Various news reporting
Not good. AirAsia confirmed the grim news at 2.48pm in a statement, claiming flight QZ8501 a relatively new Airbus A320, the mainstay of the airlines fleet was missing. At the present time we unfortunately have no further information regard the status of the passengers and crew members on board, but we will keep all parties informed as more information becomes available.
Not good at all. Severe weather en route. Aircraft requested a deviation. Not clear whether the deviation was approved prior to losing contact. Let's hope they get a result on this one... Thoughts with those on board and their families.
Channel 9 news: "The Airbus A320 is one of the most common airliners in Australia, as used by both Tiger Airways and Virgin Australia..." Got to love the Australian media.
Oh. My. God. Will forward it immediately to my A320 Captain friend. Seriously, the standard of journalism these days is so bad it is quite disturbing.
Actually that pic should be in the Aussie aircraft thread. Anyone who can guess the three aircraft wins a prize. hint: none of them is an A320...
40 bodies....so far.. Would that translate to a'flat' landing,or nose down,situation. For those among us,in the more knowledgeable area?
Let me stress that I am only giving my opinion and frankly I have no idea what happened. But, if the aircraft is more or less intact in a small area that tends to discount the "broke up in mid-air" situation as that would leave debris scattered along a fairly lengthy path. I'm beginning to think this has AF447 written all over it. Severe turbulence / severe icing encounter. Pilots not reacting correctly, etc. Flat spin? It was only on Christmas Day I was discussing with my A320 captain friend the lack of logic in the Airbus not having each side stick and the power levers moving whenever a change is commanded. I knew about the side stick thing, but was amazed to hear that even the auto-throttles don't physically move when the power is changed. Bizarre in my view, and certainly different to the Boeing logic where everything moves so that you can instantly see what the other pilot and/or the computers are doing.
Disclaimer that I tried to figure this out yesterday when I first saw the pic, but A380 and 777 (dash-something, I'm not a Boeingologist) for sure. The head on one I initially thought was an A350 actually, due to the racoon eyes the flight test aircraft have had. But then I changed my mind and I reckon it is a 787. They look pretty much exactly like that from the front, in my brief image searching. But hey, at least they got one Airbus in there, even if it has twice as many decks and engines.
You're right about the A380 and the 777 (it's a -300 FWIW). But I'm buggered if I know what the head on thing is. To my eyes even the engines look different from one side to the other. Oh, and they ****ed up the length too (it's a bit over 123ft). Minor detail I know, but still... The standard of journalism these days is embarrassingly poor.
Interesting that the supposedly mostly intact airframe was found not far away from the point where contact was lost - seems to suggest things went pretty bad pretty fast Do the A320 sticks actually have the hardware ability to move on their own? I read somewhere today that they get tougher to pull back on as you approach a stall, but (I don't know if that's reliable info, and) that isn't the same as being able to accurately move on their own if the software was there to make it happen. Definitely agree that it's weird you get no feedback about the other stick's movements though - most of the Boeing/Airbus differences seem to come down to a different-but-not-necessarily-better-or-worse design philosophy, but since the AF447 report came out I've always wondered what the logic was with the lack of (simulated) connection between them. Not being a pilot I have no idea - is there any positive aspect to that decision?
This was the image that convinced me it was a 787: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7153/6573860841_c573096ee6_z.jpg The shape of the cockpit windows particularly - the 787s are different than anything else I'm aware of, but those pics look the same I think. I'm hopeful that one day a news outlet will use a truly crazy photo for a generic "airliner" placeholder - a 747 with a ferry engine or a GE90 attached during flight testing or something Until then I'll just have to satisfy myself with picking nits during the Amazing Race about how they took off in an A330 and landed in a 777 etc etc.
I'm reluctant to go beyond the scope of my knowledge. But I understand that as AF447 showed us, in an Airbus one pilot can be doing one thing and the other something completely different, and the computer then decides what to do. It kind of "averages" the inputs. As an old fashioned kind of guy, I find that bizarre. And to learn that the same is true of the auto-throttles?! **** me, that is weird. But my mate assures me that once you get used to it, it seems perfectly reasonable. I'm going to go out on a huge and fragile limb here and say that I think that logic will soon be "changed".