Thread: Air Malaysia missing.

Originally Posted by bob10

You may find this is not a high priority on the USN's work list. They are constrained by budget, like just about every one now days. And besides, using an attack carrier for this is like using a sledge hammer to crack an egg. The US has provided a device to listen for the " ping" of the black box , which has been loaded on to an Australian ship. I believe this is the ship contracted to be the leading edge in the case of a submarine down. Or Subsmash, from memory. Bob


BBC News - Missing plane: Ship to tow 'black box' search device

I dont think its going to be much use.

the leakage limit for the electrical connectors on the box is only ment to be 1000m (from memory on the last time I was watching a show about how hard they are to destroy) but its in between 3000+5000m of water.

ok so lets say it was good for that depth. The battery is only rated for 30 days worth of pining and thats in a good environment..

ok so lets say the battery survives and makes its thirty days (and the equipment was deployed within a week of the impact AND they deployed into a reasonable search grid) It would take them on average 3 weeks to search the entire drift pattern (based on some very rough drift rates, sink rates and error of accuracy on the first point of impact) They could miss it even if it was working and the battery held out to nominal life.

The range on the pinger is only about 500-1000M and thats in optimal conditions. the nearest they can get is 3000m minus the max depth of the towed array... which lets be generous and call it 1000M (realistically it would be less than 500m and probably in the 100-250m range) IF everything else is hoplessly optimistically in their favor and it all works they will still be out of range by easily 1000m.

so it goes more from looking for a needle in a haystack where first you have to find the hay stack but you have to also find it while blind folded and with a bushfire bearing down on you that you have to race before the haystack gets torched. And just to make it interesting, its a bone needle so you cant use magnets to help you.

Originally Posted by bob10

I agree, but they have to be seen to be doing something. And, if there was a Collins class already there, using its technology to narrow the area down? It was reported early in the piece a Collins was on standby at Stirling. Otherwise, why would they even attempt to use that device. I'm sure they know much more about it's capabilities than the rest of us. Still, this whole affair has so many un answered questions. We may never know. Bob

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