Malaysia 777 Missing

[inchman]

Let's wait and see.

That would have been my advice to you.

[blues deville]

That would have been my advice to you.

Thanks. Lighten up.

[inchman]

I don't think this is a "lighten up" issue.

You have posted innuendo implying poor character of individuals based on something bizarre you heard on the bus that implies that the Captain intentionally brought this flight down. Whether it turns out to be correct or not, it remains to be proven and the individual has the privilege of that due course, but at least it will be based on more than a couple of sniggering people on a bus. Even if the guy was a bit weird, it doesn't mean that he did anything to this flight. And if simple weirdness was a prelude to murder-suicide, that would disqualify a fair number of pilots from flying.

I suppose that if I posted something like "I'm not saying it's true, but I heard the other day that blues deville (or your real name, for that matter)" ..... (insert nefarious activity here), you would be ok with that? Just because we don't know them and they're not here to defend themselves, it doesn't make it ok to suggest that they carried out the downing of an aircraft, or any other criminal activity for that matter.

On top of that, this follows your (now, apparently abandoned) conjecture about lithium batteries cutting a nice clean hole in the bottom of an airliner at altitude and miraculously taking out 3 antennas, ultimately killing the passengers and crew, then self-removing itself from evidence only to have the aircraft continue flying for 5 hours.

I think I'll go back to CNN for my news entertainment.

[blues deville]

I don't think this is a "lighten up" issue.

You have posted innuendo implying poor character of individuals based on something bizarre you heard on the bus that implies that the Captain intentionally brought this flight down. Whether it turns out to be correct or not, it remains to be proven and the individual has the privilege of that due course, but at least it will be based on more than a couple of sniggering people on a bus. Even if the guy was a bit weird, it doesn't mean that he did anything to this flight. And if simple weirdness was a prelude to murder-suicide, that would disqualify a fair number of pilots from flying.

I suppose that if I posted something like "I'm not saying it's true, but I heard the other day that blues deville (or your real name, for that matter)" ..... (insert nefarious activity here), you would be ok with that? Just because we don't know them and they're not here to defend themselves, it doesn't make it ok to suggest that they carried out the downing of an aircraft, or any other criminal activity for that matter.

On top of that, this follows your (now, apparently abandoned) conjecture about lithium batteries cutting a nice clean hole in the bottom of an airliner at altitude and miraculously taking out 3 antennas, ultimately killing the passengers and crew, then self-removing itself from evidence only to have the aircraft continue flying for 5 hours.

I think I'll go back to CNN for my news entertainment.

Let's review a few things and then you can continue your line of attack as required.

1) This is an airline employee forum. A place to discuss topics and events that interest members of this industry.

2) The news media was all over the pilots with a suspicion of foul play in the days following this plane going missing and that was long before I posted anything suggesting the captain might be at fault.

3) Neither myself nor the person I was speaking with were snickering about a incident as horrible as this. Trust me on that. As a matter of fact, the conversation was upsetting.

4) Several posts on this thread have suggested a pilot or pilots were/are responsible. My feeling prior was just the opposite. Innocent until proven otherwise.

5) And it was only two VHF antennas. Not three.

Again, I think you should lighten up.

[Don Hudson]

Another CNN contribution to the 'serious' discussion:

[blues deville]

Martin Savidge must be type rated by now. (As long as he doesn't mention the flight without fuel part in the FAA oral exam)

[HST]

inchman,

You could do well to cut BD some slack.

From what I've read on this thread he has consistently defended the integrity of this crew. Being on the ground in the ill fated flights departure city and in touch with a former colleague of the crew, the information he has has merit. BD isn't SLF who is grandstanding here with another theory. IMO, there is a lot more to this disappearance that hasn't made it out of Malaysia yet. I too, like all of us here are hoping this wasn't a pilot gone bad.

[Maverick]

Another CNN contribution to the 'serious' discussion:

Shamelessly posted to Facebook...

Thanks Don!

[Don Hudson]

I checked best I could to see if the screenshot was spoofed. It would be tough to create but there are such clever people around. I think it's legit, partly because it fits so darn well.

