Thanks Moggy, powerful sentiment. Could have been written yesterday not 25 years ago.

I might dig out my old video tape of A Foreign Field (Alec Guiness and Leo McKern) over the weekend. Marvellous poignant old film.

Or perhaps some Keith Douglas poetry, who was, of course, killed in Normandy.

Wow that throws a new spanner in the works unless this is a sign on a mid-air collision with 2 debris fields?
Either way it’ll give conspiracy nuts something to feed on.

The debris they’ve recovered include buoys, a wooden pallet and other ship debris. Perhaps AF447 collided with a container ship in mid air?

back to square one it seems.

Quite. With no wreckage yet and little substantial since the ACARS signal, there is little to feed the media’s desire to write something fresh, so I would expect to see some more fanciful reporting coming out.

However, one of the better written (less sensational) ones is from the New York Times which notes a warning to Airbus operators to follow procedures if inconsistencies in speed readouts are seen:
New York Times: Clues Point to Speed Issues in Air France Crash

Looking at what is being SUSPECTED…

Could this have been a similar accident to that of Southern 242 in 1977?

No. 242 was between 14,000 and 17,000 feet when it entered a thunderstorm and encountered “a massive amount of water and hail”. AF447 was at 35,000 feet.

I posted it before but see:
http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447/
where hail is discussed as being not being very likely at that level in that type of storm.

That didn’t take me long and wouldn’t have taken you long to work out either

And the ACARS system was powered when it sent the maintenance messages giving the evidence of faults developing.

But surely that’s the point? None of you are experts! I fail to see how this kind of discussion on what happened is useful to anyone other than for the entertainment of those taking part.

I share your disquiet Kev. You might be more comfortable reading the thread over of Pprune. There are a number of Airbus drivers over there discussing what might have happened, discussing risks and how they can be reduced. In their case, that is a professional safety discussion which might help us all next time we’re on one of their flights

When something terrible happens people need to talk. Discussing how to be safer or the chance to share the latest information (or indeed speculation) from official sources such as Air France are two reasons for having such threads. I can do without uninformed speculation.

Lifting 5701Lb (inclusive of two crew and fuel) with only 360HP at 50% scale would seem to suggest 600HP will be suitable for 60% (on a crude equivalence of size between the two types), and composites might provide more strength at a lower weight than timber?, (although the link above suggests the S-31 had a metal monoque fuselage rather than being all wood?)

I wonder if drawings of the S31 survive from Shorts somewhere?, maybe someone can do a 60% Stirling as well?

The S.31 was all wooden and designed to test the aerodynamics of the Stirling at half scale. Shorts had become somewhat adept at trialing big aircraft with half scale models, particularly using a Short Scion fitted with a half scale flying boat hull to test hydrodynamics as well, getting more accurate results than with tank test models.

I’ll leave it to the aerodynamisists to explain how to scale an aircraft down to still give the same aerodynamic performance. The Pobjoys on the S.31 were initially 90hp and later 115hp (Niagara IVs).

I very much doubt any drawings survive but those Rotec radials would be an ideal start point for a recreation. Good luck with the Halifax.

I had similar experiences with Plusnet/Force9 and moved on.

You might want to look into O2. If they have “unbundled” your local phone exchange and you’re in their network then you get a good deal from them. And if you are already an O2 customer, then you get an even better deal, or you could use it as an excuse to get an iPhone. 😉

Have a look at: http://broadband.o2.co.uk/home/index.jsp

We can help with that:

First flight from a moving ship (HMS Hibernia) of the Royal Navy. Lt C R Samson on 2 May 1912 in a Short S.38 biplane, Naval Biplane number 2. Not a float plane, the items under the wings are flotation bags to enable the aircraft to land at sea in an emergency only.

Early success was the Cuxhaven raid on Christmas Day 1914. 119 was a Short Type 81 Folder which took part in the raid and then below is a rather fanciful artists impression of the events.

And the Short Type 184 – the first RNAS aircraft to drop a torpedo, and the first in the world to attack an enemy ship with an air dropped torpedo: