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Malaysia Airlines Loses Contact With 777 en Route to Beijing

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  • Originally posted by elaw View Post
    He'd know it was off by looking at the switch:

    (Note the word "off" next to the knob on the right)

    And in general, it's good for anything electrical to have an "off" switch so you have an option when smoke starts coming out of it...
    Or when you want to kill 200 people...

    Comment


    • Originally posted by elaw View Post
      And what do you propose that system should do with aircraft that don't have transponders?
      Ummmm .... you cant fly until you have one ?

      Comment


      • Originally posted by TheKiecker View Post
        Or when you want to kill 200 people...
        I'm not quite sure what that would accomplish... if you look at past incidents, pilots have had no trouble killing the occupants of their aircraft without having to turn off the transponder.

        Originally posted by TheKiecker View Post
        Ummmm .... you cant fly until you have one ?
        Well, feel free to lobby the US congress for that change if you want to. But you better be prepared to explain to all the owners of small aircraft that have no transponders what the benefit to them is...
        Be alert! America needs more lerts.

        Eric Law

        Comment


        • Originally posted by elaw View Post
          I'm not quite sure what that would accomplish... if you look at past incidents, pilots have had no trouble killing the occupants of their aircraft without having to turn off the transponder.

          Well, feel free to lobby the US congress for that change if you want to. But you better be prepared to explain to all the owners of small aircraft that have no transponders what the benefit to them is...
          Nice strawman . How about we start with commercial flights . Can you maybe wrap your head around that? You know , because it might have something to do with a plane vanishing ? Might even have some sort of pertinence to this thread .. Just throwing it out there . Crazy I know .

          As for the first point; its called human decency . Sometimes family like to have closure to bury or , even know what happened to their loved ones . thats what , " THAT would accomplish" .

          Comment


          • Originally posted by TheKiecker View Post
            Nice strawman . How about we start with commercial flights . Can you maybe wrap your head around that? You know , because it might have something to do with a plane vanishing ? Might even have some sort of pertinence to this thread .. Just throwing it out there . Crazy I know.
            Dude...sleep on this concept...give it some time to sink in.

            Commercial aircraft have and use transponders essentially 100% of the time. It makes things better so they are essentially reqiured and used all the time!

            That being said, the thing needs electricity...it's going to have a 'fuse' and wires...those wires can be cut....

            ...and since it's so darn important, we rig it so that if the 'fuse' (more correctly circuit breaker) pop's- you can try to push it back in and hope the transponder works.

            It's a pretty good system- but the electricity can be turned off- just like the fuel can be shut off to the engine...sometimes you need to turn stuff off, like fire prevention.

            Now, do we need some super duper terrorist proof homing beacon, or better radars, or positive control?...interesting thoughts, however it costs $.

            But just so you have reference- whenever you fly from Europe to the America's, or even from the US to Puerto Rico...you are not tracked on radar...

            Why? Because it costs $.

            Should we spend the $?- Seems like a good idea, then again, it will cost more money to fly so we can kill more folks in car wrecks as they venture to save money. And the day that your secure and locked homing beacon and it's lithium battery shorts out and catches on fire...

            Your questions are valid, but the answer is not simple black and white.
            Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by 3WE View Post
              Dude...sleep on this concept...give it some time to sink in.

              Commercial aircraft have and use transponders essentially 100% of the time. It makes things better so they are essentially reqiured and used all the time!

              That being said, the thing needs electricity...it's going to have a 'fuse' and wires...those wires can be cut....

              ...and since it's so darn important, we rig it so that if the 'fuse' (more correctly circuit breaker) pop's- you can try to push it back in and hope the transponder works.

              It's a pretty good system- but the electricity can be turned off- just like the fuel can be shut off to the engine...sometimes you need to turn stuff off, like fire prevention.

              Now, do we need some super duper terrorist proof homing beacon, or better radars, or positive control?...interesting thoughts, however it costs $.

              But just so you have reference- whenever you fly from Europe to the America's, or even from the US to Puerto Rico...you are not tracked on radar...

              Why? Because it costs $.

              Should we spend the $?- Seems like a good idea, then again, it will cost more money to fly so we can kill more folks in car wrecks as they venture to save money. And the day that your secure and locked homing beacon and it's lithing batter shorts out and catches on fire...

              Your questions are valid, but the answer is not simple black and white.
              Well put. Thank you for a solid response.

              Comment


              • It seems he knew his way around the electronics stack down in the hole in order to kill the other transmissions. I'm sure if any air crew member was so inclined he could have asked or consulted the manuals on where the transponder was and just yanked a few wires. For that matter most of this stuff used to be slide in/slide out on a rack and then just a few twists and it would be "off" as in disconnected.
                Live, from a grassy knoll somewhere near you.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by TheKiecker View Post
                  Nice strawman . How about we start with commercial flights . Can you maybe wrap your head around that? You know , because it might have something to do with a plane vanishing ? Might even have some sort of pertinence to this thread .. Just throwing it out there . Crazy I know .

                  As for the first point; its called human decency . Sometimes family like to have closure to bury or , even know what happened to their loved ones . thats what , " THAT would accomplish" .
                  Uh... can you wrap your head around common sense?
                  1) So far there has, maybe, been one loss-of-life incident where the inability to turn off a piece of electrical equipment may have been a factor. There have been *numerous* loss-of-life incidents in the past where the inability to turn off electrical equipment has been a causal factor. Do the research. The overwhelming likelihood is that removing the ability to turn off a piece of equipment will *increase* loss of life.