I truly think that reading books is the best short-term antidote to journalism and media. That does not mean iPads or Kindles, but real books so you can mark them, dog-ear the pages and when thoughts come to mind, write in them, refer back to them and when done you can pass them on to a friend - you can't do that with pixels and electronic books are as expensive as the real thing! The best of course is turning it all off as we did during the child-raising years. No cable, nothing for about 13 years.

This isn't a snooty, down-the-nose look at media because "I've got a better idea" - not at all. I think daily-time-critical-agenda'd media is hazardous to one's mental health - you can't argue with it, and it's not for thinking, it's for convincing.

Anyway, to each his own. With stuff like this from "serious" billion-dollar corporate media giants with hired "experts", who needs comedy?!

[deicer]

As well, we need to return to lengthy in depth news stories, not only in the papers, but on television as well.

Our society has bred a generation that not only does not have critical thinking skills, but that also can only digest seven second sound bites.....

[cp fa]

Another CNN contribution to the 'serious' discussion:

Does this mean that if my car runs out of gas on the highway, it will struggle to get to a gas station?

[Don Hudson]

Jennifer;

I think that that is an excellent question to ask of CNNs senior executives and perhaps of Mr. Quest.

(while we wait for new developments...);

Re, "As well, we need to return to lengthy in depth news stories, . . ."

During Lincoln's time, I have read* that the political speeches during election campaigns were often an hour or two, done off the back platform of a passenger train to a large gathering, or in a large clearing where a rural crowd could gather and where the speaker got up on top of one of the larger stumps to be seen and heard above the crowd, (and from where the term, "stumping" came from). They did that because it was 'normal'...people's attention span was capable of extended dialog. That doesn't mean the dialog was any better but it was live and one could argue with the speaker. Not so, today. In fact I think because things are so tightly bottled up, we have an increase in the wing-nut and belligerance factors in public forums - another thread!

To your quote deicer, the Guardian, (formerly the Manchester Guardian), is one of those rare media exceptions I was thinking of in the posts above. It's well worth reading for analyses and OpEds though perhaps not very entertaining in today's fashion.

Here's as much an in-depth story as you're going to find in any media, about the Puma helicopter, human factors and the North Sea. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/29/super-puma-helicopter-crash-survivors-britains-toughest-commute

The closest we ever got in Canada (in this subject matter) was the Toronto Star's series on aviation some time back, where Mr. Justice Virgil Moshansky was one of the contributors.

*Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

[AAS]

What is the glide ratio of a 777? 6 to 1?

[J.O.]

As well, we need to return to lengthy in depth news stories, not only in the papers, but on television as well.

Our society has bred a generation that not only does not have critical thinking skills, but that also can only digest seven second sound bites.....

My twenty-somethings spend very little time with current news media and from what I've seen, the same can be said for the majority of their contemporaries. Their generation has moved on. They've figured out that a sound bite is more entertainment than news. When they watch TV, it's either documentaries, sport or pure entertainment that isn't hidden in a "news" broadcast.

[Kip Powick]

What is the glide ratio of a 777? 6 to 1?

I think I read somewhere that most commercial jets built by Boeing have a 17:1 Glide ratio....................... and that is in FEET...for every I foot of altitude it can glide 17 feet forward...so at 35000 feet it could glide almost 100 NM

The Gimli Glider was calculated to have a 12:1 ratio at 220Kts (the speed the Captain 'guessed at)

Perhaps with the new carbon fibre wings the aircraft now have a higher Glide Ratio???

[props2you]

inchman,

You could do well to cut BD some slack.

From what I've read on this thread he has consistently defended the integrity of this crew. Being on the ground in the ill fated flights departure city and in touch with a former colleague of the crew, the information he has has merit. BD isn't SLF who is grandstanding here with another theory. IMO, there is a lot more to this disappearance that hasn't made it out of Malaysia yet. I too, like all of us here are hoping this wasn't a pilot gone bad.

