Missing planes.

[cee-dee]

There's been two aircraft which have gone missing in the general area of Indonesia which have given searchers the run-around.

Thinking about it all and the lack of any signals from the transponders in the "Black Boxes" I wondered why on earth there's no other forms of radio communications fitted to aircraft?

"They" can fit tracking devices to large fish/mammals, birds and they've even fitted a tracking device to insects so why can't some sort of devices be fitted to the wingtips and fin (vertical stabiliser) of aircraft which, in the event of any sort of crash will detach, float and begin transmitting?

[dark_castle1]

Even a transmitter that activates when immersed in water, a bit like the lights attached to lifejackets that only function when the wearer is in the water.

[tommy.irene]

Most mobile phones can tell you where a call or text message came from why not have planes with a special beacon that comes on when you go below 1000 feet..

[evoman3957]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102300140#.

[cee-dee]

That link concerns "tracking" which is not what my post was about.

My point is that the aircraft could be fitted with devices which, in the event of a crash would detach from the aircraft from the relatively vulnerable points of the wingtips and the fin.

The crash investigators always look for the "four corners" to determine the extent of the debris field and the four corners are the nose, tail and the wingtips.

A detachable device fitted to the nose is likely to be damaged or destroyed which is why my suggestion was only for the wingtips and the fin. Often, the wingtips and fin survive crashes and it's possible that in a crash those points would survive long enough for a radio device to detach and in the event of a crash in water, such a device could be made to float.

Even if the devices were to depart from the debris field due either to the wind or currents, at least they'd provide a relatively close area in which to search rather than, as now, a search area extending to hundreds of square miles.

As I mentioned in my OP, if devices can be attached to and track birds, whales and insects, surely it's not too difficult to make and fit a detachable transmitter to at least three points on an aircraft?

As to the power requirements both in battery power and output power, I don't suppose many people are aware of the "Million Miles per Watt Club"? The current record stands at around 13 million miles per Watt (of output power).

The idea is that using extraordinary low output powers below a single Watt, the distance covered is multiplied up to a Watt, the current record being achieved with an output power of less than 0.00005 Watts. The record was achieved by detecting a signal sent with that amount of power over a distance of over 500 miles.

Soooooo, surely it's hardly a difficult excercise to construct a reliable transmitter in a detachable housing which would float and its signal detected by search planes?

[lhasa.two]

Ouch at the impact though... You would have to design something light enough to attach to wing tips and tail that wouldn't break up on impact with the water.

Maybe the aeronautics and marine industries should get together and come up with something.

Not quite the same thing but I have a Waterbuoy key ring (for sailing) which is a tiny device that combines a miniature gas tank with a trigger mechanism, a balloon and a light. Once the Waterbuoy hits the water, the gas inflates the balloon and the keys are pulled up to the water's surface. Useful for retrieval at night, an integrated LED light switches on and keeps flashing for 24 hours.  

[upthecreekyetagain]

According to Boeing, MH370 had four emergency locator beacons on board when it was delivered.  The black box data was also designed to upload its data automatically via satellite but this had been manually turned off.

Apparently the idea of detachable floating beacons has already been considered

"A possible solution would be to design the beacon to detach from the sinking wreckage and remain floating on the water surface. This way, it could continue transmitting the emergency signal, helping the rescue teams locate the crash site. Although such systems are technically feasible, until the MA370 disappearance there was no push in the aviation community to implement such solutions in commercial airliners."

http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2014/03/flight-mh370-emergency.cfm

[otherego]

I suppose it all boils down to weighing the costs and rewards of implementing the technology you suggest, CD.

Whilst the technology is doubtless readily available, and the cost of materials would probably be fairly low, the certification costs would be enormous, along with the expense and sheer hassle of retrofitting thousands of aircraft.

The idea of constantly streaming flight data and voice recorder data to ground stations seems to be gaining momentum, and it wouldn't surprise me if this eventually comes about - if only as a result of public demand/political pressure, neither necessarily well informed. It does seem to be gaining more support than detachable locator beacons, as far as I can see.

Aircrew are naturally uncomfortable with the intrusive element of the idea of data streaming. At least you know that the DFDR records over itself regularly; likewise the CVR. In addition, they are local to the aircraft. A little like the concern about cloud computing - who knows what somebody else might do with your data? At least the present system means that the rude comments you made about management during the flight are only ever likely to see the light of day if you are dead, or at least have had a chance to prepare your defence.

Detachable locator beacons might improve the chances of finding crash sites, though, and an associated suggestion has been DFDRs and CVRs which somehow detach themselves and make their way to the surface after a crash. Quite how that could be done, I've no idea, unless several memory modules (which need weigh relatively little) were colocated with your suggested detachable ELTs - it's only the data that need be retrieved, after all.

And again, whether it's worth the cost and hassle of data streaming/detachable ELTs etc for the very few occasions they might be needed (just consider how many thousands of flights are completed safely every day) remains questionable.

There's been an awful lot of discussion about these matters on Pprune (a forum I find fascinating, but would never ever be brave enought to participate in), with very convincing arguments pro and con detachable ELTs or similar, and data streaming. You might find it interesting to take a lurk there, if you've not already done so.

[cee-dee]

Hiya, PPrune is not a place I lurk but I've looked in now and again.

Now streaming data is not a good idea. There'd be so much of it it would be liable to loss or corruption. The cost of certification & etc would certainly be a killer for the idea.

Detachable beacons on the other hand wouldn't be expensive or difficult to either fit (to new planes) or develop.

For the wing tips I was thinking of them being in the winglets. The fin wouldn't be difficult either.

The CVR usually records over itself in half an hour (last time I heard) but some digital ones last for 2 hours. The FDR records for 25 hours but there's no need for the sort and amount of data it records to be continuously streamed?

The current pingers are just not good enough as demonstrated by the two aircraft which have gone down over water. This latest has a located debris field but as yet there's no sound from the pinger so why not?

[blackburn_stevie]

Just a quickie. Why was the transmitting device on MH370? switched off manually?

[cee-dee]

So, they've FINALLY recovered the Flight Data Recorder from the Air Asia plane.

I don't think they've analysed any data yet but they're now saying the plane was blown apart in mid air due to a rapid descent, the break-up caused by the cabin pressure.

[cee-dee]

Today they recovered the Cockpit Voice Recorder so now they can get on and perhaps find out what happened just before the plane crashed.

They should be able to tell whether the plane broke up at altitude, during a descent or when it hit the water.

They say they've found the fuselage too but haven't dived on it yet.

[cee-dee]

On another thread I mentioned sensationalist press reports and although the following isn't sensationalist, it's surely quite wrong to say such a thing?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30902237

Have a look at that news report first and scroll down a bit to where it says:-

Ignasius Jonan told a parliamentary hearing in Jakarta that flight QZ8501 had ascended at a speed of 6,000ft (1,828m) per minute.

No passenger or fighter jet would attempt to climb so fast, he said.

"Fighter jets" climb at a much faster rate than that and the record rate of climb is held by the SU 27 at 64,000 feet per minute and the "normal" rate of climb for that aircraft is 60,000 feet per minute so where that bloke got his info from I dunno?

Now, if he'd just said no passenger jet would climb so fast, he'd have been OK?

[evoman3957]

Next time I fly to Geneva, if the Pilot does this, as I'm settling down to my Coffee & Croissant, I'm gonna get seriously ***.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrqsDdY4A6U