Air France jet 'disappears' over Atlantic

[James Robinson]

BradGuth <bradguth@**********> wrote:
>
> There is no such atmospheric turbulence at that cruising altitude,
> much less lightening.

Tropical thunderstorms can rise as high as 50,000 feet. Well above the
cruising altitudes of commercial aircraft. The local weather data at the
time of the flight indicates very unstable air in the area.

[Bob Myers]

BradGuth wrote:
> There is no such atmospheric turbulence at that cruising altitude,
> much less lightening.

I've seen both lightening and darkening at those altitudes.
Pretty much depends on when you take off and how long
the flight is.

> However, this is also the prime downrange
> gauntlet for satellite junk.

Oh, right, getting hit with a bit of de-orbiting junk is a
WHOLE lot more likely than turbulence or lightning...

Bob M.

[James Robinson]

Steve <scharf.steven@**********> wrote:

> Whatever the reason, just look at the statistics for incidents between
> Boeing passenger jets and Airbus passenger jets, where the Airbus jets
> have these failures at rates over 2x those of Boeing jets. Some of
> this difference is probably attributable to the different design
> philosophy.

And Boeing has adopted digital FBW with the designs of the 777 and 787.
They don't seem to be very concerned about the issue.

The media has been obsessing about fly by wire since the A320 took to the
air over 20 years ago. There were a few early incidents that attracted
attention and apprehension about the use of FBW controls that might have
overstated any problems. With over 5,000 FBW aircraft delivered since then,
their safety record has been much better than older aircraft, and
essentially on a par with aircraft built over the same period. If there
had been a real problem, the accident rates would have shown it by now.

[BartC]

"John Doe" <jdoe@doe.org> wrote in message
news:00201273$0$29006$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com...
> Steve wrote:
>
>> From today's New York Times:
>>
>> "The Airbus 330 is a fly-by-wire plane, in which flight controls are
>> activated by electronics.
>
>
> One needs to remember that, at least on the A320, there are still 2
> control sufaces that can be manually activated. Can't remember which
> ones, but they are supposed to allow a pilot to maintain some control
> over aircraft for some time.
>
> Probably not enough to survive a violent thunderstorm with turbulence.
>
> Not sure if the 330 still has those manual controls. But they are gone
> from the 380.
>
> I think that there will be a huge amount of pressure to retrieve the
> black boxes and get an idea of what happened. If it is lightning that
> hit the aircraft, then FAA and others will want to know ASAP because
> they are about to certify the 787 and later on the 350, both of which
> have substantial composite structures.

You'd think it would be possible now for the signals to the black box to be
also transmitted and recorded on land somewhere.

--
Bart

[James Robinson]

"BartC" <bartc@freeuk.com> wrote:

> "John Doe" <jdoe@doe.org> wrote in message
> news:00201273$0$29006$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com...
>> Steve wrote:
>>
>>> From today's New York Times:
>>>
>>> "The Airbus 330 is a fly-by-wire plane, in which flight controls are
>>> activated by electronics.
>>
>>
>> One needs to remember that, at least on the A320, there are still 2
>> control sufaces that can be manually activated. Can't remember which
>> ones, but they are supposed to allow a pilot to maintain some control
>> over aircraft for some time.
>>
>> Probably not enough to survive a violent thunderstorm with
>> turbulence.
>>
>> Not sure if the 330 still has those manual controls. But they are
>> gone from the 380.
>>
>> I think that there will be a huge amount of pressure to retrieve the
>> black boxes and get an idea of what happened. If it is lightning that
>> hit the aircraft, then FAA and others will want to know ASAP because
>> they are about to certify the 787 and later on the 350, both of which
>> have substantial composite structures.
>
> You'd think it would be possible now for the signals to the black box
> to be also transmitted and recorded on land somewhere.

With the amount of data being recorded in the recorders these days, it
would be an expensive proposition to transmit data using satellites for
the thousands of aircraft flying around the world at any given time.

Further, the satellite network is barely able to keep up with data
transmission today, resulting in significant delays. The need to collect
the data on the aircraft into blocks for transmission, then stand in line
for an open channel to transmit it to a satellite would mean that the
most recent and most critical data could easily be lost.

[James Robinson]

Robert Cohen <robtcohen@********> wrote:
>
> re: parachutes
>
> not one chute, perhaps beacoup chutes ready in the cargo-luggage
> place, a button (or automatic doodad)
> is pushed and as the cargo fallouts and jet fuel dumps,
> simultaneously the now exterior chutes open, and when the
> airplane flops into the drink or ground, ....yeah, probably a not
> feasible fantasy, though didn't "they" nay- ay similar
> about nearly everything invented throughout history

At one time "they" promised to turn lead into gold. We were also supposed
to have a family helicopter in every garage. I'm still waiting.

[AES]

In article <Xns9C217A356ACC4wascana212com@94.75.244.46>,
James Robinson <wascana@212.com> wrote:

>
> At one time "they" promised to turn lead into gold. We were also supposed
> to have a family helicopter in every garage. I'm still waiting.
>

And the corresponding con today is that we should take as a national
goal lofting people into space -- sending them to International Space
Station, to the moon, to Mars, and beyond.