Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

fits

In engineering terms, any design which is related to safety will have a factor of safety built in. in terms of ablack box an fs of 3 wouldn't be unexpected. 30 days is the minimum requirement under any conditions so yes it would need to be designed to AT least meet that in the most adverse conditions.

to be fair aviation would have as high engineering design requirements as any.

sopretty

fits wrote: »

to be fair aviation would have as high engineering design requirements as any.

Not any higher however. Despite pilot's assertions.

relaxed

sopretty wrote: »

No, but you go on this forum, claiming that anyone commenting on the practices of precise manufacturing processes knows nothing, nor has no right to comment on this forum, since they've no aviation specific knowledge.

I have no aviation knowledge but I know that its perfectly normal to overdesign things and build in a margin of safety. A bridge designed to hold a 40 ton lorry will most likely be fine if a 100 ton lorry crossed it.

An elevator that says maximum load weight 800kgs will not snap if 801kgs are loaded into it.

The same with a black box, if the minimum life requirement for a black box is 30 days, and its likely to be independently tested, then you can be sure the design team will make sure its good for maybe 60 or 90 days when subjected to test.

Anyway the point is that all the media idiots trumpeting that a black box will somehow shut off after exactly 30 days (somebody would have had to actually design this into the box) are badly mistaken and misleading people.

The signal will be around for a while yet, and getting weaker as time passes.

fits

Well said @relaxed. Posting from phone is a pita.

Jack1985

Relaxed hit on the head there.

sopretty

relaxed wrote: »

I have no aviation knowledge but I know that its perfectly normal to overdesign things and build in a margin of safety. A bridge designed to hold a 40 ton lorry will most likely be fine if a 100 ton lorry crossed it.

An elevator that says maximum load weight 800kgs will not snap if 801kgs are loaded into it.

The same with a black box, if the minimum life requirement for a black box is 30 days, and its likely to be independently tested, then you can be sure the design team will make sure its good for maybe 60 or 90 days when subjected to test.

Anyway the point is that all the media idiots trumpeting that a black box will somehow shut off after exactly 30 days (somebody would have had to actually design this into the box) are badly mistaken and misleading people.

The signal will be around for a while yet, and getting weaker as time passes.

It's the only guaranteed time-length they have to go on. You'd be accusing them of speculation if they said it might go on for a further 60 days.

fits

sopretty wrote: »

Not any higher however. Despite pilot's assertions.

higher than a lot, lower than some.

Jack1985

A few things need to be cleared up,

The 60/90 day length unfortunately is not the case in the majority of accidents (and MH370 was not fitted with the new extended length pinger). The CEO at Honeywell, the company who supplies the FDR/CVR gave an interview yesterday saying 30 days is the minimum under law, he would expect between a 10-25 day buffer zone but no more than that and it could land anywhere in between that figure or unfortunately below if it sustained heavy damage.

Regards aviation talking precedence over any other form of manufacturing/engineering not the case, that's as if suggesting other designs have no failsafe safety mechanisms a basic flaw to anyone who has done engineering - Every manufactured/engineered aspect of a structure has a safety logic to it, all that's different is that there would be a lot more investment in say aviation manufacturing/engineering when compared to shipbuilding, but there's absolutely no difference in either having higher requirements as the later is a lot smaller in scale but that also does not mean it has any less requirements for safety.

And to add to the above, the design of the Petronas Towers when compared with the design to the A380 is almost on par - both heavily safety conscious, both ground breakers in terms of innovation. Different industries in regards there uses, same logic in designs regarding safety.

sopretty

So there is no need for the aviation industry to be shouting 'precision that you wouldn't understand' then?

Savman

fits wrote: »

The depth of the problem

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/the-depth-of-the-problem/931

Something eery about seeing the Titanic on there, yet draws parallels between the two events a century apart.

Great diagram though, really gives a sense of scale and how deep that part of the ocean is.

LordSutch

Tuesday 8th April/

So what is the current situation re finding the 777 pingers?

Friday/Saturday they pick up three signals, then today all three have gone.

