US navy to move key equipment-a super-sensitive hydrophone listening device-to Australia

[applegrove]

(Tweet)

"First on CNN: US navy to move key equipment-a super-sensitive hydrophone listening device-to Australia to use if debris from #MH370 is found"

[Kaleva]

1. I was wondering if the Navy was going to bring in such equipment.

[applegrove]

2. Yup. Hopefully it can be transported there by airplane. So as little time as possible

is lost. That signal in the black box gets weaker and weaker as the days pass and the battery runs down.

[Boom Sound 416]

3. That would depend on battery chemistry, no?

Lithium ion batts will give full power wattage until the very end.

[applegrove]

5. I heard some pundit on CNN says the as the battery fades so does the strength of the click or ping.

Mind you it was a pundit that said it.

[Boom Sound 416]

6. I heard that too. It's nonsense.

I'm no expert, but I know a few things.

1. It's very unlikely that a 777 box would have nickel cadmium or nickel metal hydride batteries, which do lose wattage as life decreases.

2. That ping can be heard a long, long way off. So far it's probably classified. Sound travels much better in water then through air.

3. The ping is nothing compared to 600,000 pounds hitting an ocean surface at better than 300 mph.

4. If it blew up in the air. The debris field would be dozens of miles in diameter.

[Boom Sound 416]

4. This is so silly.

It's the end around all the classified sonar gear the US, UK, Chinese and Russians have littered around the globe.

If that plane hit the water. A lot of people heard it. But no one can talk about it. So we get stories like this.

[Kaleva]

7. To the best of my knowledge, the ASW listening systems are not world wide.

They are placed at strategic locations giving the best chance to detect passing submarines.

[Boom Sound 416]

8. Sure, but they can hear thousands of miles.

And what of the subs themselves.

I would bet the Chinese alone have a half dozen in the Indian Ocean.

[Kaleva]

9. IUSS hasn't been operating at full capability since the end of the Cold War

[Boom Sound 416]

10. Not to be overtly cynical,

But I'm one of those folks who believe the Cold War never ended precisely because it never ended for either navy.

Boomers don't fight terrorism.

On edit: I can't for one minute believe that either country curtailed any sort of detection just because Russians held elections.

[JI7]

11. i thought you left ?

[Boom Sound 416]

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