Super Happy Unfun Thread!

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by That Guy

they turned their avionics off, whoever had ground radar coverage wasn't immediately forthcoming.

planes have an underwater beacon that sends out a low frequency signal (cause water) once it goes below sea level. battery lasts 20-30 days, depending on how good they are at replacing the batteries, and only works up to 20,000 feet. can only be detected a few miles away (cause water).

gps is a one way signal, in order to send a flare, it'd have to do it over a radio or radio-enabled device (iff mode s, etc), which again, they turned off.

also if they were that far out into the ocean, HF radio is they only thing that'd have enough range, which generally are only used in heavy military aircraft, as the system requires long wire antennas and 90 pounds of equipment.

vhf/uhf radios caps at about 200-300 miles, and i don't think most commercial airlines are installing satcom systems.

Ok, and I am not sure what a "simple" solution is, and I doubt we find one here.
Are you saying that GPS "flare" couldn't have a check and override to turn on a simple GPS system. It seems like it could be an isolated android device (ie cellphone/tablet) that wakes / connects when main power turns off, not something tied into to the avionics cluster.