Malaysia Airlines 777 missing

Acrofox said:
Yes, but air can't escape from the bottom of a vessel to allow water to displace it. If you tell me that the overall system does leak air from all the seams, I'll believe it... that just wasn't my understanding.

Again, academic, silly sidebar... mostly just me wondering how long an airplane would float if unopened.

-Fox
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If nothing else, it will escape through the windows. I'm pretty sure every one of those has a built in pinhole leak.
 
inigo88 said:
I'm not old school enough, but I found it. :D

SkyhawkIFF.jpg
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Unfortunately, I'm old enough. We were instructed to use that phraseology in cases where an aircraft's transponder was overwhelming our secondary. When that happened you'd get a secondary "ring" that would encompass the entire main bang at a distance equal to the actual target. Never actually saw it, nor had to use the phraseology, though.
 
RDoug said:
Unfortunately, I'm old enough. We were instructed to use that phraseology in cases where an aircraft's transponder was overwhelming our secondary. When that happened you'd get a secondary "ring" that would encompass the entire main bang at a distance equal to the actual target. Never actually saw it, nor had to use the phraseology, though.
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Are we talking ARTS-III stuff? Or older? :)

ARTS-III+Radar+Display+1-13.jpg
 
Paul Weeks who has disappeared with the Malaysia Flight is a Mechanical Engineer... he gave his wife a wedding ring & watch before boarding as if he knew something was wrong....
 
On searching Google, I found another Paul Weeks who is a Mechanical Engineer and guess what, works for Boeing....

He specifically works on guess what plane?? Yep, Boeing 777 like the one that disappeared.
 
brent p h said:
Paul Weeks who has disappeared with the Malaysia Flight is a Mechanical Engineer... he gave his wife a wedding ring & watch before boarding as if he knew something was wrong....
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Yeah, I read about that and though that was bizarre but some folks are pretty superstitious when they fly. My wife texts out a will to her mom every time she flies.
 
[I hate posts that make me do some math. Let's see, Archimedes principle will help with buoyancy. Now, volume of air compressed at half an atmosphere of depth.]
 
Pilot Fighter said:
So, you think that the compressibility of air would allow more than a trivial volume of additional water to enter at depths close to the surface?
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I think that we would need to do some calculations to see if the amount of initial buoyancy can offset the weight of the aircraft which is the only way that it would stay at or near the surface. I'm too lazy to dig, but you would need to know the total weight of the aircraft and the total volume, then compare the overall density (weight per unit volume) to the density of seawater. Higher density, it sinks. Lower density it floats.

Once it starts sinking trouble happens in a hurry. Pressure doubles with every 35' or so of depth, so the volume of air would be squeezed into 1/2 it's original space every time the pressure doubles. Won't take long and the air in the vessel (if it doesn't leak out) will be in a small pocket at the roof of the pressure vessel.
 
brent p h said:
On searching Google, I found another Paul Weeks who is a Mechanical Engineer and guess what, works for Boeing....

He specifically works on guess what plane?? Yep, Boeing 777 like the one that disappeared.
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Ok, now that is bizarre if true.
 
One other thing... I read or heard on the news that the plane went through routine maintenance two weeks ago. I would like to see what they did and who they work for.
 
Another passenger on the plane was called Robert Lawton. I have found a Obituary for the death of a different Robert Lawton back in Feb 2013....One of his jobs, he worked as a joint mechanic on BOEING 777 planes....
 
SteveC said:
Higher density, it sinks. Lower density it floats.
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Can't we apply Archimedes principle and ignore density. Damn I'm getting old. Did I forget or did I never know this stuff. Do they still make those big engineering handbooks that have every calculation you could think of?

At .25 ATM, I don't think we are compressing much, but it grows quickly as you descend.

I deleted my post to give it some more thought, probably too lazy to do the math.
 
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