Thinking Cap Time

Both systems would be even better. I believe the Malaysian government has asked the US for sonar. The Air France crash investigators used sonar from US to locate that site. There may be a problem of crash site debris being strewed over long distances and little to ping. Hope they find the main site to give some closure to families.

Your device sort of like what the use to find avalanche victims. It works on a specific radar frequency. I wonder if the sonar frequency can be tuned the same way to have a device give off a signal. The devices they put on ski gear are pretty small. If they can make them that small several could be attached to a plane in the event that it breaks up in the air. The larger numbers of them would make the debrie easier to locate.

my thinking was, a battery will croak after a certain time no matter how big so why not make the energy source come from from an emitter of some type on a ship?

That's a good point. A "transponder" type of sonar locator would probably last longer on battery power, but it would require an active sonar especially designed to look for the return signal, whereas a simple transmitter would be detectable by a larger number of receivers (i.e. searchers). Search planes can deploy a large number of relatively inexpensive sonobuoys to listen for the pings. It's hard to say which is more effective for every situation.

Use the energy of the sonar pulse. If a frequency is selected for the sonar pulse which when it strikes the device it sends a signal back.

I have to agree that the current state of locator's technology is way behind the times. The bright orange "black box" is supposed to break away from the wreckage if the plane crashes just right...

We can put space craft on Mars but we can't find a lost plane. We do seem to be a little slow getting around to making improvements that have in all probability already been suggested to the airlines.

Even turning off the transponder didn't raise anybodies attention. Must have been napping on 3rd shift out there. I sure hope that act will gain more attention than it has in the past. We won't solve it here, but I hope the full range of what can go wrong is being given some more serious consideration.

Black boxes do not "break away" from the aircraft.

No one could ever predict the full range of what can go wrong with one either.

I keep coming back to ask myself, how often do planes disappear without a trace, and how much should we spend to assure that we can find that ten billionth plane that does?

List of unrecovered flight recorders - Wikipedia, the free encyclo

...and how much should we spend to assure that we can find that ten billionth plane that does?

A bit like a firearm..

Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

Not at all like a firearm.

The magic "thing" will only tell someone why you died, it will not protect you.

Finding out why might protect you on your next flight though....

What next flight, you're dead!

Yes if it is "you" as in Lyn or Wal then we reap no personal benefit.

One could have the same opinion about the orange coloured boxes as well. Yet, they are mandatory on commercial passenger aircraft.

Awwwl, come on Lyn. That is what they said on "How It's Made". That is to say, "It is supposed to break away so it will not be contained in a fire." But that's why they go to so much trouble to make sure it won't be damaged by fire.....

But I have wonder what are the chances it won't be picked up by some other part of the broken away components of the plane....

Oh, and it's supposed to float, unless the tons of metal attached to it sinks too!

Maybe it ought to be towed on a drag line (the data cable) so it really can break away... We could call it "Off Site Data Storage" .... no wait, that one is already taken.

current state of locator's technology is way behind the times.

Amen to that. There are examples posted in this thread. There is no technical reason why every second of an aircrafts' flight cannot be monitored in all it's detail. Naturally, it does not come cheap, and where there is no profit incentive, you have an obstacle.

How sad is that ? Ace Boeringa made a sarcastic remark elsewhere here, about storing flight info in the 'cloud', but that is obviously the ultimate solution, together with other suggestions for info gathering, such as 'GPS' recording.

Aside from that, I wonder why manned flight only is available for the search? I understand that drones have much longer flight time, and are cheaper to run ? If you can pinpoint a vehicle for attack, you can pinpoint a piece of wreckage...

I think that aircraft black boxes should be backed up to the cloud during flight, since they are nearby anyway. (sarcasm)

RFID technologies already available have energy collection systems so no need of a bettery or sun etc. If they can add tags to DVD's selling on special for $1 in Walmart, so the tags trigger alarms at the front door if not deactivated, then surely a plane could be loaded up with such tagging. Indeed, the RFID tags may already be on many parts of the Boeing 777, if only for inventory control and normal servicing procedures.

The chips in cats and dogs are RFID but they demonstrate that range could be a limiting factor. However, if you commissioned a flotila of automated submersible UMV's, that operated just above the sea floor, then in time they could trawl a whole lot of ocean.

The problem with the RFID idea is a water crash. Water absorbs radio frequency signals.

I take your point about radio energy absorption in water, but a higher generation source on a closely passing UMV and a more sensitive pickup system could aid in RFID detection.

I still say they just need to put a GPS tracker on the planes, and maybe on the "black box". Then you know where it is!

All of the suggestions mentioned have already been tried for locating sunken subs. Sea bed data collectors are triggered for release to the surface by acoustic triggers. Both US and soviet navies maintained ocean wide acoustic nets such as SOSUS because subsurface sounds can travel hundreds and even thousands of miles under the correct conditions of depth. Even whales and dolphins can be heard for long distances. A pulsed hydrophonic emitter would stretch out battery life and for that matter sea water could be used as a battery source if the plate assembly was pre-built and installed in the overseas aircraft.

The navy already has numerous subs and destroyers fitted with acoustic listening gear which is passive and thus would not compromise the ships location when used.

Such emergency transmitters would not be triggered except for a crash at sea.

Elnav

After mentioning it before (sorry for the repeat) I still believe an automatically released
marker buoy with flashing light and transmitter is the best answer?

At about 4 metres underwater is is released to float and give (good) alarm on the surface.
Prior to the auto. release it's memory is continually updated with the planes position.
After release it transmits this info. literally on the surface. (see diagram)

If these small "canisters" were made mandatory for all public aircraft, a great deal of
man hours and expense (and risk) would be saved searching for these "needles".
For the cost of this search alone, probably thousands of these alarm buoys could
have been made and fitted to most of the major public transports, including ships.

What do the members think? Start production.?

jt.

Do you know what happened to the lost cattle?

Nobody's herd..

My wife said "you are a lazy bastard, pack your bags and get out!

I said, "you pack' em."

Can such a thing exist? Sonar is just sound waves. Can we make such a "transponder" that makes its own noise when you (effectively) yell at it?

We have energy harvesting devices now for vibration monitoring, so why not a device powered that way, that can listen for search pings and have enough energy stored to respond? If the bandwidth of the energy harvester is large, and the system has adequate storage capacity, it ought to be able to give a burst or series of bursts of response when it hears the search signal.

I think the idea has legs.

GPS satellite tracking systems are already in existence for airlines to use. That airline, because they are in financial trouble like many others, elected NOT to subscribe to it. If they are unwilling to take advantage of a simple subscription service available to them now, it's unlikely they would be willing / able to cough up funding for any new technology.

The answer is of course an economic one. Tell these airlines that they either pay up front to avail themselves of the full technology now, or pay for the search efforts later. It should be mandatory for any flights over the ocean at the very least. It will mean the costs will be passed on to the ticket prices, but so be it. We are paying indirectly via taxes to pay for these searches anyway.

Be assured that MAS and the Malaysian gov will be invoiced for the S&"R" activities.....Malaysian taxpayers will wear the brunt of this one.