Malaysian Flight 370

[zmak 331]

Its interesting to get a 777 pilots perspective on flight simulation. His buddy was interviewed by Pierce Morgan and was asked about the sim and he said he actually preferred simulation flying because in real life every flight is a "known" and not exciting where as simulation allows for many different scenarios.

 

Those words would come back to haunt him though

[january 19]

'Twould be interesting to know if the flight deck ordered any extra fuel prior to the flight plan departure for Beijing.

january

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

Why would they take the plane just to ditch it? I have a feeling the Jet was stolen for some purpose.

 

To be a modern day Amilia Earhart or the Hunt for Red October....

 

Evade all that modern equipment and never be seen ever again. Who knows how disgruntled people get this day and age and it is amazing what some people are capable of.

[Robert McDonald 167]

This is clearly a bad situation, regardless of the outcome.  Speculation is futile.

[ViperPilot 81]

Reports that the captain was a flight sim enthusiast. Wonder if he was on AVSIM or VATSIM.

 

Photo of the Captain's simpit:

 

[mcbellette 145]

Alan's picture looks a lot like the PMDG 777. RSR from PMDG has apparently said the Captain was a customer of PMDG.

[ZKOKQ 984]

Alan's picture looks a lot like the PMDG 777. RSR from PMDG has apparently said the Captain was a customer of PMDG.

That pic is from 2012 pre PMDG T7. Looks like FS9 PSS 777

[mganz121 159]

Political motivation story breaking now. Laptops seized earlier this week.

 

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

[KSATRoadWarrior 91]

Facts about the various communications features.

What It Means That the Plane Apparently Kept Flying: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/todays-malaysia-airlines-370-news-what-it-means-that-the-plane-apparently-kept-flying/284414/

[HawkDsl 50]

 

 

The primary concern I had for the flight sim community was IF the plane was hijacked by someone who acquired knowledge from a commercially produced add-on.

 

My concern is that some one in authority would be concerned by such things.. like Harry Potter books and movies turning people into devil worshipers, or First Person Shooters turning us into mad killers, or Grand Theft Auto making us drive crazy and slapping hoes, or playing Judas Priest records backwards makes you kill yourself., or, or,  or...   The Horse Manure meter wont even go that high for such non-sense.

 

When did knowledge of something become prelude to mayhem?  Demented people who are out to do bad things will always find a way to do so. Suppressing knowledge from the poor will in no way keep them from burning down his Lordships  manor, or that they will even do so

[Robert McDonald 167]

I don't think that there will be a ban on flight simulation games.  The truth is that a person can learn to fly any number of ways, in the RW as much as the PC world.  Level D sims and such are out there for those who want to pay the money to fly them.  And lesser full-on sims as well, but not full-motion.

 

Truth is, if a person wants to do wrong, it's pretty hard to prevent it.  You can try, you can gather intelligence, network, and so on, but if the individual is nutso, he or she can present problems, and not just with aircraft piracy.

 

Defending a nation, or even just a simple city or town is no can of corn these days. My hat is off to those men and women who bust their tails on a daily basis so that we can live our lives in peace and safety.  Our fine military, and our great law enforcement teams on the civilian side.  Great job to one and all, and sincere thanks and appreciation!

[Bob Scott 7,719]

A feature like that would defeat the purpose of the off switch on the transponder, if the transponder needs to be turned off, then it should be, not turned to some semi-off, but still squaking state. If the pilot needs to isolate the system, be it because it's overheated, or is transmitting bad info (which causes a whole host of problems for nearby aircraft), then it needs to be isolated, not partially isolated. That is why there is an off switch. It's worked perfectly fine for years, changing it I feel will only give rise to more issues.

 

Regards,

Ró.

 

Well, I have to think the times they are a changin'...what "worked perfectly fine for years" may not be enough in the post 9/11 (and post MH370) age, where a large airliner is, in its own right, a proven weapon of mass destruction.

 

There are already systems on a jet that the pilot can't disable or de-power...the ELT, the FADECs, and the survival electronics in the life raft kits come immediately to mind.  And as far as powering down the transponder, something as simple as a holding capacitor in the power supply could keep the transponder powered and operating for at least long enough to get off a momentary "my crew turned me off" squawk when it's depowered inflight, which is clearly an abnormal mode that could be of some significance, and which deserves having some attention called to it.  If it's incident to another problem, then one would presume the crew is talking to ATC, who could easily enough disregard the (temporary) warning squawk, but I think the day has come and the technology has advanced to where flagging nonstandard crew actions to authorities on the ground as they happen might be warranted.  Of course then the old pilot trick of turning off the mode C squawk when he realizes he's about to bust an altitude won't work anymore. :-)

 

Cheers

[KevinAu 441]

'Twould be interesting to know if the flight deck ordered any extra fuel prior to the flight plan departure for Beijing.

january

Been wondering what the fuel load was too. Roughly calculating it out, they should have 5 hours enroute, then probably about 1 hour required reserve, then perhaps an alternate, say .5 hours, then they could have also had holding contingency, say .4 hours and extra of another .4 hours. All told by slightly educated guestimate, they could have had 7.3 hours, more or less, of gas at normal cruising speed on board without having to do anything unusual.

[OmniAtlas 93]

Did pilot hijack MH370 as political protest against Anwar’s latest jail term?

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/did-pilot-hijack-mh370-as-political-protest-against-anwars-latest-jail-term

 

The British tabloid earlier today also reported that Zaharie was an "obsessive supporter" of Anwar and added that police sources have confirmed the pilot of being a "vocal political activist" and fear that the court's decision to convict the opposition leader "have left him profoundly upset".

This was confirmed by Zaharie's colleagues, the Daily Mail reported.

Yesterday, police searched Zaharie's home in Shah Alam, where he had installed a home-made flight simulator after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that MH370 was "deliberately" steered off course by someone on the plane after its communication system was switched off.

The tabloid also reported that police have examined two laptops that were removed from Zaharie's house earlier last week.

However, police failed to locate Zaharie's personal computer, which may be in the cockpit with him.

 

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Since I do not have the PMDG 777 -- does it keep a log file of all your completed/trialed flights? Or does FSX/P3D do this?

[CrewF16 26]

It just came across the news that speculation is leaning towards the pilots because they found an elaborate simulator!!!!

 

Straws and sadness for the family.