Very true. I was challenging Blues because he was defending the crew too strongly IMHO. As to the suttlebutt from KUL, I would not be surprised that the government of Malaysia would be suppressing stuff that refelcts badly on their state carrier.

On another note: am I the only one alarmed by the amount of crap that has been shown to be floating around in our oceans?

[AAS]

I think I read somewhere that most commercial jets built by Boeing have a 17:1 Glide ratio....................... and that is in FEET...for every I foot of altitude it can glide 17 feet forward...so at 35000 feet it could glide almost 100 NM

The Gimli Glider was calculated to have a 12:1 ratio at 220Kts (the speed the Captain 'guessed at)

Perhaps with the new carbon fibre wings the aircraft now have a higher Glide Ratio???

[AAS]

I just did some googleing. I found numbers around the 17-1 ratio.

As it's a ratio it doesn't matter what the unit of measurement is as long as both sides if the ratio are the same.

[Moon The Loon]

17:1 - 17 miles for every mile of altitude - 17 miles per 6,000 feet or about 3 miles per 1,000'

36,000' = 108 n.m.

Seems reasonable. I don't think it's so much a factor of wing design (traditional or composite) so much as wing loading that governs the ratio. If flown at the best speed - I'm guessing somewhere around 1.2 Vs.

Then there is the weight of the aircraft that will affect range...

And the wind...

And the rotation of the planet...

[Kip Powick]

here we go...splitting hairs and having fun with numbers

The actual "pilot numbers" that are easy to work with is for every 1000 feet lost the aircraft goes 2.8nm forward. (assume......ratio 17:1 in feet)

Therefore 36,000 feet would equal 100.7 nm ...............(a nautical mile = 6076 feet)!

Your turn !!!!

[Don Hudson]

Kip;

A glide ratio (independent of position over the ground which is affected by wind as Moon says), will be affected by the loss of thrust/windmilling engines - certainly not by much which means well within say, a 15nm radius between the "touchdown point" with/without engines producing idle thrust. But it won't be what a pilot would expect as normal.

If the airplane only descended after fuel exhaustion, then two or possibly three phugoid cycles of varying amplitude would occur before the airplane struck the water assuming uneven engine failure did not occur resulting is a long, sweeping, high-speed spiral dive. If a descent was intentional, I doubt if a controlled water landing would leave the airplane intact.

I suspect but do not know that the CL for the B787 is somewhat better than say, the B777 or A330. That said, I would think aerodynamicists would have something to say regarding the tradeoff of better CL from a cleaner drag profile, against the slight losses resulting from the increased wing dihedral of the B787. I think that distance differences would be small, in the order of ten to twenty nm at most.

props2you, Re, "On another note: am I the only one alarmed by the amount of crap that has been shown to be floating around in our oceans? :("

No, you're not. The West Coast shows what a dumping ground the Pacific is.

The photograph below was taken just off the large breakwater at Brindisi, Italy on the Aegean. Some of it appears to be dumped but if I recall there was no vehiclular access - the breakwater is a very long way but I could be wrong.

[thor]

Isn't the glide ratio an angle regardless of weight? Weight just increases speed and shortens time.

[one-o-wonder]

angle of attack and aircraft configuration will affect the glide ratio, not weight

[Kip Powick]

Here is a good explanation.....................(thanks Google)

Variations in aircraft weight do not affect the glide angle provided that the correct airspeed is flown. Since it is the lift over drag (L/D) ratio that determines the gliding range, weight will not affect it.

The glide ratio is based only on the relationship of the aerodynamic forces acting on the aircraft.

The only effect weight has is to vary the time the aircraft will glide for.

The heavier the aircraft is, the higher the airspeed must be to obtain the same glide ratio.

If two aircraft have the same L/D ratio but different weights and start a glide from the same altitude, the heavier aircraft gliding at a higher airspeed will arrive at the same touchdown point in a shorter time.

Both aircraft will cover the same distance but the lighter one will take a longer time to do so.

[Bryon Mask]

Makes sense. I have always used 2 times plus the altitude lost plus 1/6 of the groundspeed . Worked for the 727 and the A320.