Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Obviously the accuracy of the handshake rings is of critical importance to the forensics related to the terminal location of MH370. My initial ring calculations (done a long time ago) were relatively "casual". The results were placed in a table which I have continued to use since. While these results have had no important bearing on modeling candidate flight paths, they would become important relative to directing search efforts or for use in comparisons with other data. One such comparison is the radar data obtained from Butterworth RMAFB. Of particular interest is the 18:25:27 ring which is very close in time to the last radar contact at 18:22. The 18:25:27 ring is quantified below.
Note: This value is correct only for analytics relatively close to the equator where the WGS84 earth radius is very close to 6378.
My ancient 18:25:27 calculation of 3630 is clearly astray by almost 100km. Not very useful for anything but flight path feasibility calculations. An earlier post made here relative to radar implications is obviously flawed, and will be revisited.
Figure 1 - GES / Satellite / Aircraft Geometry
(view is orthogonal to a plane containing R_s and (R_e +H))
Note: This value is correct only for analytics relatively close to the equator where the WGS84 earth radius is very close to 6378.
My ancient 18:25:27 calculation of 3630 is clearly astray by almost 100km. Not very useful for anything but flight path feasibility calculations. An earlier post made here relative to radar implications is obviously flawed, and will be revisited.
