Earlier today, the Australian Transport Safety Board released a document entitled “MH370 — Search and debris examination update.” Perhaps occasioned by the recent completion of the towfish scan of the Indian Ocean seabed search area, the document updates earlier ATSB reports and offers some intriguing insights into what may have happened to the plane. Some thoughts:
— The first section of the report expands upon an assertion that the ATSB made in an earlier report: that the BFO values recorded at 0:19 indicate that the plane was in an increasingly steep dive. Indeed, the newly published calculations indicate that the plane was in an even steeper dive than previously reckoned: between 3,800 and 14,600 feet per minute at 00:19:29, and between 14,200 and 25,000 feet per minute at 00:19:37. On the lower end, this represents an acceleration along the vertical axis from 37.5 knots to 144 knots in eight seconds, or 0.7g. On the higher end, this represents an acceleration along the vertical axis from 140 knots to 247 knots, likewise about 0.7g. If the plane were freefalling in a vacuum, its acceleration would be 1.0g; given that the airframe would be experiencing considerable aerodynamic drag, a downward acceleration of 0.7 would have to represent a near-vertical plunge, which a plane would experience near the end of a highly developed spiral dive.
— The second section describes end-of-flight simulations carried out in a Boeing flight simulator in April of this year. These tests were more detailed than others carried out previously. Evidently, modeled aircraft were allowed to run out of fuel under various configurations of speed, altitude, and so forth, and their subsequent behavior observed. Thus, the exercise modeled what might have happened in a “ghost ship” scenario. Notably, it was found to be possible for the plane to spontaneously enter the kind of extremely steep dive described in the previous section. This being the case, the report states, the plane “generally impacted the water within 15 NM of the arc.” This is not surprising, considering that the plane had already lost altitude and was plummeting straight downward. This offers a tight constraint on where the plane could plausibly be if the 0:19 BFO analysis is correct.
— The third section describes the results of debris drift modeling that has been informed by tests involving replica flaperons “constructed with dimensions and buoyancy approximately equal to that of the recovered flaperon.” An important point not addressed by the report is the fact that the French investigators who tested the buoyancy of the flaperon were unable to reconcile its observed behavior with the observed distribution of the Lepas anatifera barnacles found growing on it. So when the French ran their own drift models, they had to run them twice, one for each buoyancy condition. Apparently the Australians overcame this paradox by discarding one of the states.
— The third section notes that, according to modeling carried out by the CSIRO, debris which entered the ocean in the southern half of the current search area would not likely reach Réunion by the time the flaperon was recovered. Meanwhile, debris that entered the water significantly north of the current search area would reach the shores of Africa much earlier than the time frame in which pieces were actually discovered there. Using this logic, the report concludes that the northern part of the current search area is probably correct. However, this seems dubious reasoning to me: one would expect a gap between the time debris arrives in Africa, and the moment when it is discovered. Also, debris can move quickly across the ocean, only to be trapped in a local gyre and move around randomly before beaching. Therefore I think the argument that the pieces couldn’t have originated further north is flawed.
— The fourth section, describing the damage analysis of the flap and flaperon, is the most interesting and newsworthy of all. In short, it makes a persuasive case that the flaperon and the inboard section of the right-hand outboard flap (which, rather remarkably, turn out to have been directly adjacent) were in the neutral, non-deployed state at the moment of impact. Assuming this is correct, this eliminates the IG’s flutter theory, as well as the widely discussed theory that the flap was deployed and therefore indicative of a pilot attempting to gently ditch the plane. Proponents of these theories will continue to argue on their behalf but in my opinion they were dubious to begin with (given the shredded condition of much of the recovered debris) and are now dead men walking.
— No mention was made of Patrick De Deckker’s exciting work with Lepas shells.
