RA1

You are only too kind. Obviously, aviation is near and dear to my heart. Best regards, RA1

Personally I believe a lot of it started with the Viet Nam war. Liberal and other professors gave away passing grades to males of draft age so they could maintain their deferments. If I don't have to do anything to graduate from Harvard or Cal Tech except be a male of draft age, what else can I get away with, etc. Best regards, RA1

Define "good". Best regards, RA1

Not to belabor the point but we don't use magnetism for altitudes. Surely he was using GPS for navigation, which also does not depend upon magnetism but lines of position from a series of satellites. However, there are areas of large variations in the earth's magnetic field. The ones that I have observed are near the north magnetic pole. Compasses are relatively useless in some areas near the north pole but GPS has resolved this issue. Best regards, RA1

I don't think anyone on this board remembers this as an adult, but the US had official mail censorship during WWII. Obviously the idea of trying to avoid passing on "sensitive" information, innocently or otherwise, is a very old idea. I don't have much of a problem with this during a time of "declared" war but I do at other times. Apparently the "war on terror" is still being defined. Best regards, RA1

I think we are saying the same thing but with slightly different emphasis. We both agree that parents are not parenting. My question is, are weak school boards the result of bad parenting or some other reason? I think it is bad parenting. Achieving a good education should be a co-operation among the parents, school board, teachers and students. A level of discipline above what is rampant now apparently must be restored or instituted. There are many other facets to this problem but this seems to be the most important. Best regards, RA1

She is amazing. Best regards, RA1

Hito- I thought your post was going to be about bi-polar conflicts not the magnetic pole reversal. Believe me, when that occurs (as it shall) we all will be completely aware of it. Best regards, RA1

Is this thread about having a technically good browser or a political statement about LGBT issues? Just curious. Best regards, RA1

I agree about opportunity now vs. before. I am less sure what you mean about school boards. The way I read it is the parents were restricting and compelling the school boards to NOT do their duty to discipline their children and concentrate on an education instead of baby sitting. What did I miss? Best regards, RA1

Single parents either willing to or "having" to turn over "babysitting" responsibilities to teachers has brought on a whole legion of problems. The disintegration of the family unit is a long term failure in our society. Best regards, RA1

That should not take but a few minutes. You draw a range circle from the point of intended departure and then see where is the most remote. But WHY? The captain or first officer do not need to hijack the plane, they only need to persuade or disable the other. Our on site attorneys can explain but I think technically the term is conversion. The crew had a legal right to fly the plane but, of course, not permission to fly off into the middle of nowhere and crash it into the ocean. Best regards, RA1

A lot of people want closure. Obviously a body is the most proof positive means of closure but knowing the aircraft went down for sure and here or near here likely will be the best scenario in this case. Otherwise, the aviation industry wants to know as much as possible about what happened. If they can retrieve the "black boxes" that will provide a lot of important and pertinent information. If not, simply identifying the wreckage as indeed belonging to MH370 becomes the best available result. Here I thought I was the foremost conspiracy prognosticator on this site but wayout and Parisrio 2000 are in the running. Best regards, RA1

Did they leave off the "S"? Best regards, RA1

If you get an answer to this inquiry there are dozens, maybe hundreds or even thousands of us who would like to share in the answer. Best regards, RA1

Thanks for that clarification. But, don't you mean ACARS rather than transponder? A Mode S transponder does send all that information (if active and working properly) but not to a com sat but to ATC radar which may have some com sat features. As I see it the principles you describe are the basic one upon which GPS works and, as you say, good yeoman work to deduce this (but it did take time). Any bets on why the Chinese want to see the exact data? Best regards, RA1

I would vote for the attention on Malaysia long before proving the "control system" is weak. There is frequent conversation about how much control has already be taken from the captain and crew. It is or was the American way to have pilots think outside the box to solve problems while still in the air. Today, with fewer problems to solve, that authority has been somewhat to quite diminished. Still, pilots have overwhelmingly fought against such as putting cameras in the cockpit. Flying in the US controlled airspace ATC system is very much dependent upon accuracy and adherence to rules and regulations. Foreign pilots and airlines do not necessarily have the same outside the box culture with which the US has done so well. The Asiana crash at SFO had to be partly caused by a difference in culture. My opinion is the more rigid the controls the more dependent upon technology we become. When you have a PC that never "acts up" let me know. Then we can have a pilot and a dog in the cockpit. The pilot's job is to watch what the airplane is doing. The dog's job is to keep the pilot from touching anything. Best regards, RA1

The FAA is very much a political animal, therefore I don't believe they think in the terms you mention at all. Truthfully they have nothing to do with the pilots of Air Malaysia and are only involved as a courtesy or political necessity. The FAA reacts to political pressure from the Congress and, theoretically, is trying to have zero accidents (ala Al Gore and his silly pronouncements). It is quite easy to have zero accidents in aircraft or automobiles. Ground all aircraft and stop all autos from being on the road. I would tend to agree with you if flying an aircraft was as easy as driving a car as some adverts claim but that is not true. In fact, driving a car (well) isn't that easy, either, else we would not have 30,000+ deaths and untold accidents in US cars per year. Truly there is a multifaceted weeding out process for pilots to include medical exams, the cost of pursuing this endeavor, the review of peers and the intense mental and physical effort necessary to become a pilot. No, pilots are not super human but they are dedicated. There will always be screwballs, crooks and ne'er do wells in any field but so far not as many in aviation. Best regards, RA1

WOW! Best regards, RA1

Exactly. A recent article asked how well does the FAA know the mental state of pilots? Then they went over a period of about 30 years "reaching" to find only 8 instances. The drivers in the US kill over 30,000 people per year on the ground. When and how should we evaluate their mental state? I would think it fairly easy for "reverse" GPS signals to know where we are, just as we use GPS signals to know the same. One point is there has been little need to do so in the past. This mysterious instance doesn't really change that. Best regards, RA1

hito- I don't think it was shot down. You are correct in that far out from land there is limited radar and therefore tracking of aircraft. The various military may have a different conclusion but I have never personally seen evidence of this. However, my interpretation of the "news" is that UK surveillance satellites did observe this aircraft during its' final flight but the information was only after "interpretation" and, after the fact. I hope there is no real time monitoring of everything I do forever. That might inhibit my ID. Best regards, RA1

Special analysis of satellite data has all but conclusively shown that this aircraft is down in the far reaches of the Indian Ocean. Naturally there will continue to be extensive searches for the FDR and CVR aka black boxes. However, they will be very unlikely to reveal why this happened. It appears that the crew or one of them did accomplish this. Reaching into my own psyche the only thing remotely plausible is the captain was so distraught over the arrest of his "political hero" or some such that he decided to commit suicide and, further, rather than just dive into the sea, flew until the alternatives were exhausted, as was his fuel, and then suffered the consequences. In other words, he just flew until there was no way to rescue the flight or change the ultimate outcome. I consider this a double cowardly act but plausible. Best regards, RA1

I find this intellectually interesting but, as you say, ghoulish. Best regards, RA1

Doesn't the NSA claim they are only spying on foreigners? And, of course, any foreigner who talks to a US citizen. Best regards, RA1

AS- Zip must mean the topic of Cancer and the topic of Capricorn. The searchers think they have found wreckage that might be MH370 in the Indian Ocean somewhere near Australia. What never be known if why. Best regards, RA1