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Suicide Squad.
Have ISIS blown up another plane over Egypt with a Ground to Air missile? Who is supplying these weapons? Has air travel now become the most dangerous mode of transport?
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JJ - yes you are right. If it was a bomb then Paris is not to blame as from Paris Plane flew to Tunisia, Saudi Arab, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan and many more Muslim countries. So it could be any of those countries.
Why not blame Libya to be on the safe side as that is where very recently Americans were planning to supply weapons.
Why not blame Libya to be on the safe side as that is where very recently Americans were planning to supply weapons.
The device (if there was one) would have been on a timer. If the timer had been set on a previous sector, that would be too unreliable as far as the bombers were concerned. There is no guarantee where the aircraft would have been when it went off. It might have been on the ground or even towed to a hanger with a tech fault. They can be detonated by barometic pressure (in which case it would have gone off before) or a trip switch (unreliable). I`d be surprised if the device (if there was one) was put on somewhere other than it`s departure point.
It is still unknown as to whether or not Isis are responsible for this tragedy.
But they are certainly responsible for this....
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But they are certainly responsible for this....
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It is very odd, given all the circumstances.
Two emergency/accidental changes of direction in quick succession, rapid loss of altitude and no mayday call sent.
It was obviously very sudden, irretrievable within seconds and catastrophic.
Until the FDR and CVR are found it'll be open to much speculation. If it's daesh, they're a bit slow in claiming their 'prize', aren't they?
Two emergency/accidental changes of direction in quick succession, rapid loss of altitude and no mayday call sent.
It was obviously very sudden, irretrievable within seconds and catastrophic.
Until the FDR and CVR are found it'll be open to much speculation. If it's daesh, they're a bit slow in claiming their 'prize', aren't they?
With regard to "sudden" and "sharp" turns: -
(i) a lot of you will have seen military jet displays at airshows and may recollect what it looks like when the commentators say "this is a 7G turn". It is difficult to assess both the radius of the curve and, more importantly, the aircraft's speed just by looking at them but aerobatic displays are, typically, confined to an imaginary "box", which only rarely strays outside the aerodrome's boundaries, on the ground. For the sake of argument, let's call the curve about 1km in diameter (or 500m radius). The speed remains unknown but, probably, is *not* 400 knots.
(ii) Civil aircraft speed limit, below 10,000 feet is 250 knots. The bulk of earth's atmosphere is below this altitude and flying too fast here wastes fuel and risks overstressing the aircraft, during maneuvres. But the speed limit is more to do with safety, ease of air traffic control, reducing noise disturbance and other factors.
(iii) Ground speed (GS), Indicated Airspeed (IAS) and True Airspeed (TAS) are three different things. Flightradar24 is giving me readings of 500knots and upwards, for airliners in high altitude cruise but the pilots will be more interested in the indicated airspeed as that relates closer to aerofoil performance and structural stress. The wing 'feels' an airflow equivalent to 400+ knots. This is roughly 205 metres/sec.
Using the centripetal force formula F=m.v^2/r with
m=65000(kg) (derived from Wiki stats for Airbus A320-200)
v=205 m/s
r= various values (in metres) eg 1000, 500 as the radius
a=F/m so I divide by 65000 again, to get an acceleration, divide again, by 9.81 to get a readout in g.
((65000*(205^2)/1000)/65000)/9.81 = 4.28g
((65000*(205^2)/500)/65000)/9.81 = 8.567g
News reports describe these turns being visible on the flight-tracker website. We don't know what map scale they were viewing the replay on but a zoom level showing both Crete and Egypt on the map would reduce a turn radius of 500m to a mere speck. We need more information before we can draw anything from this part of the account.
The broad point that I'm making is that, at cruising speed, a turn radius of 1000 metres would subject you to over 4g's and many of us, of a certain age or health condition would black out.
Known only to Airbus Industrie is the g-loading which will break the wings or tail surfaces off. Famously, the aircraft is "fly-by-wire" and, additionally, the flight computer will not allow the joystick to apply foolish or potentially damaging inputs to the aircraft control surfaces. One would have to smash extensive parts of the cockpit to remove this computerised oversight.
The Germanwings flight did entail some deliberate - and inappropriate - autopilot input. Sadly Aircraft do not contain a database of world mountain ranges with which to cross-check that a requested altitude would be safe, although I see no reason why software couldn't take care of this. Anyway, inputs via the autopilot would have resulted in smooth maneuvres, no untoward g-forces and would have gone largely unnoticed.
(i) a lot of you will have seen military jet displays at airshows and may recollect what it looks like when the commentators say "this is a 7G turn". It is difficult to assess both the radius of the curve and, more importantly, the aircraft's speed just by looking at them but aerobatic displays are, typically, confined to an imaginary "box", which only rarely strays outside the aerodrome's boundaries, on the ground. For the sake of argument, let's call the curve about 1km in diameter (or 500m radius). The speed remains unknown but, probably, is *not* 400 knots.