— Overall, the thrust of this report is that the plane went down very close to the seventh arc in a manner consistent with a “ghost ship” flight to fuel exhaustion, exactly as the ATSB has assumed all along. There is, however, one very large elephant in the room: the fact that Australia has spent two years and $180 million demonstrating that the plane’s wreckage does not lie where it would if this scenario were correct. Therefore it is not correct. The ATSB’s response to this conundrum is rather schizophrenic. On the one hand, it has recently floated the idea of raising another $30 million to search further—presumably the small remaining area where a plane just might conceivably have come to rest in a ghost-ship scenario, as I described in an earlier post. On the other, it has today convened a “First Principles Review” consisting of experts and advisors from Australia and around to world to scrap their previous assumptions and start with a clean sheet of paper. This implies an understanding that they have proven themselves wrong. I wonder how many assumptions they will scrap. Perhaps, as Neil Gordon mused in his interview with me, that the plane wasn’t really traveling south at 18:40? Or perhaps they’ll dare to go even deeper, and contemplate the provenance of the BFO data… ?
— A postscript: Richard Cole recently posted an update of the seabed search (below). I’m intrigued by the fact that the Fugro Equator has deployed its AUV near the northern end of the search zone. When I interviewed him for my last blog post, Fugro’s Rob Luijnenburg told me that the northern end of the search zone was flat enough that it could be scanned by the towfish alone; there was no need for an AUV scan to infill the craggy bits. So why is the AUV looking there now? Especially given that it’s very close to an area just reinspected by Dong Hai Jiu 101’s ROV. Another MH370 mystery.
UPDATE 11-2-16: I emailed Rob Luijnenburg and he immediately responded: “The AUV is scanning in a section in the north part of the priority search area in the very rugged terrain south of Broken Ridge (the east -west mountain range at approximately the 33rd parallel)… Generally the AUV is deployed in spots of extremely rugged seabed to complete the 120,000 sq km priority area survey.” Worth noting is that if the search gets expanded northeastward, it’s going to be into very rough terrain indeed.
@Gysbreght:
I might have jumped to conclusions. Would it be too much to ask for a short layout of your/a possible scenario? (With two dead pilots you would have wanted to have a flying manual in the glove compartment?).
Hello everyone,
I posted a long while ago and first of all, I want to say that I find your efforts in clearing up this mystery highly impressive – I visit this page nearly every day.
The reason I am posting is your discussion on JORN. I have wondered about this quite often. If (I know it seems most likely, but afaiunderstand there is no definitive prove of anything in this matter as yet) MH370 did fly south along the famous ‘arc’, it should have been technically visible to JORN.
My question is this. If we assume that the plane did fly south, and we further assume as correct the accounts of fairly extensive manoeuvring above the Strait of Malacca etc, it seems quite plausible that there is a high likelihood that the plane turned south as a result of human input. To me, there are two scenarios that seem likely to have resulted in this: Either ‘pilot suicide’, or hijacking (which might actually be ‘suicide-by-plane’ and thus not too dissimilar, but whatever). In any case, flying the plane south into the SIO – if this was the result of human piloting – makes it appear plausible to assume that whoever did this had the intent of ‘hiding’ the plane, i.e. wanted to make it as hard to find the plane’s wreck as possible.
If you follow my above reasoning, one question must come up: Why did the person(s) trying to hide the plane in the deep SIO apparently not worry about JORN? Did they not know it existed – even though they seem to have been knowledgable about Malaysian etc radar? How could they be confident JORN wouldn’t see the plane, if only in recordings? Did he/she/they just take their chances – after all, crossing the Malaysian peninsula could be seen as fairly daring as well? But still, if we assume the intent to ‘hide’ the plane, why not choose a flight path more westerly to reduce the likelihood of being seen by JORN?
Ok, I apologise for the wall of text. Mr. W, should you consider my post inappropriate, my apologies and please do delete as seen fit.
@Jeff:
No I didn’t.
@MM – Yup, TKTS is still there. If you go, my son can surely get her to sign your Playbill.
@Dennis – One typo in your Nov. 6 blog: Local time of 2:22 is 18:22 instead of 8:22.
A couple of years back someone posted an image of the Lido Hotel radar surper-imposed on a skyvector screenshot with both maps at the same scale. The 2:22 arrow is actually pointing to a spot approx. a third of the way from MEKAR to NILAM. That would indicate the 200NM is a typo and is more likely to be 240 or 250 NM. Remember they also did not correct all of the “radar returns” in between Palau Perak to the last radar.
@Lauren H.
