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One airline figured out how to make sure its airplanes never disappear
First Air, a Canadian airliner, flies across some of the most remote and sparsely populated areas on the continent, with routes going as far north as Resolute Bay, in the Arctic Circle. Its planes are often beyond the reach of conventional radar. They are also nearly disappearance-proof. (www.washingtonpost.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
After reading all I have with regard to the Air France incident, I don't think you can depend on the pilot for one reason or another. The crew for 447 were desperate in their attempts to bring the aircraft under control. It's all but obvious that they didn't know which way was up. It would have been too much to ask them to turn o an ELT. Further , the guys on the Malaysia Air flight that disappeared had no desire to be located. Something about that disaster stinks any way.
Hi Mark
The manual cockpit ELT activation switch is situated usually in an easy to reach location for the pilot and only takes a split second to operate for a thinking pilot. My suggestion of satellite trackers and ELT activation are only two practical suggestions in the toolbox of possible solutions and are offered after over 50 years direct involvement in aviation - mainly in some very remote areas.
The manual cockpit ELT activation switch is situated usually in an easy to reach location for the pilot and only takes a split second to operate for a thinking pilot. My suggestion of satellite trackers and ELT activation are only two practical suggestions in the toolbox of possible solutions and are offered after over 50 years direct involvement in aviation - mainly in some very remote areas.
Gooday, Jules,
If I may paraphrase, a pilot's job has been described as 'hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror'. The guys on 447 were pretty dagone busy for those couple of minutes and an all "ya gota do is" solution just doesn't compute as a good solution. We may disagree here, and that's OK. A solution for a once in 10 lifetimes situation can't be manual no matter how badly we pilots don't like systems that can't be turned off. For some reason we just seem to have a great dislike for inflight fire. To say that an ELT can be turned on in a split second is unreasonable when everything we do is reduced to check lists.while we're 'up to our as_ in alligators and trying to find the drain for the swamp. Where do you put the ELT on a check list when activation will probably never happen in your lifetime, at least that's the hope. As I said, the guys on 447 didn't know where up was and that's key to stall recovery. There are a lot of dollars that need to be spent before an automatic locator system. Some thought should be devoted to why the disappearances are all in that part of the globe. They aren't happening over the East coast of the USA or Western Europe. An ELT won't fix a pilot talent problem, a maintenance failure an ATC problem or a conspiracy. I might be persuaded to consider a stronger, longer lasting signal (ELT) from the CVR and FDR since we already demand them on all big iron and some others. I see no need to reinvent the wheel.
If I may paraphrase, a pilot's job has been described as 'hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror'. The guys on 447 were pretty dagone busy for those couple of minutes and an all "ya gota do is" solution just doesn't compute as a good solution. We may disagree here, and that's OK. A solution for a once in 10 lifetimes situation can't be manual no matter how badly we pilots don't like systems that can't be turned off. For some reason we just seem to have a great dislike for inflight fire. To say that an ELT can be turned on in a split second is unreasonable when everything we do is reduced to check lists.while we're 'up to our as_ in alligators and trying to find the drain for the swamp. Where do you put the ELT on a check list when activation will probably never happen in your lifetime, at least that's the hope. As I said, the guys on 447 didn't know where up was and that's key to stall recovery. There are a lot of dollars that need to be spent before an automatic locator system. Some thought should be devoted to why the disappearances are all in that part of the globe. They aren't happening over the East coast of the USA or Western Europe. An ELT won't fix a pilot talent problem, a maintenance failure an ATC problem or a conspiracy. I might be persuaded to consider a stronger, longer lasting signal (ELT) from the CVR and FDR since we already demand them on all big iron and some others. I see no need to reinvent the wheel.
Hi Mark
Mine were two suggestions only which work here. With our helicopters, as soon as you turn on the Master switch the power flows into the Tracplus satellite tracking system and the pilot has to do nothing as a position signal is sent every two minutes ( or less if you want to alter the settings) My ELT comment is that if you are at altitude and something catastrophic happens that means you are definitely going down, whip on that manual ELT activation switch. A few Transmission bursts may assist searchers later. Of course in a partial system failure with a probability of maintaining control of the aircraft such an action would be well down the checklist. On that we agree
Mine were two suggestions only which work here. With our helicopters, as soon as you turn on the Master switch the power flows into the Tracplus satellite tracking system and the pilot has to do nothing as a position signal is sent every two minutes ( or less if you want to alter the settings) My ELT comment is that if you are at altitude and something catastrophic happens that means you are definitely going down, whip on that manual ELT activation switch. A few Transmission bursts may assist searchers later. Of course in a partial system failure with a probability of maintaining control of the aircraft such an action would be well down the checklist. On that we agree
I can't argue with any of that and I'm sure you get pretty busy in a helicopter when things don't go as planned. I don't know much about single or twin engine rotocraft operations. Your company, and I don't know where they operate voluntarily and in conjunction with your insurance carrier chooses to "track" their flights. Many here are advocating million dollar plus systems for airline aircraft even when not necessary. Realistically the UN is claiming more and more of these responsibilities and they don't know what's needed where. Malaysia may need tracking but the continental U.S. is pretty well covered with radar. I don't think we're going to loose a flight from EWR to BWI or DCA to DFW at this time.
I also advise pilots that in an inflight emergency,trigger the emergency beacon manually while in the air so that at least a few bursts of signal may get out to the satellites before the aircraft gets down on the ground and possibly breaks off the transmitting aerial.