Posted on 06/06/2009 5:29:56 PM PDT by george76
BRAZILIAN search aircraft late have spotted seats and part of a plane wing in the Atlantic where an Air France jet went down nearly a week ago, officials said after two bodies and other items were recovered from the area.
"Plane seats, part of the wing (and) various other items (were) localised,"
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
Thanks for the note.
Interesting.
Canada once defended herself proud, with her greatest day being 65 years ago today! If they stick with the likes of Harper they’ll get there again.
PAN-AM103 should have exploded over the Atlantic but the plane was delayed leaving Heathrow. Had it left on time, the culprits may never have been brought to justice.
French sub(s) are en route to the area.
I am with you in that.
They do. They don't have wings. They are called tanks.
That's the issue here, were the pilots able to correct from a likely stall and how could a stall have happened? Not many other ways for this plane to come apart other than over-speeding due to bad indicators and a steep dive. It is known that the airframe catastrophically depressurized about 3 minutes after the 24 error messages went out. It happened so fast that the pilots never sent an emegency signal.
02:10Z: Autothrust off Autopilot off FBW alternate law Rudder Travel Limiter Fault TCAS fault due to antenna fault Flight Envelope Computation warning All pitot static ports lost
02:11Z: Failure of all three ADIRUs Failure of gyros of ISIS (attitude information lost)
02:12Z: ADIRUs Air Data disagree
02:13Z: Flight Management, Guidance and Envelope Computer fault PRIM 1 fault SEC 1 fault
02:14Z: Cabin Pressure Controller fault (cabin vertical speed)
Not much doubt a stall occurred, either from too little speed or excessive attitude and over-correction.
There appears to be too little time for a low speed stall over-corrected by diving for speed to then over-speed and get airframe failure.
In the Qantas Airbus incident, the pilots decided that the aircraft had stalled and then over-speeded simultaneously, which commanded a negative G pushover followed by a pitch up, suddenly climbing 300 feet and then abruptly pitched nose down into a steep dive.
The maneuver exceeded the design certification of the airframe. Luckily the pilots regained control, many passengers injured. That's why I theorize that over-speeding may have been the original problem causing a loss of control cascade.
In the case of the Airbus (and many other airplanes), wing/body design is a compromise of many factors.
The air at FL50 is very thin. At higher speeds, drag is increased. Drag that brings the nose up.
Gadalftb is correct, in this situation,with this airframe, more power/speed without proper retrimming, could cause a stall.
“02:10Z: Autothrust off Autopilot off FBW alternate law Rudder Travel Limiter Fault TCAS fault due to antenna fault ...”
The ‘alternate law’ rudder travel limiter fault suggests that the problems started in the rear.
Where is the antenna for the TCAS located? If you know.
02:10Z: FBW alternate law Rudder Travel Limiter Fault
Is very troubling. If the the entire air data system and gyros were lost, as the fault messages indicate and that caused the rudders full travel.....
Tumbling, big trouble. Icing, turbulence, whatever, does not explain the loss of the internal gyros, maybe lighning, maybe.
If it went nose up due to over-speeding, and was hit by a 100mph updraft, it could have ripped the tail and/or wings off.
It is now known that this storm may have been a perfect storm and may have attained a top of 60k'. Updrafts at 35-40k' could have been 100 mph+.
I agree, the wreckage is strewn over a large area, many miles, suggesting it degraded at high altitude. Large fuel slick over a large area suggests the wing tanks ruptured at high altitude also.
Why don’t they just make the plane out of the black boxes period?
Aren’t they indestructible?
Because it probably wouldn't survive the actual crashing. They're streaming data in real time now but I don't know if it's everything and it's certainly not all planes.
Also, the black box needs to record flight data and conversation all the way down. The black box has to be built to ride it out, on board.
Earlier, just after the crash, I found some comments quoting Air France pilots discussing the sequence of "automatic fault messages" received via satellite link. The thrust of the conversation revolved about a signal from the "NAV" computer which indicated a rapid change in "vertical velocity". They described the computer as being a three axis position reference using information from three sets of pitot tubes. There was also a side discussion regarding the computers software and they seemed to say that there were problems integrating the several redundant hardware devices because of it.
Inertial-guidance has been used for a long time for navigation. However, the gyros drift and the 'fix' needs to be corrected frequently. GPS is preferred for navigation.
I know that as the "Carrousel V" used on 747s for years, was made by GMs Delco electronics in South Milwaukee. Delco also had a very hush hush plant near my former home which made "things" for the military, which no one ever talked about. Your point about gyro drift is only true for mechanical gyros. Modern tech uses a "ring" of fiber optic cable with laser light circulating in both directions. You use an inferometer to measure changes in the phase relationship between the two signals. Presto, you have a velocity signal which can be integrated and differentiated to get position and acceleration signals, all without moving parts and bearing friction (the cause of gyro drift!), and all internal to the plane. Three axis Ring gyros are now available as integrated circuits and are so cheap now they are showing up in RC toys.
GPS is fine as long as you can lock on to a signal, flying through a thunderstorm is not the best condition for reception. Another point being that the constellation of 24 GPS satellites has perhaps about one more year of useful life left before they start to fail. That is going to be a major problem for the military if it doesn't get fixed and soon. Meanwhile we have the "O" man busily slashing budgets left and right so it's going to get interesting very soon.
Regards,
GtG
This is the key error message. Once this happened, they were doomed because the flight-control system is then not operational, and the pilot has no mechanical backup and no way to control the A/C. The flight control surfaces go nuts.......
Who knows what occurred here, but I think a stall is unlikely. If the computer 'sees' low speed from the dead pitot heads, it would probably lower the nose and a dive would occur, without a stall. After passing Vne, it would break up.
You are forgetting the active flight control system, which is controlling the flight surfaces and more-important than secondary factors from drag. (See Post #59).
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