[Peetwo]

Fred gets it...& comments made in relation to the B777 are 'technically' correct!

Moreover, Fred understands that the B777 shed the conventional federated avionics structure for an integrated avionics structure from it's inception. The integrated avionics architecture of the Airplane allows several functions normally housed in separate LRUs (i.e. CMU), to now be processed & implemented from within a single avionics system--the AIMS cabinet.  There are two of these systems on board the B777.  Each AIMS cabinet operates totally partitioned from the other. This provides system redundancy in the event that a cabinet fails.

Simon's technical knowledge, especially with regard to the B777, often appears lacking! To those who 'know' the Aircraft that comes as no surprise. But to those who don't, it's easy to fall prey to anyone over-claiming knowledge & experience, & confusing fact with opinion.

On a different note, #3 Ben says: "This matrix of events and possibilities is the main reason why I have no coherent theory as to what happened to MH370 that I’d be prepared to defend." Fair do's, Ben!    

I'll throw in another choc frog & a Tim Tam.  

WOW! - Twice in one week  
Simon Gunson gets taken apart yet again, this time by another Aunty...

32
Aunty Conspiracy
Posted January 11, 2016 at 9:41 am | Permalink

Any Twitter follower of this saga will know I’m not a fan of Gunson’s play-loose-with-the-facts approach, even if he *might* be doing it with the intention of protecting the PIC’s family. I say might because motive is difficult to ascertain. His motive could be more self serving but in the end is irrelevant.

Often I agree with Simon. For example I agree there is no official support for the rumours reported that 9M-MRO was ever observed (by any means) climbing to FL450.

The problem I have with Mr. Gunson is he flits from one bad approach to another. In this one thread we see grasping at the unsubstantiated and flat out errors:

1) “Electrical failure … indicates prolonged failure of the SDU satellite antenna.”

No. There are three SDU antennas. And let’s not use “electrical failure” when investigators are only willing to consider that power was interrupted to certain equipment (explaining the SDU outage). Interruption does not have to equal failure.

2) “If the SDU was out of operation then so too was AIMS.”

No. Factually incorrect, one can not surmise either or both AIMS cabinets were affected by a *power interruption* to the SDU. Quite the contrary, the SDU can be brought off line by situations that do not affect either or both AIMS cabinets.

3) “keep following a basic magnetic heading, but not navigate from waypoint to waypoint.” No, as others have pointed out.

4) “with the kind of power failure MH370 experienced.”

Exactly what kind of power failure do you *imagine* MH370 experienced? The ATSB has not indicated a massive power anomaly, just that power must have been interrupted, twice, to the SDU. It is easily possible the first could have been commanded by a person; the second by a flameout. There are other scenarios too, but no evidence exists to support any scenario. You talk as if that is not the case, because imagining a massive power anomaly suits your scenario.

5) “Given the bizarre fact that ACARS still functioned yet did not send any flight data, for example position, altitude, airspeed etc, ”

There is no evidence whatsoever that “ACARS still functioned”. In fact there was ACARS activity after the last transmission.

What was functioning as a SATCOM datalink, after power was restored to it. No ACARS activity recorded after that point in time.

You need to stop using ACARS as a synonym for SATCOM. The two are not the same.

6) “ACARS itself is simply one of the three digital VHF radios slaved to work”
Not accurate at all. A VHF radio in data mode simply provides a datalink over RF function. I’m not going to bother with further details because I’ve pointed this out to you before, although history shows you need to be beat about the head with facts for an extended period of time.

7) “From the SAT phone log on exchanges at 18:39 there was a self test protocol which followed an order. By counting off the self test ACARS exchanges and identifying at which exchange the SAT calls were abandoned one can grasp which test failed and therefore the nature of the failure.”

You are making stuff up. The specification is very clear on this. Without having the contents of the data packets (not published by Malaysia; some country authorities will do so in a final factual report) we can’t ascertain this at all. From what has been published the SATCOM system appears to have delivered the incoming call to the intended set. No one answered.

 8) “The second of these SAT phone attempts the incoming call was re-routed from forward relays to the cockpit back to the CCS or Cabin Crew System, not to the IFE system per se.”

Your story continues to deviate farther and farther down the fantasy road. Nothing in the published logs allows for this speculation. Nothing.

9) “ATSB’s report of 3 December 2015 about major power failure early in the flight”
Last point for now: The ATSB never said this. They did say:
An interruption to the SDU may be caused by:

• loss of AC power requiring an APU auto-start or
• the cycling of the left generator and backup generator switches with the bus tie isolated (all switches are located on the overhead panel in the cockpit), or
• the circuit breakers in the electronic and equipment bay being pulled and then later reset or
• intermittent technical failures.

The word “failure” is used only once in the entire report, right there.

Some in the press have latched on to “major power failure” but nothing published in the official account supports this. It’s just good headline writing because drawing eyeballs to a story is, for some organizations, more important than communicating accurately about an inherently complicated story.

That’s sad. Sadder still Simon’s efforts only serve to further confuse matters for those who aren’t equipped with the time or knowledge to learn otherwise.

To follow on from Aunty Conpiracy's PT post above, Grizzly & Fred make some more valuable observations on the unexplained MH370 early 'power interruption':

24
Grizzly
Posted January 13, 2016 at 2:09 pm | Permalink

The ATSB report dated 3 December 2015 does not say “electrical failure”. It says (page 9) “power loss to the SDU”. We do not know how or why that “power loss” occurred.
According to the report “To experience a power interruption long enough to generate a log-on request, a loss of both AC buses (page 8), or a disabling of the automatic switching would be required.” The report later expands on this (page 9):

“An interruption to the SDU may be caused by:
• loss of AC power requiring an APU auto-start or
• the cycling of the left generator and backup generator switches with the bus tie isolated (all
switches are located on the overhead panel in the cockpit), or
• the circuit breakers in the electronic and equipment bay being pulled and then later reset or
• intermittent technical failures.”

In other words, either a failure, or a switch off by someone. And in the absence of clear evidence about which of those two possibilities occurred, it is possible that a pilot or hijacker (not necessarily Zaharie) switched off the power to the SDU.

We also do not know why or how the power to the SDU was later restored.

25
Fred
Posted January 13, 2016 at 3:43 pm | Permalink
Some other points to ponder:

If the power interruption to the SDU was caused by the loss of both Main AC buses, then the APU should have started automatically to restore AC power. However, the ATSB (& presumably Boeing) believes the APU didn’t auto-start until both engines flamed-out much later in the flight, as evidenced by the SATCOM system’s final log-on attempt. That leaves three possibilities for the power interruption to the SDU that occurred earlier in the flight:

1. The left main generator, left backup generator and left bus tie switches would need to be selected off and then subsequently selected on again to restore power.
2. Various circuit breakers in the Main Equipment Centre beneath the flight deck/cabin floor would need to be pulled and then subsequently reset.
3. An intermittent technical fault that initially tripped the left main and backup generators off-line and prevented the bus-tie breaker from closing, removing power from the left Main AC bus. The fault would need to clear itself to allow the bus-tie breaker to close and restore power to the left Main AC bus.

The first and second possibilities obviously require some kind of human intervention. I tend to think that the second possibility, while not impossible, is probably the least likely. I also question why a suicidal pilot or hijacker would go to the trouble of disabling the left Main AC bus only to restore power later in the flight.

That leaves the third possibility, some kind of intermittent technical fault such as a short circuit somewhere on the left Main AC bus. However, that does not explain how the fault was subsequently removed and power restored.

So many questions and so few answers!  - Ain't that the truth

MTF...P2