Another interpretation exists;
https://jeffwise.net/2016/10/25/towfish-scan-of-mh370-search-zone-completed/comment-page-5/#comment-192377
@Hello Dolly
You are asking the same question that I recently asked, was this plane trying to avoid radar including JORN, or that was just luck? or did the pilot have knowledge about JORN limitations? If the purpose was to get lost in the SIO, why not head deeper into SIO west of the 90 East Ridge?
Some see the MH370 loss as a political incident that had safe landing as an option based on negotiations. So those proponents do not need a JORN radar avoidance explanation.
@Johan
Blaine Gibson invoked on this forum? On the same day millions in my country are choosing a putrid orange blob for president? And aero-nerds uniting across the world in a chorus of Hello Dolly? (Who then surfaces as a poster here???)
Madness
Pootin is rooting for Trump!
I shan’t sleep a wink tonite.
@Gysbreght. Continuing with your possibility, you posted, “If the autotrim system in a B777 is similar to that in the A330, a similar condition could have existed in MH370’s end-of-flight scenario”.
777 AMM 27-41-00 p2, “… the PFCs monitor elevation deflection and transfer pitch changes to the stabiliser. Once the stabiliser goes to its commanded position the elevator moves to neutral”.
Two PFCs are powered by the RAT, hot battery bus and their own batteries. These through respective ACEs will control the one stabiliser jack using RAT hydraulic power. So you could read this as being the same as AF447 except that I remain unsure still that the FCS would not be in the normal mode, which provides stall protection. I remember you came around to the view that bank angle protection was evident in the Exner simulation.
As an aside I note that the Sullenberger A320 had stall protection which you will recall inhibited him getting the nose up where he wanted. My understanding is that the AF447 lost this with its pitot problem and reversion to alternate law. The 777 would lose it too if the ADIRU and SAARU air data were unavailable and it had reverted to secondary, thence similarly losing stall protection. You found an indication at one stage that pitot tube heating power off would drop both out I remember. This in my mind remains unresolved.
One other issue is RAT hydaulic power in that flight condition.
@David@Gysbreght
“One other issue is RAT hydaulic power in that flight condition.”
Another unknown factor is the location of the beverage carts at 00″19:XX, and how that might affect aircraft trim.
My sense is that the important issue that gets lost in all the end of flight speculation (way beyond ad nauseam actually) is what happened between 18:25 and 00:11. Some 5.5 hours versus some 8 minutes.
@DennisW. It continues because it is there, like the US election.
Where you would have had a point is in noting it makes little difference to the search area, which can be much affected by end of flight.
What part did Z play in the end of flight you envisage?
@M&M:
Jeff took me down immediately, with a hint that we were both still very much derailed. (I w a s a bit surprised by the singing.) But letting go of some steam is also a part (especially) of tragedy. Otherwise it would be unbearable in the long run. And you’d burn out. Gibson has been invoked here a while back, in the debris days. After all, this is debris country.
It is Beaches. And now we need to get back up on the road.
Flying towards JORN is equivalent to flying towards the SUN.
The two reasons the suicide rationale gives for flying towards SUN are:
(1) Visual crash “landing” to optimize hiding plane location;
(2) Possible religious prayers at Sunrise
The colorful spiral graphics in Jeff’s OP argue against Item (1). Do I believe Item (1) is disproved by ATSB? Not yet, I think Byron B. is saying the pilot could have been optimizing RAT power during that final dive.
@Johan, I think you misunderstood me. “Oh no you didn’t” is a humorous rejoinder in American English, meaning “I can’t believe that you violated that mild social taboo.” I was referring to your sideways implications about Blaine Gibson, which made me smile.
@David
I really do not have any opinion on Z’s role at the end of flight. What is clear is that the 00:19:39 BFO value is very suspect, and cannot be used to infer that anything but a normal descent occurred. That to me is far more important to the search criterion than the more esoteric considerations of flap deployment and stall aerodynamics.
@DennisW. Yes, the last BFO. Some Boeing simulations apparently are consistent with that and the earlier. Why they remain undisclosed, at least their character, I cannot imagine unless they are proprietary.
