Quote:
Originally Posted by DWB
If it were just a normal day, sure. But given the situation, I can't imagine it would be too difficult to reposition a few satellites. It has already been confirmed that US satellites already blanket that area of the world, even in the ocean. Even take the US out of it, other nations do the same thing.
However, I'm not saying they are in the bottom of the ocean giving out GPS pings on an iPhone. What I said was, the technology should be there to find them and it amazes me that they can not be found, yet they can find anyone else when they want to, in the desert, on a boat, in a hole in the ground, or even on a mountain.
All things considered, it's a bit mind boggling that between the US, China, Australia and all the private companies out there with insane tech on their hands, that no one can find this plane, and not a single piece of debris has been found.
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It is mind-bloggling, but only when something like this happens. Prior to this happening, everything thought "hey, we're cool" when it comes to air traffic control and tracking.
It also is true that we had the technology more than 10 years ago to prevent this mystery, via the beauty of GPS, which of course is something that millions of people now have in their pockets with their phones.
The fact is, if the air traffic control system was not still heavily dependent on
radar, which is a "
PRE-WWII technology, then this search would not be happening today; we'd be doing recovery by now. But it is still a radar based system.
But converting to "next gen" air traffic control is expensive, and so far, there hasn't been the political will to get it done, anywhere. That's because not only does the government have to spend a shit ton of billions of dollars to build and implement, it also has to force the airlines and other commercial aviation 'constituencies' like airports to likewise spend a shit ton of billions. It's a bitter pill to swallow, so naturally, no one has yet swallowed it, in whole.
http://www.faa.gov/nextgen/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Ge...rtation_System