I also heard that the signals are not necesserily at 37.5 khz, is this true?

sopretty

LordSutch wrote: »

Tuesday 8th April/

So what is the current situation re finding the 777 pingers?

Friday/Saturday they pick up three signals, then today all three have gone.

I also heard that the signals are not necesserily at 37.5 khz, is this true?

The aussie one was a few khz out of the 37.5 frequency (they allow , +or -1) but apparently the manufacturers stated this was still a credible 'hearing'?

relaxed

sopretty wrote: »

So there is no need for the aviation industry to be shouting 'precision that you wouldn't understand' then?

Where are they shouting this from?

sopretty

relaxed wrote: »

Where are they shouting this from?

This thread. Followed by desperately sad pleas of how educated and informed they are and accusations of their informed opinions being bullied off the thread.

The only statements I've seen on this thread which resulted in bans, were arrogance and insults.

Bill G

sopretty wrote: »

So there is no need for the aviation industry to be shouting 'precision that you wouldn't understand' then?

I thought we the posts were about the safety factors in engineering, not precision? Precision is a totally different thing.

Jack1985

Naturally aviation is extremely technical in nature, so its no wonder people get tired of having to explain it all the time, I do and I don't think that is arrogant, in an aviation forum which is dedicated to people who have an interest and/or work in-it.

Anyway back to thread...

sopretty

Bill G wrote: »

I thought we the posts were about the safety factors in engineering, not precision? Precision is a totally different thing.

Do you really want me to back through this thread and quote y'all? :cool:

Bill G

sopretty wrote: »

Do you really want me to back through this thread and quote y'all? :cool:

Sure, if you can find any post that talks about engineering precision....

fits

Good footage of pinger locator in this video taken from ocean shield. frequency is inaudible to human ear so it doesn't actually sound like that tap in the video. computer translates it to an audible frequency as far as I know.

I guess the divers are looking for floating debris.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/video?vid=1.1754254

sopretty

Bill G wrote: »

Sure, if you can find any post that talks about engineering precision....

I am not that motivated of an individual. :pac:

Spring Onion

relaxed wrote: »

A bridge designed to hold a 40 ton lorry will most likely be fine if a 100 ton lorry crossed it.

A tough and unlikely test case I imagine

relaxed wrote: »

An elevator that says maximum load weight 800kgs will not snap if 801kgs are loaded into it.

Thats 0.12% safety margin, you suggested 100%-200% as standard

relaxed wrote: »

The same with a black box, if the minimum life requirement for a black box is 30 days, and its likely to be independently tested, then you can be sure the design team will make sure its good for maybe 60 or 90 days when subjected to test.

Big "or"

Look I get your point, I just thought you made it badly and with a bit of poetic license.

JohnK

Spring Onion wrote: »

Thats 0.12% safety margin, you suggested 100%-200% as standard

not to get too tied up in it but where elevators are concerned (from wikipedia) An elevator cab is typically borne by six or eight hoist cables, each of which is capable on its own of supporting the full load of the elevator plus twenty-five percent more weight. so thats quite a safety margin built in.

sopretty

JohnK wrote: »

not to get too tied up in it but where elevators are concerned (from wikipedia) An elevator cab is typically borne by six or eight hoist cables, each of which is capable on its own of supporting the full load of the elevator plus twenty-five percent more weight. so thats quite a safety margin built in.

Have you ever seen the recommendations for weights inside elevators? It's usually, 6 x 50kg. You'll fit 10 x 60 kg in there!!!!

seal57

The manufacturer was sent all the technical data and the actual recordings of both pinger Detections by the Aussies. The MFR built those specific pingers that were on that plane. Part of their process once they are produced is that they then submerge the pingers in large tanks and take baseline recordings of the sounds, frequencies, other technical readings. Once that is done they then ship them out for use. The point being, they basically have a fingerprint of every pinger they produce to compare with pingers that may need to be identified. The manufacturer did not say whether the recordings and data they were sent matched the pingers they produced. My guess is if it had, the investigators would have already confirmed a match. Odds are the talk about finding pingers the past few days has turned into dead end and they know it. What they heard or found is probably something else unrelated to MH370. Of course the CNN reporter did not ask the obvious questions, but it appeared during the interview with the Manufacturer he would only answer certain questions and was not going to deny or confirm anything.
The press is sometimes smart though and now that it is out there, they search teams will not be finding any planted pingers out there, unless the manufacturer agrees to cover something up too. They know where every pinger they have made is and they have the fingerprints on everyone. It was interesting because they showed the actual pinger they made and that was recovered from flight 800. they were the ones that verified it to be the one and it matched the fingerprint they had on it.