@Jeff:
That was my first impression. 🙂 But as I went along I saw more to a (two-way) prohibition against going through with it completely (no, that did not get him back on track, and don’t etc. ) and I further neglected using all the means there is to convey that I had not perceived it as brutal. And I should have written that you had “figured me out immediately.” The fun in this particular case would btw without much residue rest in the figuring out.
@Johan
“@Gysbreght:
I might have jumped to conclusions. Would it be too much to ask for a short layout of your/a possible scenario?”
Good luck with getting an answer to that. If you do, I look forward to pummeling it relentlessly.
@Matt M, “A putrid orange blob for president”, you are too funny. Our counterpart here is Greert Wilders, who actually looks like he could be one of the orange blobs love child’s. It is a crazy day today!
@TBill, Whoever hijacked M9-MRO may not have cared about JORN at that point? Or perhaps knew it would not be in operation at that hour? ZS, would not have known anything on BFO and that it would be used to track the aircraft. Basically, in his mind, the entire SIO would be a good hiding place without having to do anything spectacular in the end, IMO. Just wait for fuel exhaustion to take place and have a front seat to view what a 777 really does in that situation?
@keffertje
Yes it seems possible Z could have guessed that JORN would not be expecting his arrival from the middle of nowhere to be looking for his 777. But just in case, why not crash further west under dark of night, and even more remote SIO?
Forgot my own adopted theory-
UPDATED
List of possible reasons the suicide theory gives for flying towards JORN/SUN:
(1) Visual crash “landing” to optimize hiding plane location;
(2) Possible religious prayers at Sunrise
(3) Possible targeted landing spot in specific hard-to-find location such as Broken Ridge or Dordrecht Hole.
@JeffWise
This forum represented as a forum for exchange of Information, ideas and
scenarios relating to MH370.
Not as a place where the thug-like characteristics of posters e.g. “I look
forward to pummeling it relentlessly”, are given free range, or where
verbal diarrhea e.g. history of Gustavus Adolphus, Swedish weather report,
etc. ad nauseam, drowns out MH370 discussion.
I note several long time contributors to this forum no longer seem to be
contributing or even monitoring it. Perhaps they’ve come to the conclusion
they need to look elsewhere for MH370 specific discussion.
P.S.-
please add
(4) Deniability of suicide motive
@TBill
Your knowledge of the religious practices of e.g. Islam, is faulty.
Vide;
http://www.worldevangelicals.org/resources/pdf/Christian_and_Muslim_Prayer.pdf
“morning prayer must be performed before sunrise (in the summer, that
can be before 4:00 a.m.)”…”At other (specified) times, prayer is forbidden: during sunrise“.
Unless you have evidence there was a follower of Zoraster on MH370,
your “Possible religious prayers at Sunrise” seems of negligible
probability.
@buyerninety
Thank you I greatly appreciate any input, I am only summarizing what others have said, in this case Ed Baker’s blog that Ventus45 has referenced in his recent discussions here (last few months). I can correct this if it is a mistake or I represented it wrong.
https://www.atsb.gov.au/mh370-pages/updates/operational-update/
First Principles Review Meeting purpose was, “to review…..all of the available data, associated analysis, assumptions and modelling which have informed the definition of the search area and which may also assist operations in the remainder of the search effort”.
No mention of discussion of grounds for an extension.
Report on the meeting in, “coming months”.
@TBill:
I view the 4th point as important.
You may take into consideration that going for sunrise/daylight has a general human character to it in the sense that light to most people (yes) is associated with positive aspects and feelings as being the natural part of the day for being awake: seeing, warmth, openness etc. If you add that being hidden by dark made sense near land, but not in SIO it is “evident” that the turn south has a staged character to it (the satellites ability to get a glimpse of you is admittedly on the downside). The perp doesn’t have to be a sun-mystic to prefer ending the flight in sunligh as opposed to darkness (whether alive or not, but with the outline). The random chances that a vehicle controlled by non-human intervention, by chance or accident going more or less south into the sun and into the middle of an ocean seems remote (if at all calcuable).
The odds for the U.S. puting Trump into office were lower. I had a bad feeling going to bed. Broadway may be within reach again, the dollar plummeteth.
