Beijing-bound MAS plane carrying 239 people missing as of 20 mins ago.

reply to post by Bilk22


Primary radar sends out a beam that bounces off the physical structure of the plane. It doesn't supply anything but the location of the return.

Secondary radar sends out an electronic signal that is received by the transponder. It returns the transponder data which includes airspeed, altitude, etc.

If the transponder is shut off a Secondary set won't "see" the plane at all.

looks like a door may have been found.

www.bbc.com...

Elathan

Ivar_Karlsen

Elathan
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Could the plane have landed somewhere under the radar? Passengers be held as hostages?

A small plane, maybe, a triple seven, no.

Why not? It disappeared from radar and they lost voice contact with the pilots...after another airline pilot hear mumbling. Who's to say that it wasn't hi-jacked and flown under the radar somewhere? Just putting forth a scenario...

I would imagine any airport with a runway long enough for a 777 to land would have noticed a missing jet landing and would have reported it. It's not like you can just land a 777 in a field. The airport would have to be large enough for the jet to land. So your scenario would require an airport close enough for the jet to reach it and big enough for it to land, AND for everyone at that airport to keep silent.

Zaphod58
reply to post by Bilk22

 

Primary radar sends out a beam that bounces off the physical structure of the plane. It doesn't supply anything but the location of the return.

Secondary radar sends out an electronic signal that is received by the transponder. It returns the transponder data which includes airspeed, altitude, etc.

If the transponder is shut off a Secondary set won't "see" the plane at all.

So are both used to track commercial air traffic? And are they referenced to one another? Meaning does the software tracking primary and the software tracking secondary correlate to confirm positioning?

Khaleesi

Elathan

Ivar_Karlsen

Elathan
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Could the plane have landed somewhere under the radar? Passengers be held as hostages?

A small plane, maybe, a triple seven, no.

Why not? It disappeared from radar and they lost voice contact with the pilots...after another airline pilot hear mumbling. Who's to say that it wasn't hi-jacked and flown under the radar somewhere? Just putting forth a scenario...

I would imagine any airport with a runway long enough for a 777 to land would have noticed a missing jet landing and would have reported it. It's not like you can just land a 777 in a field. The airport would have to be large enough for the jet to land. So your scenario would require an airport close enough for the jet to reach it and big enough for it to land, AND for everyone at that airport to keep silent.

What better place in the world to do it than mainland China?

reply to post by Bilk22


Some locations are Primary, some are Secondary. A Primary site always has a Secondary with it for transponder data. A Secondary site only has a Secondary receiver.

Almost all radars near coastal locations are Primary, as are military radars. Inland locations can be either.

Bilk22
What better place in the world to do it than mainland China?

What motive would China have to keep such a thing secret? And wouldn't Vietnam and other countries have been able to track this plane with their own radars as it flew into their airspace?

Bilk22

Khaleesi

Elathan

Ivar_Karlsen

Elathan
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Could the plane have landed somewhere under the radar? Passengers be held as hostages?

A small plane, maybe, a triple seven, no.

Why not? It disappeared from radar and they lost voice contact with the pilots...after another airline pilot hear mumbling. Who's to say that it wasn't hi-jacked and flown under the radar somewhere? Just putting forth a scenario...

I would imagine any airport with a runway long enough for a 777 to land would have noticed a missing jet landing and would have reported it. It's not like you can just land a 777 in a field. The airport would have to be large enough for the jet to land. So your scenario would require an airport close enough for the jet to reach it and big enough for it to land, AND for everyone at that airport to keep silent.

What better place in the world to do it than mainland China?

What would the fuel consumption for a 777 be at an altitude low enough to avoid radar? Could this jet reach mainland China from the point it was last seen at that altitude? As I said before, the airport would have to be CLOSE enough for the jet to reach it. If you want to speculate that an international airport even in China could manage to keep that many witnesses silent (including possible tourists from other countries) be my guest.

Zaphod58
reply to post by Bilk22

 

Some locations are Primary, some are Secondary. A Primary site always has a Secondary with it for transponder data. A Secondary site only has a Secondary receiver.

Almost all radars near coastal locations are Primary, as are military radars. Inland locations can be either.

So this flight was being tracked by both I assume, up until a point, at which point being over the water, only the secondary would be able to track it?

Okay, Im going to go way out on a limb here but just another stab in the dark of thought. As all conspiracy's go, one of the first rules of thumb is to follow the money. So, with that thought in mind, these are some things I have found, some of which has been lightly touched upon.

First, I found this link which is a pretty good write up about Freescale, what they produce, whos behind it, and what it has been up to the last couple months or so. Keep in mind there was a group of passengers from this company on the missing plane. As you will discover, big big money is behind this.

Freescale Semiconductor

While reading through that link I ended up HERE which leads you to their newsletter as of March 3 of this year. It talks about some of their new product release.

A snippet:

Freescale now offers the level of support provided in other markets to U.S. defense systems customers, enabling them to optimize the performance of these RF devices for radar, military communications and electronic warfare applications. The products are included in Freescale’s Product Longevity Program to assure their availability for a minimum of 10 or 15 years, depending on the product. In addition, Freescale's dedicated team of RF defense market specialists have ITAR-compliant systems and processes to enable them to work with defense customers on projects that are subject to the ITAR requirements.

Another snippet:

The MMRF1305HS – a ruggedized 100 watt RF power LDMOS transistor capable of coverage spanning 30 MHz to 1000 MHz with only two bands. Capable of performing into 65:1 VSWRs, this device is suitable for high load mismatch applications.