                  2) As, again, has been demonstrated numerous times, there are a multitude of ways a pilot can kill his/her passengers. Removing all possibility of that would remove the ability of the pilot to fly the plane. Which I admit might save some lives, but it seems that society has decided that allowing pilots to fly airplanes is worth the risk.

                  And honestly I think *you* are the one making the strawman argument. Saying that preventing the transponder from being shut off would have prevented or significantly altered this or any other incident is like walking into a terrorist camp where they're all standing around a table with 100 AK-47s on it, removing one rifle, and saying "problem solved!". It just ain't so.
                  Be alert! America needs more lerts.

                  Eric Law

                  Comment


                  • this whole nonsense about every single electrical device absolutely needing to be isolated and shut off in the event of a fire is just that--nonsense.

                    yes there have been some isolated events where electrical devices started fires onboard (mostly related to unauthorized installations?) but how many involving systems like radar, radios, transponders? zero? one? two? fine! an acceptable risk.

                    now that the world has been taught what aircraft can be used for, and for purposes of this post i'm only talking about transport category stuff, to hell with cessnas! it may be time to isolate transponders from in-flight access, as in you can NEVER shut it off. yes, you can change certain settings but NO WAY to completely disable it.

                    perhaps not entirely for terrorism reasons either.

                    lastly, i don't believe that any aircraft is invisible to US radar anywhere within 1000 miles of any border. ATC may not be aware that you are out there, but i'll be damned if some branch of the military isn't aware of exactly where you are and probably can fairly well identify the type of aircraft as well.

                    not saying conspiracy, but something about the aussie military not knowing that mh370 or the blip it represented on their screens makes me wonder....

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by elaw View Post
                      He'd know it was off by looking at the switch:

                      (Note the word "off" next to the knob on the right)

                      And in general, it's good for anything electrical to have an "off" switch so you have an option when smoke starts coming out of it...
                      Isn't that why fuses are put in electrical devices?

                      Comment


                      • Battle of technologies

                        Experts say an Australian company’s claim that it may have identified the resting place of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 probably has to be checked out.


                        in regards to the alternate location claim:
                        As stated, so far it has been a battle of whom has the best technology. I found this statement amusing: "It's so revolutionary, and I don't know anyone that knows of this kind of technology," he told CNN. "And I know most of the people in this business." - What other secret technologies are scientists testing because of this event? Was this the deliberate reason for the event perhaps? If it is is, it would be some sick exercise!

                        In any case, let us suppose the new location turns out to be the real deal, won't inmarsat and the governments be left with egg on their face? I am just afraid this will have the authorities rather bury all error than be exposed as incompetent. let's hope not!

                        The new location raises old questions and anomalies, and also produce new ones. The mystery just deepens.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by TheKiecker View Post
                          I dont understand how you would know that
                          Because I was the guy on the left front seat checking that it was off and leaving it off.

                          and on a different level why a transponder would ever have an OFF switch.
                          In my particular case, I used to fly in an area that was under the TMA Baires (the terminal area around the main airports near Buenos Aires), but remaining in VFR corridors that were non-controlled airspace. While I departured from a controlled airport, I was almost never assigned a transponder code by the ATC (the exception being the flights where I would enter the controlled airspace). While I could have opted to squak a generic VFR non-controlled code, the usual practice there was not to do so. I guess that the reason was to avoid the guys in the radar scopes tracking secondary targets (the ones that were under ATC) had their screens clogged with dozens of targets that, while tracked because the transponder was on, were unidentifiable because they all sheared the same code. We would have been basically "noise" for the ATC.

                          On the other hand, having the transponder on would have enabled the collision avoidance systems in the radar room (if there was any such system) and in the airplanes equipped with TCAS (that I think was neither mandatory nor widely deployed back then).

                          --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                          --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

                          Comment


                          • Another thing to keep in mind is that like any other electronic item, transponders can malfunction in ways short of catching fire.

                            From time to time you hear about ATC asking a pilot to "cycle the transponder" (turn it off and back on again) when they're not receiving its signal. Also in older light planes that have transponders with mechanical code switches (like the one in the image I posted above), from time to time the switches will go bad, causing the transponder to send the wrong code. In that case you might have to shut it off if it's transmitting a code that causes some sort of a problem (like its the same as another plane).
                            Be alert! America needs more lerts.

                            Eric Law

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by TeeVee View Post
                              this whole nonsense about every single electrical device absolutely needing to be isolated and shut off in the event of a fire is just that--nonsense.
                              What does your industry do when something breaks after an engineering staff does in-depth study and determines that it won't break?

                              Count up house fires, car fires, laptop battery fires and tell me how using lots of fuses is nonsense.
                              Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by elaw View Post
                                Another thing to keep in mind is that like any other electronic item, transponders can malfunction in ways short of catching fire.

                                From time to time you hear about ATC asking a pilot to "cycle the transponder" (turn it off and back on again) when they're not receiving its signal. Also in older light planes that have transponders with mechanical code switches (like the one in the image I posted above), from time to time the switches will go bad, causing the transponder to send the wrong code. In that case you might have to shut it off if it's transmitting a code that causes some sort of a problem (like its the same as another plane).
                                ....(My bold underline)..... But in this case we're talking about a 12 year old Boeing 777 so that statement is really kind of .....er.....totally irrelevent !
                                If it 'ain't broken........ Don't try to mend it !

                                Comment

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