Good morning America.
@David and all
Yes, no mention about extension of the search in the weekly update. Perhaps some folks haven’t already seen this…
https://www.atsb.gov.au/newsroom/correcting-records/first-principles-review-into-the-search-for-mh370/
“Correcting the Record. Misleading media reporting on the First Principles Review into the search for MH370” 3 Nov.
Trying not to comment on the breaking news from America…
@buyerninety, your post from 11:31
Unfortunately I have to agree.
The working class votes for Trump.
@buyerninety, @RetiredF4:
I’ll take it upon me. Except the singing part, which was a bit gross even to me. I may have contributed in provoking it. I certainly provoked Dennis about the line you quote, so that line will certainly not read as bad to Gysbreght as you fear. And I have seen Gysbreght take care of himself. Dennis is a very valuable contributor and from where I am standing you get accustomed to his ways, as you get accustomed to hail, sand and wind in your face when trying to get to work. He is honest, not everyone is, and predictable as such. Enough of praise.
I won’t apologize, but try to conform to expected standards. Comedy seems to be secured in the world anyhow.
Trump’s appeal is simply that he s not going to continue with Obama’s disastrous legacy, which would have likely happened under Clinton. Anyway, it was the GOP’s turn to have the figurehead for the USA.
Democracy has been served. God bless America
@BorisT:
The people has made its choice, and you probably have a point. And no stagnation is good. For those who want to do better there is time to think about what went wrong: a liberal management that can’t appeal to the working majority has issues, so that is not unfair. It remains to see how it effects foreign policy, but America is still America. God bless us all.
To those posting about the U.S. election..
Let me remind you this forum is about MH370
NOT bloody politics.Hearing enough of that everywhere else.
@Jeff wise…it’s time you got someone to filter this forum.If you don’t have the time yourself.
@Hello Dolly
The JORN issue had been discussed on this and other forums and the consensus was that 9M-MRO was not detected by JORN on that fateful night.
Possibilities;
1) JORN wasn’t switched on. Popular theory but no one in authority has unequivocally stated this was the case. Official statements are quite evasive.
2) False negative – possible. I’m not sure what the specificity of the JORN system is.
3) True negative – 9M-MRO never flew south into the SIO. We have just been made to think it has.
@David, RE yr post of Nov. 8, 5:31 PM:
Thank you for your research into the operation of the B777 autotrim system. According to the NNC.0.4 DUAL ENG FAIL/STALL procedure in the FCOM or QRH a dual engine failure results in loss of pitot heat, reversion of the PFC’s to secondary mode, and autopilot disengage. In secondary mode envelope protection is lost. The pilot can restore normal mode by cycling the PFC Disconnect Switch to DISC, then back to AUTO. The autopilot can then be re-engaged.
In Exner’s simulations several things happened that would not be expected in the real airplane. Some time ago Brian Anderson wrote here that were doubts about the simulation of system operation after the first engine flame-out. Then there was the unexplained “jerk” of the simulator cab in one of the simulations. While the pilot’s in the moving cab “fly” the simulator, there are also operator/instructor’s consoles both inside and outside the cab where an operator sets up the simulator before the test session, and resets its after each test in preparation for the next test. At those consoles the instructor or simulator operator can modify the system configuration of the simulated airplane, insert failure conditions, or environmental conditions such as turbulence, windshear, icing, etc. as required by the training syllabus that the cockpit crew is subjected to in a training excercise.
@RetiredF4
Welcome back!
I’m unaware if your experience was with NATO in the north or south – do
you think it is possible that a military report of a radar detection of
the location of an aircraft, would reference its position from an aerial
sensor platform by stating it as being ‘on a 295 Reciprocal at 200 nautical
miles’ from their sensor platform? Does that form of words seem like
a military form of words? (
https://jeffwise.net/2016/10/25/towfish-scan-of-mh370-search-zone-completed/comment-page-5/#comment-192377
)
@Johan said;
“The random chances that a vehicle controlled by non-human intervention,
by chance or accident going more or less south into the sun and into the
middle of an ocean seems remote”.
I agree (excepting going into the sun & sunrise, which is more eastwards).