As well as this:

The MMRF1306H – a highly rugged 1.25 kW RF power LDMOS transistor designed for use in high VSWR CW and pulse applications such as HF, VHF and low-band UHF radar and radio communications. Multiple applications circuits are available to demonstrate device performance at different frequencies and signal types.

Now I will be the first to admit Im not the brightest bug when it comes to electronics but what if something as simple as someone on the flight giving a demonstration to another had accidentally caused a effect similar to say turning on a cell phone when it shouldnt be on. It jammed all frequencies. Hope Im making some sort of sense here.

Im hoping other members might understand what they are producing better then I, but just thought I'd float this out there.

edit: I just wanted to add this snippet as well as if you notice, it list some interesting things that it caters too:

Freescale RF has launched a major initiative dedicated to serving the RF power needs of the U.S. aerospace and defense (A&D) sector, and has established a team of specialists dedicated to supporting defense customers. Freescale's commercial products can meet the requirements of applications such as: Battlefield communications Avionics HF through L- and S-Band radar Missile guidance Electronic warfare Identification, friend or foe (IFF)

roadgravel
I don't know all the tech details of the boxes. My understand is that currently some performance and error data is sent during flight. Improvements to the system are being made, I believe.

I saw on an Air crash investigations episode, that a Quantas flight was having serious problems and the Quantas tech guys were receiving real-time flight performance data during the problematic flight. I think the episode was called Titanic of The Sky.

Khaleesi

Elathan

Ivar_Karlsen

Elathan
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Could the plane have landed somewhere under the radar? Passengers be held as hostages?

A small plane, maybe, a triple seven, no.

Why not? It disappeared from radar and they lost voice contact with the pilots...after another airline pilot hear mumbling. Who's to say that it wasn't hi-jacked and flown under the radar somewhere? Just putting forth a scenario...

I would imagine any airport with a runway long enough for a 777 to land would have noticed a missing jet landing and would have reported it. It's not like you can just land a 777 in a field. The airport would have to be large enough for the jet to land. So your scenario would require an airport close enough for the jet to reach it and big enough for it to land, AND for everyone at that airport to keep silent.

actually there are likely a whole lot of "unknown/forgotten" runways within "fuel range". mostly left over from ww2, now i am not sure about runway length differences between a 777 and ww2 bombers, a runway can be extended. while i would put this down as a rather low probability, there is always that tiny chance that this is what happened.

starviego

Bilk22
What better place in the world to do it than mainland China?

What motive would China have to keep such a thing secret? And wouldn't Vietnam and other countries have been able to track this plane with their own radars as it flew into their airspace?

Well I'm just learning about radar, but looking at a map, the flight could have avoided radar from Vietnam if the secondary radar was disabled.

There were initial reports it landed in China at an airport in Nanming, Guiyang, Guizhou, China. Besides Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia would not interfere if the Chinese said it didn't happen.

reply to post by Bilk22


Once they pass a certain point they are tracked by waypoints. Even secondary radar can only see so far.

generik

Khaleesi

Elathan

Ivar_Karlsen

Elathan
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Could the plane have landed somewhere under the radar? Passengers be held as hostages?

A small plane, maybe, a triple seven, no.

Why not? It disappeared from radar and they lost voice contact with the pilots...after another airline pilot hear mumbling. Who's to say that it wasn't hi-jacked and flown under the radar somewhere? Just putting forth a scenario...

I would imagine any airport with a runway long enough for a 777 to land would have noticed a missing jet landing and would have reported it. It's not like you can just land a 777 in a field. The airport would have to be large enough for the jet to land. So your scenario would require an airport close enough for the jet to reach it and big enough for it to land, AND for everyone at that airport to keep silent.

actually there are likely a whole lot of "unknown/forgotten" runways within "fuel range". mostly left over from ww2, now i am not sure about runway length differences between a 777 and ww2 bombers, a runway can be extended. while i would put this down as a rather low probability, there is always that tiny chance that this is what happened.

Let me repeat something. The fuel consumption at an altitude low enough to be 'under the radar' would be quite different than at cruising altitude. SIGNIFICANTLY different. Any runway long enough (forgotten or not from WWII) would be visible on satellite.

Zaphod58
reply to post by Bilk22

 

Once they pass a certain point they are tracked by waypoints. Even secondary radar can only see so far.

So if the transponder was turned off, they could have flown all the way to China undetected if they stayed out of range of primary radar?

reply to post by Bilk22


Theoretically yes. Actually doing it wouldn't be easy though. They would have to know the position of every military ship in the area, as well as all the radar locations.

Crazy situation indeed. Found on Drudge report.

Missing Malaysian jet may have disintegrated in mid-air: source

KUALA LUMPUR/PHU QUOC ISLAND, Vietnam (Reuters) - Officials investigating the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner with 239 people on board suspect it may have disintegrated in mid-flight, a senior source said on Sunday, as Vietnam reported a possible sighting of wreckage from the plane.

news.yahoo.com...

reply to post by generik


No modern commercial jet could land on an abandoned WWII airstrip. They are far too short even if they aren't overgrown.

Zaphod58
reply to post by Bilk22

 

Theoretically yes. Actually doing it wouldn't be easy though. They would have to know the position of every military ship in the area, as well as all the radar locations.

What information does primary radar provide? Is it just an unidentified blob on a screen?