They can search till kingdom come in the water, but until they start searching land, if they ever do, they are not finding that plane. The press should start chasing more of the did it land somewhere possibilities...

lord lucan

Can we please keep to the discussion at hand and not veer off into other fields of engineering, I can understand why elevators and the like are being referenced but it's in danger of derailing an already strange thread.

Calina

sopretty wrote: »

Eatmyshorts - you seem to be under some delusion that the only precise manufacturing process in the world, is aviation.

I can tell you, that the engineering involved in oil production and drilling for e.g. is HEAVILY REGULATED. The potential implications of a disaster in such processes, is even worse than an aviation disaster - both in terms of ecology, the environment and the human cost.

Pharmaceutical industries? Medical paraphernalia?

The aviation industry seems to have an arrogance which is not justified.

I did not read that from eatmyshorts' post at all. The point I think he was making is that there is a general tendency to under appreciate the extent to which aviation components are over engineered, precisely because over the years, aviation has learned from accidents.

The aviation industry is not arrogant. It could not learn from accidents if it were.

What is arrogant is assuming that norms which exist in some industries - such as doing as little as is regulatorily possible, viz the comments about not providing 100-200% over engineering - also exist in the aviation sector. At no point did he imply it was the only sector in which a high regulatory level of care was extended. You are coming across as defensive if that's how you read his point.

All due respect, there is enough in this thread to make it abundantly clear that many people don't have an understanding about this and I guarantee you that if you're familiar with, for example, the oil production side of things, and there was an accident, and the same level of ignorance about that industry was demonstrated on discussions about such an accident as has been demonstrated through this thread, you would be somewhat disappointed if not disillusioned. There is a difference, I think, in how airlines approach accidents and the fall outs from accidents compared to other industries and as a key example I'd choose the Deepwater Horizon event as an example of how things have gone wrong in the oil production industry.

sopretty

Calina wrote: »

I did not read that from eatmyshorts' post at all. The point I think he was making is that there is a general tendency to under appreciate the extent to which aviation components are over engineered, precisely because over the years, aviation has learned from accidents.

The aviation industry is not arrogant. It could not learn from accidents if it were.

What is arrogant is assuming that norms which exist in some industries - such as doing as little as is regulatorily possible, viz the comments about not providing 100-200% over engineering - also exist in the aviation sector. At no point did he imply it was the only sector in which a high regulatory level of care was extended. You are coming across as defensive if that's how you read his point.

All due respect, there is enough in this thread to make it abundantly clear that many people don't have an understanding about this and I guarantee you that if you're familiar with, for example, the oil production side of things, and there was an accident, and the same level of ignorance about that industry was demonstrated on discussions about such an accident as has been demonstrated through this thread, you would be somewhat disappointed if not disillusioned. There is a difference, I think, in how airlines approach accidents and the fall outs from accidents compared to other industries and as a key example I'd choose the Deepwater Horizon event as an example of how things have gone wrong in the oil production industry.

I don't think I can respond without breaching mod instructions.

fits

Is there anything which could emit such a regular sound over a two and a half hour period? could pings have been from another vessel in the vicinity? could it be from anything not manmade?

I'm just trying to figure out what else that noise could be, if not the FDR/cvr

Spring Onion

lord lucan wrote: »

Can we please keep to the discussion at hand and not veer off into other fields of engineering, I can understand why elevators and the like are being referenced but it's in danger of derailing an already strange thread.

The 1st verb is apt but the 2nd one would be more appropriate if this thread was about a missing train.

Roger that.

Jack1985

Australian Defence Ship, Ocean Shield has picked up new signals, ''strongly believed to be from MH370''.