Therefore, by end of this year (or end January latest), I am on record as
stating;
“a technical reason for the autopilot following N571 must be presented,
or reasonably we must conclude that the probability of the ‘ghost flight’
hypothesis, is less than the probability of ‘malicious intent’ scenario(s).”
(To that I would add, a technical hypothesis for the FMT is required, also.)
@TBill
Maybe I misunderstood that was your theory, regardless, thankyou for
drawing Ed Bakers
twitter (not quite ablog)mh370apilotperspective.blogspot.com.au to my attention, now I’ve had
another ‘Wha? How come I never heard of that before‘ moment, similar
to when I stumbled across the seventharc.net …
@all
It is interesting that buyerninety raised Ed’s blog as a reference.
Given the “political landscape” surrounding MH-370, I have been concerned, that since the earliest days, (April 2015) the Australian Government has been saying, “Decisions in relation to any recovery operation will be made jointly by the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese governments.” (Ref:- http://www.ibtimes.com/mh370-australia-plans-recovery-operations-while-plane-remains-missing-february-1791074) and this:- “An Australian Transport Safety Bureau spokesman said plans for recovery activities in the event the aircraft was found, were agreed to by Ministers from Malaysia, Australia and China at a meeting last month.
“The plans are not a public document at present,” said the spokesman.” (Ref:- http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/mh370-recovery-set-to-leave-aircraft-on-sea-floor/news-story/3e3ff0be00875cd65bf8fea16f8083ac)
I made a post there on 8th June 2016 (Ref:- https://mh370apilotperspective.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/mh370-important-change-in-protocola-clue.html?showComment=1465434484630&m=1#c6247333556549252878)
My concerns are quite clear I think.
So, to a “Hypothetical”.
Assume that MH-370 is found in the SIO.
Assume that the CVR and or FDR are also found.
Given the grave misgiving of so many, and specifically remembering that the French Government considers it to be a criminal / terror related incident, should the recovery and reading of the CVR / FDR be processed under Malaysian control, as per ICAO convention, or not ?
Given the “Malaysian Government’s” total lack of credibility (in the eyes of many) regarding MH-370, should the Malaysians be even “allowed” to “control” or “influence” any recovery operations, let alone “take possession” of the CVR and or FDR ?
What if they were allowed to, and did, and then shut everyone out, and kept the results secret, under the “National Security Banner” ?
Can we accept the risk that that might happen ?
If not, what should we do about it – now – to prevent the possibility of that happening ?
@Aaron
Why don’t you just do one!
@buyerninety
“I note several long time contributors to this forum no longer seem to be contributing or even monitoring it. Perhaps they’ve come to the conclusion they need to look elsewhere for MH370 specific discussion.”
There is nothing new that is worth discussing.
@buyerninety
you asked
“– do you think it is possible that a military report of a radar detection of the location of an aircraft, would reference its position from an aerial sensor platform by stating it as being ‘on a 295 Reciprocal at 200 nautical
miles’ from their sensor platform? Does that form of words seem like a military form of words? (https://jeffwise.net/2016/10/25/towfish-scan-of-mh370-search-zone-completed/comment-page-5/#comment-192377)”
My first and most simple explanation is, that the R295/200 anotation on the Lido picture is incorrect. Several reasons:
The radar track information depicted on the picture is composed of radar position information from different primary radars, and they did not use the best available computer equipment they would have had to generate such track information.
The task of the pic was to aid in visualization of the radar track to the NOK . Somebody made the anotation R295/200 for the same purpose, to give the whole thing a scale and orientation. In doing so they just gave an rounded the figure to the nearest 5 degrees and to the next 10 miles, or they just estimated the figures at all.
Afaik neither the discussed R295/200nm nor the Lido picture are published in official documents.
Normally a position like R295 = Radial 295 and 200 NM is referenced to an navigation aid like an VOR and represents a magnetic direction and ground range from this nav aid to a ground position. In the Lido picture it is referenced to Butterworth AB (Air Base) which shows again a non professional anotation.
If the position would be from a radar site or another ground referenced point it would look like: 295/200NM from butterworth AFB or xxxy radar station. Note, the term “Radial” is not used in this case.
