) if "2", then i assume they scan 360 deg in azimuth, ...but what about elevation?... do they scan an elevation raster, either mechanically or electrically steered?... if they do scan an elevation raster, then they should be able to get "some" info about the slant range, including the elevation component... of course, you'd be limited by the cell resolution (in both az and el), which naturally decreases w/ range to aircraft...

 

http://www.livescience.com/44012-malaysian-airlines-mystery-radar-tracking.html

The primary is limited to 60 miles max and probably wasn't on at that time of night. This article says primary has a 200 mile range but that would only give you a blip on the ATC screen, no matter the elevation. When the pilots turned off the transponder which tells Malaysian ATC who, what, where, and how high ... Then ATC only had a blip with no flight information from the secondary radar
I have been to airports (in the Phillipines) where ATC says they have you on radar but you know they don't

This thread I found doesn't paint a good picture to me

http://www.pprune.org/south-asia-far-east/471129-kul-atc-system-upgrade.html

 

...yes, but what about military radars??? have they established confidence in the supposed track crossing back across malaysia at least? i'd presume there's some reluctance on the part of these countries in this region to cooperate and share info here... probably a big reason for making this a big charlie-francis...

 

Military is 100 nm or approx 115 miles ... But it is just a blip

The Thai military says they might have seen it

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...70-followed-twisting-path-Strait-Malacca.html

 

http://www.news.com.au/world/maldiv...ffort-criticised/story-fndir2ev-1226858579129

Witnesses in Maldives report seeing a 'low-flying jumbo jet' around 6:15am
They said plane was white with red stripes like a Malaysia Airlines jet

The Maldives are islands to the southwest of the southern tip of India
Approx 4.5 hours from Kuala Lumpur
this tells me that this plane might have made the east coast of Africa - Mogadishu is 8.5 hours from KUL
It all depends on how much fuel the aircraft actually had on board which at this point we really don't know

 

You would think with everything being turned off it was still track able by radar

 

When your flying at 500+ knots you fly out of radar range quickly

The radar is for keeping up with the aircraft in the area of the airport the radar services ... That's why ATC gives the pilots a 4 digit number code to squawk so the radar can interrogate the aircraft transponder and the ATC screen will show the aircraft's position and flight info

If the transponder is turned off ... aircraft is just a blip on the screen

as long as the blip didn't come near another aircraft that ATC was following... ATC probably ignored the blip that could have been MH370 since the aircraft was turned over to SAG ATC in Vietnamese airspace

 

question of the day: how is it that malaysia airlines doesn't know how much fuel was on the plane?...

 

There should been a standard fuel load for the Kuala Lumpur to Beijing route.

The airline knows what that is ... also they aren't the only airline that flies that route ... for whatever reason nobody is talking

I found this and this basically is what I think happened concerning the fuel loaded prior to takeoff... thoughts from a 777 captain ... British I'm guessing

Our man in the cockpit tells us that it would be normal to have enough fuel to arrive at Beijing, then to divert to another airport (+1 hour) plus a further reserve (+30 minutes more, give or take). Thus the plane would normally have taken off carrying fuel for perhaps 7 hours 30 minutes in the air. If the captain wanted, "he could easily take another hour's fuel without the copilot becoming too suspicious, especially in such a vertical crew culture as the far eastern carriers have". (Normally a captain tries not to overload a plane with fuel as air-freighting fuel from airport to airport costs fuel - and thus money - in itself.)

Our man adds: "IF they were both in on some type of plan they could have filled it up to whatever level of fuel they wanted, all the way to maximum tanks fuel which could give them 13-14 hours endurance at the limit".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/0...ery_the_iel_regi_pubdinnerparty_guide/?page=1

 

They could fly at higher altitude and save fuel too. They made it to the moon.

 

They just found possible debris. Waiting to hear more

 

....this is it- finally. they're combing the area west of down under.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/malays...g-objects-possibly-related-to-plane-1.2579606

 

News reporting objects found/spotted. Sending a plane out tomorrow I believe.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

I do wonder why these specific objects are getting any attention. Hundreds of objects have been tagged multiple times (75 people) on tomnod, so I'm thinking these much be pretty serious.

 

Sending a plane out now actually since it's about noon there

 

Any satellite pics from tomnod ?

They better drop at least one sonobuoy !!!

If the aircraft is in the water there those ULBs on the CVR, FDR, & ELT will still be pinging

 

If you like your commercial flight you can keep it.

Im from the show me state, I will believe it when I see it and even then I wont believe very much that the news says about it, they lie too.