johnbrandt wrote:The conspiracy nuts are out in force after todays promising news that a US navy towed undersea sensor connected to one of our navy ships has repeatedly found strong signals from what they can only suspect are the black boxes.
They have been saying the batteries last "around 30 days", and "coincidentally" this is the 30th day. That got the worms crawling out of the woodwork that it was "suspicious".

Of course, an aviation expert said that planes are generally over-engineered, so they usually expect the batteries could possibly last over a week longer than the "about 30 days" they are specced to last.

Alan B wrote:
I heard that on the news this morning. The '30 days' thing is, I suspect, a minimum design requirement. No self-respecting design engineer would stick precisely to that. In safety, security and accident monitoring equipment that minimum design requirement will always be exceeded for, er, safety, security and accident monitoring reasons.
Something these conspiracy kooks don't understand. It's a concept they haven't an inkling of grasping.

Alan B wrote:

johnbrandt wrote:The conspiracy nuts are out in force after todays promising news that a US navy towed undersea sensor connected to one of our navy ships has repeatedly found strong signals from what they can only suspect are the black boxes.
They have been saying the batteries last "around 30 days", and "coincidentally" this is the 30th day. That got the worms crawling out of the woodwork that it was "suspicious".

Of course, an aviation expert said that planes are generally over-engineered, so they usually expect the batteries could possibly last over a week longer than the "about 30 days" they are specced to last.

I heard that on the news this morning. The '30 days' thing is, I suspect, a minimum design requirement. No self-respecting design engineer would stick precisely to that. In safety, security and accident monitoring equipment that minimum design requirement will always be exceeded for, er, safety, security and accident monitoring reasons.
Something these conspiracy kooks don't understand. It's a concept they haven't an inkling of grasping.

HomerJay wrote:Also, since most of the power is being used by the signal transmitter, not the signal generator, there is a tail off in the power of the transmission, rather than an abrupt cessation.

Things like the age and the conditioning of the battery introduce other variables that affect how long the signal will be traceable for.

Australian officials have confirmed that data recovered from a home flight simulator owned by the captain of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 showed that someone had used the device to plot a course to the southern Indian Ocean, where the missing jet is believed to have crashed.