Whoever put this figure on the slide was not concerned about using the correct phraseology, why should we expect that he exercised more diligence when figuring out those numbers?
As to your NATO question, I have flown in all NATO countries including USA and Canada
@ventus45
Not sure, but my guess is sovereignty of Country means the right to control information, as per ICAO. So I’d say MY gets the data.
Of course, I am with Ed Baker, expecting the recorders were turned off as soon as possible. Some have said, even so, the DFDR black box should contain at least some crucial data from early hours of flight.
In my mind, the key question is not what MY is willing to disclose, but what the NTSB/airline industry lists as the probable causes for history. Failure to disclose details by MY to me infers some type of human action as cause, which Razak has already said. The only question I have is does MY still say that human intervention is suspected, if so, I am OK with that.
@RetiredF4
(I didn’t actually have a NATO question – merely myself musing as to
whether you accured your flight experience predominately in a northern
or southern European NATO country…
but please disregard any inclination to take that as a question.)
Something else I’ve found – in this naval reference;
http://navyadministration.tpub.com/14067/css/Gyrocompass-Repeaters-And-Pelorus-28.htm
appears the following instruction;
“Relative bearing is the direction of an object from the observer,
measured clockwise from the ship’s heading”…”When a bearing is recorded,
it is assumed to be a true bearing unless it is followed by the capital
letter R, which would mean that the bearing is relative.”
I will have to ponder this awhile and consider how/if it is applicable to
the Lido graphic.
Cheers
@Jeff, I love your blog and I know today must be an election hangover day. I am glad you don’t run this blog like a military camp where the topic can only be MH370., but allow a wide tent as you always say. That should be allowed and there is nothing wrong with it, right? If others are getting too anal retentive, humorless, yet splash their own ad nauseum posts, well other readers suffer as well. In the end, this blog is like any other true democracy, where people can voice their thoughts and ideas without being offensive., but with some humor and yes perhaps locking horns sometimes too.
@all
Re: JORN etc.
Mike Chillit has recently posted this 2014 article basically saying anything beyond 100 km from Australian western shore is hard too monitor.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-airlines-indianocean-idUSBREA2F03K20140316
@Kefferje, It’s a bleak, rainy day here in New York, and your warm thoughts are very much welcome.
there seems to be still much disconnect on how MH370 turned between IGARI and BITOD, just reading from REDDIT(where it sounds like the turn back could not have been done as being promoted) and also in a previous posting of flight path between Beijing and Penang which makes me wonder if that was the cover Malaysia was using for the return back over the peninsula..
@TBill:
I found that article very informative. It not only discusses Australian radar rationality but sketches the main routes for shipping and air traffic through the Indian Ocean. The latter actualizises an idea that perhaps have been risen somewhere before. When estimating a terminus (by a suicidal perp wanting to hide the plane), why not measuring out the point in SIO (around fuel exhaustion or earlier) that would be equally distant from all (inhabited or at least not completely insignificant) islands and in-use thoroughfares for ships and air traffic — and adjust it towards / compare it to the 7th Arc and need of sunlight (without violating the distance to significant points of human regular presence too much). Wouldn’t that give an approximation of some value? And avoiding the rising sun as such as a vanishing point. Or necessarily a trench.
(It could be suggested hypotethically too btw that a perp might have considered slightly different endpoints depending on weather, time of day or year, day in the week, waves, winds and currents (and hope of submerging the plane in on piece etc.) without necessarily deciding before take-off.)
Z would have known about all the vessel tracking systems available and would have been able to produce a kind of origo (or several) of the least-traveled waters that he could reach without filling up beyond suspiscion and that would also meet other criteria (of the day), incliudung eastward surface drift (or any drift that would place debris too quickly under human eyes). The pilot (and father) in him would advice him to be very practical about the actual terminus — going for the achievable rather than the mystic/romantic/ideal. His (hypothetical) “romanticism” would be satisfied by an ending in SIO in itself, perhaps with an adjustment towards the coast of Australia (where his daughter perhaps planned to be living?).
(Why not compare this to the lats and longs in his sim while at it?)
Or has this been done?