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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 11, 2014 16:14:50 GMT -5
You are still in the 18th century with Russell. Actually, I prefer the late 16th and early 17th, so's I can hang with Willie S. Though Ben J. ain't bad company. Bit waspish, but funny. Gotta admit that the cholera and bad dentistry give a fella pause, though.
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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 11, 2014 16:22:00 GMT -5
It was cool being transported up to the mother ship but, after I saw what they ate, I just wanted to get out of there. Wait--you got the free meal? All they offered me was what they claimed were peanuts, except they glowed florescent green. And they wiggled. And squeaked.
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Post by billhammond on Mar 11, 2014 16:36:02 GMT -5
It was cool being transported up to the mother ship but, after I saw what they ate, I just wanted to get out of there. Wait--you got the free meal? All they offered me was what they claimed were peanuts, except they glowed florescent green. And they wiggled. And squeaked. Russ ever tell you about the time he was helping Moses bring the tablets down the mountain AND HE DROPPED AND BROKE THE THIRD ONE?!?!?!?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2014 16:47:37 GMT -5
It does seem more and more peculiar. I'd be interested to know what systems remain operable or usable when a B777 loses power. Most modern airliners have a glide ratio in the neighborhood of 17:1 (some are lower, some are higher) and so if the plane's last known altitude was 35,000 feet and it lost power somehow, that still gives it (in theory) nearly 98 nautical miles of gliding room. Of course you have to stay above stall speed, and in the middle of the sea, a 98-mile glide can still leave you in the middle of nowhere. Here's the famous case of the Air Transat flight that glided 65 nautical miles after an inadvertent fuel exhaustion: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236But even without engine power, the crew can deploy the ram-air turbine to provide electricity to run the plane's systems. It's just darn strange.
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Post by xyrn on Mar 11, 2014 16:50:00 GMT -5
"Introducing the all new Zager Super Xtra Mega Lyte Gauge Strings. Guaranteed to ring like the Tsar Bell."
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Post by billhammond on Mar 11, 2014 16:59:38 GMT -5
It does seem more and more peculiar. I'd be interested to know what systems remain operable or usable when a B777 loses power. Most modern airliners have a glide ratio in the neighborhood of 17:1 (some are lower, some are higher) and so if the plane's last known altitude was 35,000 feet and it lost power somehow, that still gives it (in theory) nearly 98 nautical miles of gliding room. Of course you have to stay above stall speed, and in the middle of the sea, a 98-mile glide can still leave you in the middle of nowhere. Here's the famous case of the Air Transat flight that glided 65 nautical miles after an inadvertent fuel exhaustion: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236But even without engine power, the crew can deploy the ram-air turbine to provide electricity to run the plane's systems. It's just darn strange. Is there some speculation that there was a power loss? That seems to me to be something that might warrant a radio distress call.
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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 11, 2014 17:09:23 GMT -5
Russ ever tell you about the time he was helping Moses bring the tablets down the mountain AND HE DROPPED AND BROKE THE THIRD ONE?!?!?!? And that goniff Mel Brooks stole the story--and wrote me out!
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Post by billhammond on Mar 11, 2014 17:40:47 GMT -5
Of course, that is where I got the notion, Russ.
Reminds me of a joke:
Moses comes down the mountain, yells out "Gather round -- I have good news and bad news."
"The good news is that I got Him down to 10 from 15.
"The bad news is that adultery stays in."
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2014 18:33:27 GMT -5
It does seem more and more peculiar. I'd be interested to know what systems remain operable or usable when a B777 loses power. Most modern airliners have a glide ratio in the neighborhood of 17:1 (some are lower, some are higher) and so if the plane's last known altitude was 35,000 feet and it lost power somehow, that still gives it (in theory) nearly 98 nautical miles of gliding room. Of course you have to stay above stall speed, and in the middle of the sea, a 98-mile glide can still leave you in the middle of nowhere. Here's the famous case of the Air Transat flight that glided 65 nautical miles after an inadvertent fuel exhaustion: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236But even without engine power, the crew can deploy the ram-air turbine to provide electricity to run the plane's systems. It's just darn strange. Is there some speculation that there was a power loss? That seems to me to be something that might warrant a radio distress call. Power loss is one explanation for the transponder dropping out. There are others, though, including someone simply turning it off or pulling the circuit breaker. But given that cockpits are locked these days, it would be hard for someone who isn't flight crew to do it. And if there was some kind of assault on the flight deck, it only takes the crew a matter of seconds to switch the transponder to the emergency frequency that lets the world know someone is trying to enter the cockpit.
