Classic British Flight Sim

SkippyBing wrote:

I'd have thought something as basic as last location would be easy.

Outside radar cover it gets a little more problematic, you only know where they were last time they told you.

Agreed, but we're not talking just Radar on a moder airliner... are we? I'd have thought there would be Sat based tracking?

RE electrical failure... I didn't think that could be catastrophic... but just remembered its and Airbus, so no manual systems :-(

Leif 'your right about the auto message

BBC is now reporting the short circuit message was an automatic message sent by the aeroplane. The contollers wer only ware of something when the crew failed to repost entering Senegalise Airspace at the expected time.

No mention of crew reporting problems so given the distance between the last radio report and the failure to report later means a vast area of ocean.

As usual the media is specualing with such daft things as if an engine failed why can't they fly on one or both failed can the glide and other completly stupid hype.

All that is known still is it is missing.

Garry

Agreed, but we're not talking just Radar on a moder airliner... are we? I'd have thought there would be Sat based tracking?

RE electrical failure... I didn't think that could be catastrophic... but just remembered its and Airbus, so no manual systems :-(

From what I've gleaned as Leif says the aircraft sends back a fault log to base to enable a quick turnround, there were also other position reporting devices fitted to the aircraft in question however if you've had an electrical failure some of those may be shed to ensure higher priority systems are running. Additionally if they were in an area of electrical storms it may have had an affect on comms. There's more details of what was on the aircraft here http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/3759 ... ssing.html.

Regarding electrical failures being catastrophic there's a nice piece in the latest FAAOA mag detailing the fall back options for the Airbus with regards to the NY incident. Suffice to say the Ram Air Turbine can provide sufficient electrical and hydraulic power to maintain control, in fact I'd imagine it'd have to to get certified.

Cheers for the link Skip!

Was thinking, not so much of a power failure, but if some sort of electrical damage had occured, the Ram air won't do you much could if your systems are shot to bits. And given that none of the systems are manually connected, you be a sitting duck I guess :think:

Was thinking, not so much of a power failure, but if some sort of electrical damage had occured, the Ram air won't do you much could if your systems are shot to bits. And given that none of the systems are manually connected, you be a sitting duck I guess

I think somewhere in that post it mentions quad redundancy of the electrics/flight control system so it'd be a rare event to cause that level of damage. At this stage I'd guess it was a chain of events that led to the flight's disappearance rather than one single thing.

It must have been some chain of events if they didn't even have time to send out a mayday on the HF radio.
Although saying that... that works on electricity.....

I just hope they find lots of little life rafts full of people soon....

Can you imagine being out over the Atlantic at night and lose all electric power? Engines shut down - cockpit goes dark - cabin goes dark. That's the stuff of which nightmares are made. :-( A miracle would be awful nice right about now.

Brian

The electrical failure scenario we were taught by the good folks at NATCO was "It gets dark before you die" ie you have 45 minutes of battery life that will power the controls and essential systems - (including by the way one VHF nav/com) 15 minutes
before the batteries quit they load shed including interior lighting, hence the rather macabre little saying -- the thought of trying to fly and find somewhere to put the aircraft on the ground (or water) under those conditions are very scary -- I do predict though that ETOPS regulations will be revisited by the various DCAs around the world.


Leif

I think it was Eric was telling me that he had spoken to (a 767?) captain regards ETOPS on trans atlantic from the UK to the states and he pointed out that if you were much over a 33% of the way there it was a ditching. Theres something to be said for 3 or 4 engines... and Glass instruments as backup.

Looks like they've already been written off. :-( Says here that the automated message received also indicated a "loss of pressurization" along with the electrical short.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/rec ... 20090601-0

Brian