Doesn't Air France plane have a GPS thing?

[BillVol]

The French pres said that the missing plane may never be found. But doesn't this and every plane have a GPS thing on board that can direct others to its location? I think even my cheap cell phone has one.

[EPelle]

It is a modern airbus with a functional GPS. However, if the plane had a catastrophic accident - which it is believed to have had, the GPS system will not survive. It's unfortunate there's not a beacon in the black box.

[jazzcyclist]

It's my understanding that those devices can't be detected when they are in water that's too deep.

[EPelle]

I believe they can, but only if one is underwater within a range of 15m or so of the black box... and it only sends out a signal for approximately 30 days.

[SQUACKEE]

I believe they can, but only if one is underwater within a range of 15m or so of the black box... and it only sends out a signal for approximately 30 days.

15M?!! :shock: Did you mean meters or miles? Why not just make 15 inches then your sure to find it! :P

[El Toro]

I believe they can, but only if one is underwater within a range of 15m or so of the black box... and it only sends out a signal for approximately 30 days.

15M?!! :shock: Did you mean meters or miles? Why not just make 15 inches then your sure to find it! :P

From the manual for the Dukane D100

The beacon will withstand depths to 20,000 feet (6096 meters). It can be detected at a range of 2000 to 4000 yards (1800 to 3600 meters).

[EPelle]

Interesting. Can it be detected in depths of 6.096m from 3.600m out?

An update: Some debris has been found

[jazzcyclist]

From the manual for the Dukane D100

The beacon will withstand depths to 20,000 feet (6096 meters). It can be detected at a range of 2000 to 4000 yards (1800 to 3600 meters).

This is ambiguously worded to say the least.

[El Toro]

From the manual for the Dukane D100

The beacon will withstand depths to 20,000 feet (6096 meters). It can be detected at a range of 2000 to 4000 yards (1800 to 3600 meters).

This is ambiguously worded to say the least.

No ambiguity at all. It will work under water to a certain depth and you have to have a detector within a certain range of the beacon in order to locate it. Just because you might expect the detection range to equal the depth function, doesn't make the spec ambiguous.

[jazzcyclist]

[quote=El Toro]

From the manual for the Dukane D100

The beacon will withstand depths to 20,000 feet (6096 meters). It can be detected at a range of 2000 to 4000 yards (1800 to 3600 meters).

This is ambiguously worded to say the least.

No ambiguity at all. It will work under water to a certain depth and you have to have a detector within a certain range of the beacon in order to locate it. Just because you might expect the detection range to equal the depth function, doesn't make the spec ambiguous.[/quote:iu9dpe2p]Are you saying that the beacon can be detected through 1800 to 3600 meters of water? If that's the case, you would only be able to detect it in water that deep if you're directly over the beacon. Otherwise, the depth of detection would get shallower the further you are away from it.

[gh]

A decent piece on over-water travel and staying in touch:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02517.html

[lonewolf]

Maybe this is a dumb question, if so, it won't be my first, but could the data being recorded in the "black box" be constantly transmitted to a shore station so it is not lost if the plane goes down?

[El Toro]

Maybe this is a dumb question, if so, it won't be my first, but could the data being recorded in the "black box" be constantly transmitted to a shore station so it is not lost if the plane goes down?

Well, as we say around here, "There's no such thing as a dumb question, just dumb people." :lol: :lol:

You are right that it is obvious solution and apparently the space shuttle does this but it's not yet a standard for aviation. I had a look around and found this article for you (and me).

[lonewolf]

Prophetic last paragraph of article.

"Despite the hurdles to wireless transmission, it may not be too far off. Aviation specialist Paul Czysz, a professor emeritus at St. Louis University, believes that all it would take to spur an official drive for a telemetry system would be the crash of a major jetliner over mid-ocean in which the black boxes were unrecoverable—"a Titanic event," as he calls it. "You're going to have to have something like this," Czysz says of a real-time data link, "just to make sure you know what happened."

Well, it happened.

[hammer forever]

so every single plane in the sky, every where, continuously, will be transmitting its data back to some ground station? And that data is stored, hours and hours of it? Sounds like a lot of data.