Swerv-o

I fully understand that - but pork barelling with our defensive capability is dangerous IMHO. Defence has to be able to defend. Compromising that to appease a bunch of union, business or political hacks is very very dangerous.

I see all of our drones are to be based in Adelaide too. We will be very well defended if the Japanese whalers ever try to invade...


S

Amazulu

Agree

If anything, the Tritons should be based in Northern WA

Swerv-o

Yes, My feelings are that three should be based in WA (Broome/Exmouth), 3 in Darwin and 3 in Townsville, such that they have overlapping patrol radiuses - one in the air, one ready to go and the final in maintenance/prep. You could cover a vast area like that, and task active drones to support each other in the event of an incident.

Having to fly them all the way across the continent to reach their station is simply absurd.


S

Wol

All true.

GarryP

There's usually two reasonings given for things like that:

1. Staff Retention - would you want to live in Darwin or Exmouth? Given you'd have to bribe them, it can be cheaper to base in somewhere less .... rural .... and fly the extra (or have forward bases in Darwin only used when needed) You can also share the fixed costs with other wings.
2. The further away your long range assets are, the hard it would be for an enemy to bomb them out of existence. That's part of the thinking behind the US CONUS thinking and running drones mainly from a home base in the US.

Wol

How about this one then:

>>“Objects that have drifted for two weeks will have travelled a long way in that time. If you have currents at four knots, that mean four nautical miles per day and a considerable distance in 14 days,” he said. <<

Daily Telegraph London, reporting M Bouillard who was involved with the AF Atlantic search.

bcworld

Presumably this is why the search areas are quite far to the east of the projected flight paths.

4 knots = 4 nautical miles per hour, is that what they quote is intending to say?

Wol

Just an example of the cr*p that appears in the fourth estate.

Amazulu

I'm surprised that the Poms have not sent one of their super speccy Nimrod MR4A's (allegedly superior to the P8A)...................oh yeah that's right, they gave up and scrapped them

roaringmouse

To be honest, this whole incident has very little to do with the UK anyway - although it has been Inmarsat providing information (I think I read they are also the original source of the pictures from the Indian Ocean currently being searched).

The UK has a ship on the way to help, HMS Echo.

How many super speccy planes have the US provided for the search?

ozzieeagle

"If" this was a deliberate act by the pilot, why would he fly it on a course where there was a chance of his actions being uncovered via the evidence on the black box... Wouldnt you change course during the last 2/3 hours or so to as remote a location as possible. ?

Big if I will admit.... But is this a case of him wanting to ruin Malaysian air because of his political leanings ? Unsolved event would be the best outcome from his point of view.

I personally think the only chance of finding the plane in the location they are looking is if all on board were dead, or if the plane was unable to be maneuvered.

GarryP

He did fly to as remote a location as possible - its pretty difficult to find a more remote one within range of that 777. Don't forget, he, and just about everyone else, didn't know about the satellite pings. Without them the last trace would be flying towards the Andaman Islands with 4-5 hours of fuel left and a whole ocean to get lost in.

ozzieeagle

I just figured he may make a left or right turn at the last to avoid a route that may be predicted..... If he was still concious at that stage....Doubt I would have been.

I think it will take a long while, before you get Chinese nationals travelling on Malyasian air again. Europeans may.... But I doubt many SE Asians will willingly.

GarryP

He's got a flight management computer - he's used to having that fly the route to a location. Why wouldn't he just set that to the most remote location he could think of? Rather than just setting a rough heading.

Not sure. I can't see anything that Malaysia Airlines has done wrong in this - at least with the data we have. The government being incompetent yes, but I'd probably trust the airline over one from China say (where the history of fakes, frauds and corner cutting would be a worry).

roaringmouse

Who own the airline.