Author Topic: Black Boxes Re Malaysian MH 370  (Read 12857 times)

Offline Twocky61

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Black Boxes Re Malaysian MH 370
« on: April 30, 2014, 02:18:09 AM »
The Malaysian MH 370 flight is believed to be down in the Indian Ocean 200 miles off the Australian coast and beyond Australian radar

Why is radar not routed via orbiting satellite? If it was surely there would be no area of the Earth's surface (including oceans) outside of radar coverage Or is it not yet technically possible to have radar satellites? We have Google Earth so why not similar radar?

It is also pretty much definate the black box is no longer transmitting a signal due to battery expiry

Question: Do we have the technology available (cost issues aside) to manufacturer a battery (lithium/Alkaline whatever) that would last years? Like atomic/nuclear powered as is a nuclear submarine that could be used to power black boxes?

Thankyou




Offline masterkeymaster

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Re: Black Boxes Re Malaysian MH 370
« Reply #1 on: May 30, 2014, 10:47:02 PM »
Radar is ground based only and is only good for 30 miles for any radar facility to pick something the remote radar would have to be on a boat or something stationary fixture since there are no airways there is no need to put remote radar facilities.

As far as Google earth what you are seeing is most likely ADS-B witch is something somewhat new.

“the back box” does not transmit anything, it is just data controlled for the duration of the flight and the voices collected for the last 30 -45 minutes it also continues records over itself. The signal that you would hear is from the ELT emergency locator transmitter and one of the problems with them is that it transmits in AM mode, witch is terrible in the first place for search and rescue.

Offline RonR

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Re: Black Boxes Re Malaysian MH 370
« Reply #2 on: May 31, 2014, 12:21:16 PM »
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but I'm fairly sure that the range of ground radar is far more than 30 miles.  For example, flights departing out of JFK going to Caribbean destinations are on radar as far out as roughly 200 miles, possibly more.  Of course the range of a radar site will depend on the altitude of the aircraft.

And as far as the available technology, there would be ways to track in-flight aircraft anywhere in the world through a GPS-based type of system.  In fact, many aircraft already transmit their lat/long position on 1090 MHz (ADS-B) which can be received on the ground.  I don't see why a system based on this could be developed using satellites.  It would mean that every aircraft would need to transmit their lat/long coordinates. 

Offline Marty Becker

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Re: Black Boxes Re Malaysian MH 370
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2014, 04:52:58 PM »
The GPN-20 model that I installed and maintained the the USAF back in the early 1980s had a 60nm range.  The rotation speed was 12 rpm. The GPN-20 was similiar to the ASR-9 that the FAA used.  The USAF also had a longer range primary radar with a slower rpm and a range up to 200nm.