For what it is worth, my frank opinion of the ISAT data (assuming that what we have been given is in fact legit, i.e. it is "as recorded" and not tampered with in any way) is that only the 5th, 4th and 3rd arcs can be considered a "homogeneous data set", in the sense that there were no known extraneous events between them.
By that I mean:-
The 6th Arc (00:11 UTC) has to be excluded from the "homogeneous" and regarded with some suspicion, because it was 90 minutes after the 5th, because the 2nd phone call had reset the GES monitoring system.
The 7th Arc was originally "not understood" by the ATSB or Inmarsat or anyone else for that matter, since the "recorded BTO" was obviously way corrupted. What eventually came out from the "matho-gencia" was a "corrected BTO", which was based on so many assumptions, that frankly, I think it is a pure mathematical "fudge". It has never sat well with me, as I have said many times, many months ago, in this place, and elsewhere.
To rely on the 7th Arc data for anything is a "stretch too far" in my view. To have based the entire search on this mathematical fudge was, shall we say, "brave" at best. It has turned out to have been a porker.
So, you have to ask the question, "why did they do it, why did they "correct" the 7th BTO ?
When you look at the history of all this (the "official's history") I can only see one possible, indeed "necessary" reason why they (the officials) would want, and "need" to ascribe "validity" to the 7th Arc "corrected BTO", and that is to justify the 7th's Arc BFO's.
Why you ask ? Simple. Remember that "early on", everything (the search) and most people's thinking was based on the 6th Arc data, which we all thought showed "controlled flight" (in simple terms) and we were wondering what may have happened after that (00:11 UTC).
This "end of flight" (since we knew that the fuel would be exhausted "around" that time) "needed" an answer (that would fly - with the public). (Poor choice of words - no pun intended).
The only scenario that was was "politically acceptable" at that time was the ghost flight scenario, another Helios perhaps, but in any case, not a mad man doing a Sully in the middle of no-where.
Thus, those 7th Arc BFO's became critical to back up and justify the "unresponsive - fuel exhausted descent scenario", to the "exclusion" of any other scenario. Thus, they needed the 7th Arc BFO's to be set in stone, to "solidify" the "unresponsive crew" theory. Without the 7th Arc BFO's being "accepted", they have no case.
The only way to justify the 7th Arc BFO's was to justify the complete "7th Arc DATA SET". After all, too many people would ask too many questions. How can you say the 7th BFO's are good when the 7th BTO's are clearly crap ? There could be no credible answer to that.
So the 7th Arc BTO's had to be "understood, explained, and corrected".
And so it was, by the "fudge", and everyone bought it, at a cost of around $200 million, nearly three years of wondering, with no result, no warranty, no refund, and no apology.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS.
Paul makes an interesting point regarding the time criticality of the "selected start date" of the flaperon based drift models in the post above.
I think the CSIRO, as a "scientific" group of independent thinkers, "should" have asked the most obvious of questions:-
"What if the flaperon did NOT arrive when it wash up in July, what if it "arrived" and was there earlier, "before" it was found ?"
If they asked that question, they should have run additional models for other "arrival" months, say, going backwards at least three or four months, say for March, April, May and June of 2015, perhaps even further back, given Micke Chillit's data suggests it is possible to get from the northern sections of the 7th Arc to Reunion in only a few months.
Those additional monthly models would give more clues to the "true likely source" of the flaperon.
It would only take a small amount of time and effort for CSIRO to do those additional model runs, and publish them. I can't see why they have not done so.
By that I mean:-
The 6th Arc (00:11 UTC) has to be excluded from the "homogeneous" and regarded with some suspicion, because it was 90 minutes after the 5th, because the 2nd phone call had reset the GES monitoring system.
The 7th Arc was originally "not understood" by the ATSB or Inmarsat or anyone else for that matter, since the "recorded BTO" was obviously way corrupted. What eventually came out from the "matho-gencia" was a "corrected BTO", which was based on so many assumptions, that frankly, I think it is a pure mathematical "fudge". It has never sat well with me, as I have said many times, many months ago, in this place, and elsewhere.
To rely on the 7th Arc data for anything is a "stretch too far" in my view. To have based the entire search on this mathematical fudge was, shall we say, "brave" at best. It has turned out to have been a porker.
So, you have to ask the question, "why did they do it, why did they "correct" the 7th BTO ?
When you look at the history of all this (the "official's history") I can only see one possible, indeed "necessary" reason why they (the officials) would want, and "need" to ascribe "validity" to the 7th Arc "corrected BTO", and that is to justify the 7th's Arc BFO's.
Why you ask ? Simple. Remember that "early on", everything (the search) and most people's thinking was based on the 6th Arc data, which we all thought showed "controlled flight" (in simple terms) and we were wondering what may have happened after that (00:11 UTC).
This "end of flight" (since we knew that the fuel would be exhausted "around" that time) "needed" an answer (that would fly - with the public). (Poor choice of words - no pun intended).
The only scenario that was was "politically acceptable" at that time was the ghost flight scenario, another Helios perhaps, but in any case, not a mad man doing a Sully in the middle of no-where.
Thus, those 7th Arc BFO's became critical to back up and justify the "unresponsive - fuel exhausted descent scenario", to the "exclusion" of any other scenario. Thus, they needed the 7th Arc BFO's to be set in stone, to "solidify" the "unresponsive crew" theory. Without the 7th Arc BFO's being "accepted", they have no case.
The only way to justify the 7th Arc BFO's was to justify the complete "7th Arc DATA SET". After all, too many people would ask too many questions. How can you say the 7th BFO's are good when the 7th BTO's are clearly crap ? There could be no credible answer to that.
So the 7th Arc BTO's had to be "understood, explained, and corrected".
And so it was, by the "fudge", and everyone bought it, at a cost of around $200 million, nearly three years of wondering, with no result, no warranty, no refund, and no apology.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS.
Paul makes an interesting point regarding the time criticality of the "selected start date" of the flaperon based drift models in the post above.
I think the CSIRO, as a "scientific" group of independent thinkers, "should" have asked the most obvious of questions:-
"What if the flaperon did NOT arrive when it wash up in July, what if it "arrived" and was there earlier, "before" it was found ?"
If they asked that question, they should have run additional models for other "arrival" months, say, going backwards at least three or four months, say for March, April, May and June of 2015, perhaps even further back, given Micke Chillit's data suggests it is possible to get from the northern sections of the 7th Arc to Reunion in only a few months.
Those additional monthly models would give more clues to the "true likely source" of the flaperon.
It would only take a small amount of time and effort for CSIRO to do those additional model runs, and publish them. I can't see why they have not done so.