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Post by billhammond on Mar 11, 2014 18:58:11 GMT -5
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Post by godotwaits on Mar 11, 2014 19:06:57 GMT -5
Well, I hope someone has the good sense to do some high altitude flyovers and snap some pictures of the various airports in northern Indonesia. Who knows what wingtips may be discovered under the Banyan trees?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2014 19:58:35 GMT -5
Wow. If you're going to kill yourself or your passengers flying, you generally do it long before you've amassed 18,000 hours. That is a lot of flight time.
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Post by theevan on Mar 11, 2014 21:01:12 GMT -5
I can't imagine it being the pilot. Not with that experience.
Now the co-pilot...
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Post by jdd2 on Mar 11, 2014 21:16:18 GMT -5
I heard a pilot talking on the news earlier, and he suggested a total electrical failure down the the last system, a battery, which would've lasted about an hour.
So in the dark of night, everything shuts down up to that battery, and they do that turn/reversal, and, flying blind, try to make it back to KL. The battery then goes dead before they get there.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2014 21:33:15 GMT -5
I heard a pilot talking on the news earlier, and he suggested a total electrical failure down the the last system, a battery, which would've lasted about an hour. So in the dark of night, everything shuts down up to that battery, and they do that turn/reversal, and, flying blind, try to make it back to KL. The battery then goes dead before they get there. Except the B777 is equipped with a Ram Air Turbine, which should power emergency systems. Deploy that and you've got enough power to run most of the systems a flight crew would need in a pinch.
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Post by godotwaits on Mar 12, 2014 1:08:44 GMT -5
A little middle of the night insomnia here. Someone should check the lead-in on CNN tomorrow as a development to the story. A company GlobalDigital from Colorado which operates one the world's most sophisticated global satelite systems is making their data available to the public so that every quadrant of the potential ocean can be scrutinized by 'someone' ie crowdsourcing. Theoretically, you can spot something the size of a 'home plate' in these downloads. (see volunteers pore over satelite images)
Don't know whether this will be effective. It may result in so many leads as to be impossible to manage. But it would certainly be educational at the very least to inventory the amount of shipping flotsam that is polluting our oceans. But who knows, maybe 'someone' can pinpoint some amount of life rafts or airliner wreckage.
The plot certainly doth thicken.
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Post by godotwaits on Mar 12, 2014 1:20:55 GMT -5
Let us not discount Samali pirates. With the transponders shut down. The fuel range of where that flight could reach, if it just kept on keeping on, also includes the eastern coast of Africa. And it was in fact, last noted, to be headed in that direction. And there wouldn't be a lot of radar across that large ocean. A snarky suggestion for sure.
OMG. Do we have any Somali pirates or sympathizers on this board? I'm so sorry. I'll go back to bed. Right now.
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Post by Chesapeake on Mar 12, 2014 8:27:07 GMT -5
Godotwaits makes a good point about all the junk floating around in the ocean. Every so often a ship runs into an entire cargo container that has been washed overboard in a storm. This is a special danger to single-crew sailboat cruisers, who often skip night watches by engaging autopilot so they can catch some winks. Some of the big junk isn't visible at all from the angle of a ship's deck because it floats just beneath the surface.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2014 9:36:04 GMT -5
I don't believe anyone here sympathizes with Somali pirates, but taking over a jetliner would require a level of planning and sophistication that the pirates along the Horn of Africa have never displayed in the past.
Maybe I could blame Somali pirates for that pothole in the street outside my house, too.
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Post by millring on Mar 12, 2014 9:50:35 GMT -5
A simolean pirate would be anyone who steals money.
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