(ii) Civil aircraft speed limit, below 10,000 feet is 250 knots. The bulk of earth's atmosphere is below this altitude and flying too fast here wastes fuel and risks overstressing the aircraft, during maneuvres. But the speed limit is more to do with safety, ease of air traffic control, reducing noise disturbance and other factors.
(iii) Ground speed (GS), Indicated Airspeed (IAS) and True Airspeed (TAS) are three different things. Flightradar24 is giving me readings of 500knots and upwards, for airliners in high altitude cruise but the pilots will be more interested in the indicated airspeed as that relates closer to aerofoil performance and structural stress. The wing 'feels' an airflow equivalent to 400+ knots. This is roughly 205 metres/sec.
Using the centripetal force formula F=m.v^2/r with
m=65000(kg) (derived from Wiki stats for Airbus A320-200)
v=205 m/s
r= various values (in metres) eg 1000, 500 as the radius
a=F/m so I divide by 65000 again, to get an acceleration, divide again, by 9.81 to get a readout in g.
((65000*(205^2)/1000)/65000)/9.81 = 4.28g
((65000*(205^2)/500)/65000)/9.81 = 8.567g
News reports describe these turns being visible on the flight-tracker website. We don't know what map scale they were viewing the replay on but a zoom level showing both Crete and Egypt on the map would reduce a turn radius of 500m to a mere speck. We need more information before we can draw anything from this part of the account.
The broad point that I'm making is that, at cruising speed, a turn radius of 1000 metres would subject you to over 4g's and many of us, of a certain age or health condition would black out.
Known only to Airbus Industrie is the g-loading which will break the wings or tail surfaces off. Famously, the aircraft is "fly-by-wire" and, additionally, the flight computer will not allow the joystick to apply foolish or potentially damaging inputs to the aircraft control surfaces. One would have to smash extensive parts of the cockpit to remove this computerised oversight.
The Germanwings flight did entail some deliberate - and inappropriate - autopilot input. Sadly Aircraft do not contain a database of world mountain ranges with which to cross-check that a requested altitude would be safe, although I see no reason why software couldn't take care of this. Anyway, inputs via the autopilot would have resulted in smooth maneuvres, no untoward g-forces and would have gone largely unnoticed.
@Just-Jude
Are you assuming a missile because of apparent evasive maneuvres?
You would also be assuming that the pilots would be staring out of the window, in order to see the streak coming their way. Why look out of the window when there's nothing to see but the sea? They should have had plenty to keep them occupied, preparing for the descent and landing.
Since a missile is intended to out-turn a fighter, it would seem futile to attemp evasive maneuvres in a sedate airliner but, personally, I would not just sit back and accept the inevitable. Would rather die while, at least, trying to do something.
As I say, the question is, whether they had any visual notice of danger heading for them?
A threat inside the plane still seems more likely. A recent BBC prog about the Ukraine Malaysian shoot down showed the kind of scorch mark a Buk launcher leaves on the ground. For a hypothetical sea launch, you'll want your "boat" to have a deck made out of metal, not fibreglass.
Are you assuming a missile because of apparent evasive maneuvres?
You would also be assuming that the pilots would be staring out of the window, in order to see the streak coming their way. Why look out of the window when there's nothing to see but the sea? They should have had plenty to keep them occupied, preparing for the descent and landing.
Since a missile is intended to out-turn a fighter, it would seem futile to attemp evasive maneuvres in a sedate airliner but, personally, I would not just sit back and accept the inevitable. Would rather die while, at least, trying to do something.
As I say, the question is, whether they had any visual notice of danger heading for them?
A threat inside the plane still seems more likely. A recent BBC prog about the Ukraine Malaysian shoot down showed the kind of scorch mark a Buk launcher leaves on the ground. For a hypothetical sea launch, you'll want your "boat" to have a deck made out of metal, not fibreglass.
//The flight is direct from Paris to Cairo, but it is not direct from Eritrea and Tunisia, which according to BBC news tonight is where it had come from. //
the downed flight from Paris to Cairo is flown direct. the previous inbound flight Cairo to Paris is also flown direct. prior to flying cairo to paris, the plane was used on individual return trips to Eritrea (1) and Tunisia (2); eitrea and tunisia are not stopovers on either cairo to paris or paris to cairo schedules. for a bomb (if that's what it was) to have been put on the plane in eritrea or tunisia is not credible.
the downed flight from Paris to Cairo is flown direct. the previous inbound flight Cairo to Paris is also flown direct. prior to flying cairo to paris, the plane was used on individual return trips to Eritrea (1) and Tunisia (2); eitrea and tunisia are not stopovers on either cairo to paris or paris to cairo schedules. for a bomb (if that's what it was) to have been put on the plane in eritrea or tunisia is not credible.
not impossible, but unlikely. to set a timer for that length of time risks discovery or malfunction long before any bomb was due to detonate. and if (as is suggested) the target was the french, the perpetrators would have no way of knowing that the particular aircraft was actually rostered to the paris flight.
